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withered-blossoms · 5 months

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(Withered-Blossoms) SAGAU Scheming Creator! Reader Imposter AU Part 5

A/N: First and foremost, this AU is by @sena-shi

I do not own this series, nor the idea.

Secondly, I absolutely love this series, it is amazingly written and I would highly recommend checking it out to those who haven't. Third, after reading part 4, I suddenly had a tiny bit of inspiration and I wanted to try writing my version of part 5 of it (this will not affect the original author in writing part 5 of the series, worry not).

Edit: The original author has given me her consent to write my version of this series, admittedly I should have dm'ed her beforehand, and I will never make this mistake again.

Also this is not proofread, so apologies for some typos/spelling mistakes. The word count is 3878 words or so Google Docs says.

Anyways, enjoy :DDDD

꧁༺Main Page | Angst Masterlist | Fluff Masterlist༻꧂

If every year of not being graced with your divine presence acts as a tiny blade that cuts a fibre of the impossibly thin thread known as Zhongli's sanity, then seeing you allowing these.....unworthy, mortal commoners to bask in the holy light you radiate would be the pair of scissors that snips the thread in half.

How dare they, when those foolish mortals are unable and consequently have not worshipped you for thousands of years, flit around you like the pesky flies they were? How dare they, not having devoted their entire being, their entire life, their existence's purpose to you, drink up your attention so hungrily? How dare they take the place that belonged, rightfully so, to him and only him when what they have done for you are nothing but specks of dust compared to the glorious acts he carried out in your name?

So why were you choosing to stay with them? When they have done nothing worthy of your grace? Why were you looking at him with a gaze that carried the heavy disappointment and disapproval that you never voiced? Zhongli does not understand, and neither do the adepti now standing beside him in a neat, uniform line, waiting for their archon's commands.

You find it amusing though. One would think that for someone who has lived for so long like Zhongli, he would be an expert at hiding his emotions and maintaining that mask of cool, indifferent politeness that he took pride in. And yet look at him now, losing that ability and reverting back to a child who knows not about keeping emotions from twisting their features into an ugly snarl.

Ganyu, on the other hand, looked pale and regretful. Under normal circumstances, should such a look appear on a face as pretty as Ganyu's, anyone else would have gone soft and thrown in the towel. But yet that sight filled your heart with this twisted sort of satisfaction. The desire for them to beg and grovel at your feet for forgiveness was thinly veiled behind a mask of betrayal and shock, and you were starting to find it hard not to let your eyes crinkle from the smirk threatening to curve your lips.

Not now, you reminded yourself, it's not the time for your facade to shatter.

And Xiao, your sweet, sweet child, who also happens to be the one responsible for the wound scabbed over on your leg. He, who was so persistent on making sure you were unable to escape, could not even look at your eyes now, amber orbs choosing to lock onto their targets instead. He couldn't bring himself to check your form, not when the chance of your bloody bandages catching his attention was so great.

After all, Rex Lapis needs his finely-honed weapon to carry out his commands now, and he couldn't break down in front of his divine creator. He's already shown such a horrifying part of him to you, one that slaughtered and knew nothing else, he would really go insane if you started fearing his more unsightly sides.

You would have applauded Morax and his little clique for the entertaining display of emotions had the boat not started to rock even more. It truly was a shame that they did not take up Sichuan Opera face-changing; they would have done so well even without the masks.

Meanwhile, Beidou was busy commanding the crew and making preparations for a possible tsunami, and Kazuha was ready to scoop you into his arms and bring you under deck. You, however, were not willing to miss this act, and thus stopped him by placing a hand over his. Temporarily ignoring how he froze up and blushed, you turned to the defenders of Liyue.

You could tell that the only reason why Zhongli kept up the intensity of the earthquake was because Xiao or the Cloud Retainer would immediately pluck you out of the ship before it was swallowed by the massive waves, but would you really just let yourself be taken to Liyue like this? Before even seeing the famed Inazuma? Of course not, after all you still had to see how Raiden Shogun, the one you personally raised alongside Zhongli, would react after seeing your face.

Choosing to let the winds carry your seemingly heartbroken words to their ears, you muttered, "Are you.....here to capture me? Is Liyue really unable to tolerate my existence?" And oh how much delight their flinches brought, especially the one coming from the ever-composed Geo Archon. Upon hearing your words, the group dropped to their knees, the seabed stilling as apologies and pleads spilled from their lips.

Beidou and her crew on the other hand though, you really got to give it to them. As if sensing your intentions to leave quickly, they took the chance to sail away as quickly as possible, with the winds guiding the ship. And of course, you were not going to let their efforts go to waste, choosing to keep the crazed adepti at bay with your sorrowful words.

"I've already given you my word to stay out of your sight, Morax. I apologise for breaking my promise to you, and if Liyue wishes so, I will disappear here and now. However, if you are still willing to listen to me, then I wish not for any harm to befall on these kind souls." You sighed, motioning to the Alcor's crew.

You weren't dumb; you could practically see the sparks forming from their clashing gazes. Beidou and Kazuha's were filled with hatred— disdain, even— and the adepti's a beautiful mix of hesitation and jealousy. What a wonderful sight it was, seeing the high and mighty adepti almost grovelling at your feet, and watching them struggle internally between their twisted desires and your commands.

The quirk of your lips was getting harder and harder to hide even behind your veil, and you had to turn your head before you burst out laughing at their foolish attempt at redemption.

But even the turn of your head was planned, not that they needed to know anyways. You know their rotten brains will just automatically decipher this action as a small try to hide your disappointment. Adding the facts that Zhongli had made you cry and Xiao had wounded you personally into the equation, the tides would no doubt turn to your favour.

Seeing how Zhongli's grip on his weapon tightened then loosened, you knew you had won the bet. He could only keep his head down low and motion for the adepti to retreat while stilling the earth, though his burning gaze stayed on your form until The Alcor all but disappeared into the horizon. He simply couldn't risk you leaving Teyvat for good, not when he finally had you in his grasp, and so he will wait patiently for the right time, just as he had for the past thousands of years.

"It is time for our divine grace to take back their throne." He muttered, the adepti bowing when they realised what his words entailed. He knew they would not run their mouth in front of the others; this was a matter only for the adepti to know. Not long after, Zhongli was left alone, the others returning to their posts and duties. He watched as the Alcor gradually disappeared from his sights, vowing that he would bring you back no matter what.

And with that grand finale, you finally left Liyue.

The journey to Inazuma was relatively pleasant, save for the terrifying thunderstorms at the lower-half of the trip. But eventually the ship docked, and you saw that familiar teleport waypoint where you once met the capable and friendly housekeeper named Thoma, except that he was nowhere to be seen this time. Oh well, it does not matter, he is probably at the Kamisato estate, waiting for his Lord's commands as usual. What was more important was playing your part as the kind and benevolent creator, and so you turned to the crew and smiled sweetly, thanking them for getting you to Inazuma safely with as much sincerity as you could muster to make it more convincing.

Travelling along the streets, without a friendly local guide this time, you could not help but subtly glance around. From the game, you always knew how the locals here treated foreigners, but experiencing it yourself turned that knowledge into the understatement of the year. It wasn't just overcharging you to a ridiculous degree; there were also the stares that never seemed to leave your figure and the whispers that revolved around you as if you were the eye of a tornado.

But it matters not. As long as they don't stop you from "vacationing" in this gorgeous nation, then you won't pay any mind to their actions.

However, this time the plot happened faster. You had no idea just how The Shogun managed to grasp the news of a fake creator being present when she was so....closed-off from the world, but clearly she had some amazing news sources. The streets were filled with even more patrolling officers than you recalled, and even the people on the streets had taken to scattering when the Doushin came around.

Well, this was clearly not a good time to be a foreigner huh? Because a Doushin was already heading your way, and in a condescending tone had asked for your identity, or any documents related to it. You did not have any, though this time even Kazuha could not save you with his smooth-talking, which in fact seemed to annoy the officer more.

Instead, the officer reached out to remove your veil, but Kazuha wasn't going to let him. Half because he knew you were going to get taken away, and the other half was due to the slight possessivenes swirling in his chest. Why should he have to let other people be graced by your beauty and light?

Although shielding you from the guard did seem to wear his patience thinner than the thread that made up Zhongli's sanity.

Sensing Kazuha's worry when the officer roughly grabbed your arm to take you away, you slyly patted the back of his hand and shook your head, putting on a comforting smile and whispering for him to go back to the Crux.

Despite his initial hesitation, you knew he'd listen to you anyways. After all, he couldn't fight the Doushin here and risk getting his kind, caring and benevolent creator injured or even exposed here could he?

Hence he retreated, hungrily drinking up your sweet smile as you were dragged away. He feared that this might be the last time he'll ever see of you and so he did his best to engrave the soft and beautiful curve of your lips into his memory as he went back to find Beidou.

You, on the other hand, weren't too worried. After making sure you had fooled Kazuha with a convincing smile, you opted to follow the guard instead. He was essentially your one-way ticket to the Raiden, so why not? Even though you would have to be thrown into a prison cell, you supposed that it wouldn't be the worst thing on Earth.

In the end, you will be the one seeing their arrogance and triumph morph into an amusing combination of regret and desperation anyways, and you certainly weren't in a rush to speed up the process.

".....Is this the order of The Shogun?" You asked, knowing that he most likely weren't going to give you an answer, but you still have to keep up the role, which was as fake as they had deemed your identity to be. So, you let out a seemingly self-mocking chuckle.

"First Mondstadt, then Liyue, and now Inazuma. It would seem that I am truly not wanted by my children. But at least they look happy and content. After all, even baby birds leave their nests one day...."

Muttering to yourself, you didn't miss the slight flinch from the officer, though it only earned you his panic, hidden behind a harsh shove into your cell once he's done reporting to his higher-ups.

"Do not act like you're the real creator, Their Grace may be forgiving and benevolent, but we certainly will not be merciful."

He snorted and walked off. Good lord, you have never seen anyone as arrogant as that. And of course you weren't complaining, it just makes their begging afterwards more.....satisfying, wouldn't you agree?

That doesn't make your time in the cell any more pleasant though, seeing how they saved the worst one for you.

You didn't have to wait long though, since it only took an hour or two before Kujou Sara was standing before you, peering down at your curled up form as if you were the most repulsive being she's ever laid her eyes on.

Instead, she settled for ordering the guards to free you from confinement and had them escort you while she lead the way to the Shogun's residence. Sara spoke not a word to you as usual, and you busied yourself with looking around subtly while keeping your head low to mask your lack of fear. The scenery was more beautiful than what you had seen in game; the colours were more vivid, and even the lavender melon that hadn't looked appetising were practically tempting you to take a bite out of their orchid bodies. Unfortunately, you didn't get to take in the beautiful view a little longer, for they had already brought you into the Tenshukaku.

It would seem that Raiden is eager to meet you, seeing how swiftly her subordinates dragged you to the Tenshukaku. Upon entering the room, your eyes landed on the puppet sitting serenly on her throne, eyes closed and meditating. Hah, what a nice facade to disguise the anger practically radiating off of her.

You weren't scared though. After all, even dogs don't bite the hand that feeds them, and you could easily take back everything you've ever graced them with.

Thus, 'long time no see, my strongest battery.' was your first thought, though you could not let that spill past your lips. Hence, you let out a small but sweet smile and mumbled in the sweetest voice you could let flow from your vocal chords.

"How have you been, Ei?"

The archon in question slowly opened her eyes, elegant and refined as always. Although, from the fury burning in her purple irises alone, you could already tell that she wanted your existence to cease, and that if it weren't for the fact that the creator had asked to bring you back alive, you feared she may have slashed you with her elemental burst right here and now.

You could sense how the Doushin and Sara froze upon hearing you address their archon by her real name. However, before Sara could reprimand you, a look from Raiden sent them bowing and leaving the room. And now, it was just you and her.

You were just wondering why she demanded to meet you alone when a thought popped up in your brain — could it be that because she couldn't execute you personally without the other archons present, she wishes to hurt you in a non-lethal way instead? Seeing the confirmation in the lilac eyes you once found beautiful, you almost let out a snort. My my, who knew that the almighty Raiden Ei was actually such a sadist?

You refused to let her hurt you though. How dare they hurt the actual divine being who had given them life and created this beautiful world for them to live in for a mere phony? How dare they give you scars just because they were too ignorant to see who's the real deal?

With that in mind, you raised your eyes to meet hers, yours ever so subtly showing the galaxies they hold, and hers slowly filling with slight confusion when she noticed the depth of your orbs. It did not hinder her from holding her precious sword to your neck though, so you cut her off before she could speak.

"You mentioned that when we meet, you wished for us to enjoy some tricolour dango together along with the finest tea you have. It is such a shame that we had to meet like this." You smiled, keeping your gaze and voice level as you took in every change in her expression from suspect, to shock, to disbelief and finally distrust.

"....I do not know how you dug up that information. It matters not, for that only applies to their Grace. You are but an imposter who is undeserving and yet seeks to take over the throne, and I shall not be deceived so easily. Since their Grace is too kind to the likes of you, I will take it upon myself as their loyal devotee to punish you for your atrocious attempt."

Before she could lift her blade, you grabbed it with a hand. You thanked the high heavens that it was as sharp as you hoped it to be, since you did not have to dig the blade too deeply into your skin for your blood to show. You weren't willing to leave scars because of their foolishness after all, and God knows that those maniacs would be more delighted knowing that they had marked you in some way, albeit under less ideal circumstances.

The two of you watched as the ichor slid down your arm before one, two, three drops of it splattered onto the pristine white clothing you had. It shimmered an ethereal gold before being absorbed, and Raiden had finally gone still for once. You could almost hear the non-existent gears turning in the puppet's head, where a brain was supposed to be, and before you could react, she had gently removed your injured hand from her blade and tossed the sword aside.

Kneeling before you, she fretted over your injury while keeping her head low as Zhongli and the adepti had, desperately trying to heal you. Frantic apologies flowed from her lips like a river, and she panicked slightly more when she noticed that you were still bleeding. She was selfish, not wanting others to know about your existence, but your well-being and health eventually won the mental debate taking place in the puppet's head.

"Your grace, I did not realise it was you. My sincerest apologies for being ignorant, and I am aware of how unworthy I am to touch you but I beg of you, do let me heal your injuries before you decide to take your anger out on me." Having said that, she called for Sara to bring a medical kit, and the lady swiftly came in worth one in her hand. She showed neither shock nor regret as she helped the Shogun patch up your hand, though you supposed that it was only normal considering the number of years she's had in learning how to keep her emotions from showing on her face.

Huh, even a short-lived mortal is more capable than long-lived archons in this aspect.

You were tempted to stay and see how Ei and Inazuma would react and repent for their sins, yet the beginnings of an earthquake warned you to leave quickly. Your time in the Tenshukaku was almost up, so you quickly grabbed a brush and paper and left a note for a certain angy dragon. Or maybe it was an angy Teyvat, you didn't know. Just in case it was the former though, you could only hope that a note would prevent the people of this gorgeous nation from being decimated.

'Morax, I wish not for the citizens of Inazuma to face your wrath. With that, I hope you spare them from death and suffering alike.'

The note was short and sweet, as you had liked. There was nothing else to say to him anyways, so you rolled up the paper and turned to Ei, placing it into her hands.

"If you wish for your people and nation to live on, pass this to Morax if he arrives. Do not fight, your people should take priority. I'm terribly sorry for ruining your eternity, but it seems that you are favoured by luck itself, for my time is up." You lifted the corners of your lips into a gentle curve as you patted her hand.

You really were too kind, so benevolent and so bright that Ei could not believe her eyes nor ears. Her people watched and talked about you behind your back, dragged and tossed you into the filthiest cell they had, and she herself had injured you personally. She wanted to make it up to you, to proceed and lavish you in the best luxuries Inazuma, no, Teyvat could provide. She did not want you to be absent from her side, so why was it that even though you were in her hold now, it seemed like you would disappear any second?

What did she have to do to make you stay? Did you want her heart? Her head? Or should she injure her hand the way she had injured you? Tell her, what did you want from the Raiden Shogun? She would give you everything and anything, from her eternity to the stars in the sky. So why? Why did you still want to leave? Why not stay with her for eternity?

Seeing the crazed looks in those purple orbs, you removed yourself from her tightening grasp and avoided her attempts to hold onto you to ensure your stay. You still had to visit either Sumeru or Watatsumi Island anyways, and being held in captivity was not a price you were willing to pay. You knew that she could and would easily pull you into her consciousness, and you sincerely did not want to live your life there.

Reminding yourself that, your eyelids fluttered shut and you let the wisps of power engulfing you take you away, finding yourself in front of the Alcor again. Technically speaking, you also did owe the crew an explanation for your sudden disappearance and some reassurance, the sudden hug from Kazuha only proving you right. Even though you weren't close to him or Beidou, you still felt a little guilty when you realised that he was shaking.

To make it up to him, you patted his back and offered Beidou to join in on the hug, which she appeared to accept begrudgingly but you knew better, especially from the way her shoulders sagged in relief. Once they had both calmed their nerves, you ushered them back to work. Despite them questioning your next destination, you knew it would be impractical for them to sail to the other nations with you, and teleport waypoints were a godsend. You told the two that, and as disappointed as they were to not be able to accompany you, they still respected your wishes unlike a certain duo, possibly trio, which you greatly appreciated.

Hence,for the first time since arriving in Teyvat, you gave your first genuine smile, making Kazuha swoon internally and Beidou turn away in order to hide her burning cheeks. You were very well aware that the archons could possibly see this, though you weren't worried. In spite of the lightning flashing in the background and the rumble of the earth, you knew that they wish not to end up in your bad books just for a few mortals. Having confirmed the safety of the people who had helped you, you could finally retreat to your room on the ship and decide your next destination.

Now, where should you grace with your presence next?

316 notes · View notes

desognthinking · 20 days

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the pier. 9.3k. (or, more from the haunted house designers au.)

ava & (her new) co. have one and a half years to construct three groundbreaking, mindblowing, prestige haunted houses around the country, all in time for halloween. this is scouting/teambuilding trip numero uno. it's not going well so far.

---

Ava sees her at the end of the pier, a dark figure in the already-dark; a smudge of barely-moving ink on the line between wind and water. Barely, indeed – wavering less than the yearning swallow and swoop of the waves interrupted by pillars of wood, and, further back, stone.

At night, after everything’s shut, this place is quiet until the fishermen get out in the early morning. In the off-season, even more so. Rain slings down frequently, and it’s not warm enough for balmy walks by the rocks. Not many come out, if any. Ava’s one.

She calls out as she walks down the planks, only thinking belatedly that perhaps she might not want to be disturbed. Out here behind the motel, unmoving under the preliminary drizzle of rain, embraced and cocooned by temperamentally warping air. It is, after all, that tremulous transitory phase between spring and summer that borrows its faces from both, and switches its masks sharply in the slit-time of blinks.

Bian lian, Beatrice had murmured, not even looking up from her laptop. Face-changing, literally, in Sichuan opera. A flick of a wrist, a deft flourish, and an elaborate face falls and reforms in the fraction of a second.

This was in the motel’s breakfast room, the one with the dubiously cleaned burgundy felt chairs where they served a modest continental breakfast. Mostly cleared out after said breakfast, the air was stained with lingering cigarette smoke from the lounge next door, and the smell of cheap canned ham. The plastic display vases on each table had been stowed away, and in their meager place someone – probably Beatrice – had stuck a crinkly, disposable plastic bottle containing a bunch of freshly picked yellow flowers.

It was not an especially private space, what with the pale pink bellies sunning themselves right outside the glass panels, but it wasn’t as if the conversation had progressed to anything especially private. Legally speaking. Or productive, for that matter.

For the fast forty-five minutes Ava and Lilith had been busy prodding, pacing, and sending small metaphorical pockets of firework powder across the room to burst and splatter all over each others’ skin. Skating them like over wet ice so they would knock against each others’ ankles and bruise upon detonation. Camila, who’d been trying, at least, to keep the situation under control, had gone to pick out some maps and free guides, leaving them simmering in the quickly-warming confines of the space.

A lot of trivial inconsequential things, and a lot of hard, serrated words. First it was an argument of how transformative a depiction of folklore ought to be, theoretically, to balance originality and faithfulness. Then they’d snapped at each other over their personal choices of A24 horror, and Ava’s awfully ignorant lack of exposure to some obscure ‘60s Romanian indie production that Lilith really liked.

And in the corner Beatrice was curled up into a chair, laptop sitting on the flat plane formed by the side of her folded knees.

She was strangely quiet, considering the poorly-veiled spats being undertaken just a couple feet away. By Beatrice Standards, however, this was possibly normal, as Ava was learning. When, riled up, she’d gone around to get a glass of water from the lightly stained dispenser, she’d found her watching an unlisted YouTube video from a couple years ago featuring an in-house presentation Ava had given at Disney. It was about scary rides and storytelling; translating horror into immersive park experiences. A singular earbud was stuffed into her left ear.

She didn’t make any attempt to minimize or pause the video as Ava went by.

“What are you doing?” she blurted, interrupting Lilith going on and on about something or another.

Beatrice hummed. “Camila sent it to me.”

Ava waited, but that seemed to be the end of Beatrice’s explanation. Pixelated tiny Ava on the laptop screen sputtered and spread her arms out as the powerpoint slide behind her belly-rolled to its successor in a kitschy transition.

“Wait,” Beatrice said, before Ava could awkwardly walk the rest of the way to the dispenser. She bent down to scoop something up. “Here.” She held up a can of Pepsi to Ava, still cold enough that the scant condensation on it had not yet beaded up into little pearls. Ava saw that underneath her chair she had stowed a rectangular cooler box of canned drinks, with two or three more cans left in it.

Ava took the can with a soft thanks.

Beatrice quirked her head and murmured something that sounded like you’re welcome.

Beatrice said the damnedest things sometimes, amidst her quiet. Appropriate, sure, but unexpected unless you were looking out closely for the tell-tale flicker at the corner of her eyes, a horizontal dart-to and sometimes a shutter-quick sly twitch of her mouth that indicated she was preparing for an interjection.

Amused, if hardly full-blown entertained. Sharp, but never cruel. Indirect, and three layers deep. Oftentimes three planets away. Ava found it less than scrutable, and more than fascinating.

Bian lian, when they were talking about transitions between spaces and narrative divisions within Houses, which was a convoluted way to say that Lilith was getting evasive over the psychology and philosophy of putting fucking walls and doors in a haunted house. Just when the pressure was about to burst, Beatrice had piped up, and Lilith had turned around, her fists gradually unclenching.

Later, Ava repeatedly scrubbed back and forth through the timeline of a video, mesmerized and marveling by the Chinese art. A minor flourish, or a glance of a cheek and – thwp – an entranced audience guided to look wherever the artist led.

The changing of faces. The fuzzy in-between of seasons. Here on the coast it is even more stark, this time of year.

She calls out to Beatrice as she walks down the planks, and Beatrice turns around. Her hair is bunned up loosely, low and unresistant to ocean-blown stragglers

Ava walks closer when Beatrice turns around, calmly, and hovers a distance away so that Beatrice can keep a cushion of space between them, if she likes.

“It’s drizzling.”

“I know.” Beatrice doesn’t take Ava up on the offer to –leave? To chase Ava back in and away? To reassure Ava that she’d prefer to stay out here, alone? She pauses, though. Looks up, as if there was anything to see up in the sky, too dark for the clouds to distinguish themselves in plumes or pillows. Ava looks up too, just in case, but it’s a mess of splotched black-gray.

Over their heads the apertures in the sky are widening into gulfs, and the dribble of water turns into sheets.

Like the crepe streamers they used to hang up on the doorways in St Michael’s, fluttering maddeningly out of reach. The nuns had thought it was some kind of sick kindness to drape them from low enough beams that their papery ends would lap at and blow into Ava’s face as they wheeled her back and forth down the corridor like the monotone automation of a fucking metronome. Each blue and yellow and pink streamer touched her cheeks like a slap. Ava’d wanted to grip them with her teeth and pull them down.

The rain, Ava reminds herself, is cold and uncaring and holds no such malice.

Beatrice keeps staring into the ocean. “It’s beautiful out here.”

There’s words on the tip of Ava’s tongue but she holds them there and thinks; considers for once, before replying. Something about Beatrice, without saying anything aloud, asks this of her. If she recites a pun it must be good.

“It is.”

Beatrice hums. She turns her head back and inclines her head slightly as she regards Ava. Ava holds her breath.

It occurs to her faintly that she’s never spoken one-on-one with Beatrice, ever. Of her three new coworkers, Beatrice feels the most faraway. She refolds Ava’s strewn, barbeque sauce-stained maps while Ava’s in the restroom, and plugs her wired earphones into a Spotify daylist full of musicians Ava’s never heard of. She has a phone widget on her homescreen tracking migratory birds, and she goes out to the pier alone under ten-thirty p.m. rain.

Ava studied Beatrice’s folders – all their folders – back at the office, once this whole thing was confirmed. Before even they’d found out. It felt almost prying, in a way, even if Suzanne herself had invited her to sit at the desk and passed her the papers. Sure, the Houses they detailed were long public; analyzed and reviewed to death, but this was different. This seemed private. Creativity and creation, to Ava at least, were wild creatures; bounding and bold on the outside, raw and sensitive and prone to clawing themselves apart on the inside.

She switched on the reading light and thumbed through the dossiers. Lilith’s had pen gashes through each iteration, angry and decisive, her documentation otherwise sparse and terse. Camila’s included scrapbooks of fabric and postcard-sized paintings, image references taped on each page.

The shells that Beatrice left behind were schematics and scripts in perfect order and format. Comments typed out formally along margins left deliberately blank, and mechanics illustrated in labeled figures, which were different from tables and clarified as such in the appendix. Without effusion or exaggeration, and with only harshly limited information to be gleaned from a couple of drily humorous notes thrown unexpectedly into the handwritten rightmost column of her change logs.

Amendment for review: section 7d entryway from section 7c now to be approached from visitors’ 9 o’clock, she’d written. Do remind reviewer S. Masters to be awake for it.

Said jester herself stands with her back still facing Ava, just out of reach, on the pier. Her hands dig into the pockets of her oversized windbreaker as her feet dig into the wood under them. Rogue strands and locks of dark hair follow the course of the wind. It’s beautiful out here, she says, just loud enough over the waves for Ava to catch.

Beatrice takes one and a half steps, precisely, so that she’s partially, intentionally, facing Ava. She says something, blown to the wind – about the facts of this place, maybe. Ava hears the name of the town crunched around the round Rs of Beatrice’s accent, and feels her feet willed, as if by that same wind, to step closer.

Closer, closer, until she’s but an arm’s length from Beatrice, close enough she could reach out and adjust on her shoulder the crooked hood of her windbreaker, long blown off the top of her head.

Then Beatrice turns back to face the pier, and she cranes her neck to look at Ava wordlessly, and Ava finally, finally, steps up beside her.

They got to town by car yesterday afternoon, a coastal place long salted by tourism when the tides were right, and only recently rejuvenated very slightly in biology circles when a couple of the further-flung waters got identified as hotspots for particularly unique marine ecosystems.

Beatrice tells her there’s a small new outpost set up from newly-won grant money, although it’s far away from where they’re staying. She glances at Ava. There was a book at the information center, she quickly explains.

Ava knows what she’s talking about – said information center is a ten-minute walk inland, in the town center, and it’s more of a weatherbeaten cubicle with yellowed pamphlets and dusty books than a living, breathing tourist pitstop. It’s battered on all sides by the elements and seems to be standing only because it’s too difficult to dislodge from where it’s wedged between an ice cream shop and a postbox. Beatrice, all the same, peered through every peeling poster on the wall.

They’d gone there yesterday after picking up some groceries while exploring the little town. Ava reached for an easy word to describe the town and found ‘fatigued’, and then she thought some more and concluded that it was drowned in a weird heavy-light emptiness.

The time of the year did it no favors. Nobody goes island hopping in the rain, and it’s not dive season at the reefs. The fishing spots are browbeaten for everyone but the seasoned local fishermen, so the commercial tourist pontoons are netted up and fenced off.

As a matter of fact, it had been so hard to get a ride to the caves, Ava had had to pay extra out of her own pocket. Lilith, of course, had nonetheless taken offense at her ‘poor planning’. Whatever. They have a ride. It leaves before dawn.

Now, side by side, Ava can’t tell if Beatrice is swaying lightly or rocking to the rhythm of the waves, or if it's just an illusion of movement on the pier.

“Sadly a lot of places are shut,” Ava states the obvious, “but at least the rooms were cheap.”

Beatrice tips her weight onto her heels, and this time Ava’s sure of it. It’s easy and balanced.

“No,” she says, after some thought. “I didn’t know much about this town before, but it was a good choice to come here. Especially now during the offseason, when it’s quieter.”

She skews her head oceanward as if trying to listen for something, and Ava follows suit, engrossed to the point of almost being bowled over by the jar of a wave hitting the wooden poles of the pier with a crunching thud.

“It’s strange,” Beatrice says very seriously, “to be congested in so much stillness and silence.”

There is nothing still or silent about the roar of the waves and the rain.

Beatrice’s work, Ava knows, has been increasingly skewing towards exploring a sort of apprehension and anxiety generated by the opposite of a traditionally suffocating enclosed-space experience. It’s strongest in her recent projects; Ava can spot it immediately – bleakly open space, elements of naturalism and realism manipulated with great technical care to subvert expectations and stir up something deeply uncomfortable and primal.

Three years ago, Supermarket Massacre had had her fingerprints all over it. The year after that, the award-winning Aquarium, with Lilith and Camila and that one guy Vincent who’d apparently slacked off then ran off. Last year she took point on her own set for the first time. And in all three, like a bloody fingerprint, the opening scenes – the first sets located immediately past the entrances – were all so characteristically, deceptively normal. Regular, in an unsettling, skin-crawling way. This was only the prelude, of course. Slowly the knife would be driven in and twisted unforgivingly.

It’s funny, because Beatrice insists, time and time again, that she doesn’t see herself as an artist or a creator. She wrote a guest article on a blog describing herself as merely an engineer organizing a space and Ava wryly thought the prose itself, elegant and clear, had given away the lie. What does a haunted house mean? How do we execute a nightmare into something feasible and tangible? Questions that had a myriad of answers and I do not believe we have yet exhausted them. There are many themes and concepts I’d like to reinvigorate beyond their traditional face value.

Subtlety, Ava sees, in last year’s factory-set After Hours. Movement, in increasingly sophisticated ways, beyond simple towering puppetry or rattling machinery or killer clowns scaring people into scurrying down claustrophobic pre-marked corridors. Soundscapes and landscapes that teeter on the brink of too-real, sped up or slowed down or taken one inch rightwards. Of course, unsettlingly unassuming opening scenes. Fear, Beatrice wrote, must be given time and space to breathe and self-propagate.

In a way, if this weekend getaway is a scouting trip less concerned with laying down concrete narrative groundwork and cultural research, and more concerned with opening a door into how each of Beatrice, Lilith and Camila see the world creatively, this bare coastal town is right up Beatrice’s alley.

The least supernatural place in the world. And yet in Beatrice’s eyes it is a town that has dotted perforation lines across its torso tempting her endlessly to tear it open to unearth something deeper and darker that adheres to the inner surfaces of its pleura.

She speaks too-softly but almost excitedly against the thunder. Underneath the reserved, controlled demeanor there’s a glint of a thirst and challenge hidden underneath her tongue.

“The park in the middle of town,” she says, “desire paths all through the long grass and not a footfall on the real ones. There’s a tape that stretches across the pavement with a warning sign dated two months ago.” Her hands have crept up their sides to prod out at waist level, tangling and twirling in the air like dancing with the rain. Or making the rain dance and twist around them.

They freeze in awareness, and the rain slaps down on them.

“Go on”, says Ava. It comes out like a request, coiled up at the end and disappearing into the air.

She thinks Beatrice smiles a tiny bit at that, her eyes unreadable, but she doesn’t go on, and Ava is disappointed.

“Well,” Beatrice’s tone is steady and tells Ava that the door is shut for now, “perhaps we’ll speak more about it after the caves.”

She says this matter-of-factly as if they’re all going to come back on that boat after sunset, sit down cross-legged in a circle with notepads and laptops, and excitedly paint a mural across the ceiling with lime-sharp ideas and skin-crawling narratives. This isn’t going to happen. Lilith nearly put a fist through the glass panels of a cabinet mere hours earlier.

Beatrice is usually the most brutally pragmatic and unsentimental of the four, and here she is talking about the future like the present is a bubble that will undoubtedly pop and reveal a rose-tinted world. Ava doesn’t know what to think of it.

The coldness of the rain is starting to gnaw at and numb her fingertips. She breathes, strange and short. The words come out too easily: “You were watching my presentation from two years ago.”

Beatrice nods. “I was, yes. I finished it over afternoon break.”

“Can I ask why?”

When Beatrice turns, Ava can’t see her face all that clearly. “Well, I wanted to know your principles and approach to designing fear experiences.” In the first flutter-crack of her composure Beatrice coughs twice. “It seemed, at least, something productive to do. And it’s important if we are to work closely together.”

The wind, walloped and fickle so that the rain beating down on Ava’s face seems to change its direction of attack every ten seconds or so, does not seem to pull them closer together, like in fanciful, romantic stories. It just tugs Ava about at her shoulders and knees like a ragdoll and makes her dizzy.

Beatrice pulls her jacket close. She gestures for Ava, shivering harder, to pull her sleeves down her elbows. Ava hadn’t even noticed, and does so now, but she’s still cold – damp-cold then air-frozen from salty windspray. She puts her hands as far as they can go in her pockets. Shifts her weight.

Beatrice’s face twists with – perplexion? Concern?

In the meager light Ava sees her glance back behind them and cock her head towards the light from which they came, questioning.

Ava shakes her head, and Beatrice doesn’t push. She doesn’t sigh out loud but her shoulders follow the trajectory of its motion as she peels off her outer layer, quickly and without fanfare. Underneath she is wearing a thick hoodie that only now begins to darken everywhere except for its already-exposed hood. Clearly, she’d planned to come out to walk, unlike Ava.

Who’d stumbled out late after dinner, full of thoughts that had nowhere to stew and nowhere to run.

They’d had a big fight over the dinner table, boiled over from where it had been bubbling the last two days. There was a slamming of fists on the table, and Ava had torn her napkin from the tablecloth and went to sit alone at the bartop.

What exactly do you want? What’s your structure? Churning in her head like an infinitely turning contraption, mixed fiercely over the anger of being asked to prove it and being goaded harder and harder towards standards that Camila and Beatrice never seemed to be asked to meet.

Full of feelings and other weird, warped rumblings that were difficult to thoroughly unpick as usual. And the messy sensation of all the air in her chest compressed from pushing frustratedly and hopelessly against a wall. Hoping the nebulous concept of Outside might put it into place or at least shove it all into boxes for her to sort out later. Ava, head hot and too-bright, lightheaded and needing to have it tamped down by the physical weight of darkness, had stumbled out into the night. She’d thought only of draining off the alcohol slightly and having it evaporate, along with everything else, from her scalp into the cool air.

It has, now, in any case.

Burned out rapidly from the initial buzz, and then she’d seen Beatrice at the edge of the ocean.

Beatrice holds her windbreaker out, pinched between her fingers. Her hands curl neatly on both sides over the shoulders, and she brushes it once, twice, to chase away the little droplets accumulating on the water resistant surface. They smooth away into a flat of smaller droplets, and she offers it up to Ava.

“Here,” she says softly, “I have a few layers on already.”

Ava hesitates, but Beatrice simply dusts off some water again and turns it with the change in the direction of the wind so that the rain doesn’t get inside. “Before the lining becomes soaked,” she urges in a whisper.

The windbreaker is soft and lined with fleece, and it slips from Beatrice’s hands as Ava takes it and turns away to shrug it on. Beatrice watches her as she pulls her hands out of the sleeves; it is large already on Beatrice’s frame, and on Ava it is almost swallowing, like a ghost encumbered by its drapes. She fumbles with the zipper, pulling it up to her neck eventually before straightening the collar and turning it up.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Beatrice says. She puts her own hands into her hoodie and looks very warm. Wet strands of hair drip down now and cling to her face, but she looks settled.

“So, why did you come to the OCS?” she asks. It doesn’t sound cutting.

Ava pouts and takes the bait. She deliberately shifts backwards onto a foot and crosses her arms so that her sleeves meet and zip with a rubbery drag.

“And what did you learn from my presentation?” Please don’t let this come off as rude please don’t let her take this the wrong way please don’t let her take offense–

“--Guilty,” Beatrice shrugs, a motion that looks almost foreign on her. “But I asked first.” She takes her hands out of her hoodie pocket and wrings them together absently, then lets them fall back down and tucks them back, relaxed, snugly into the pouch.

She looks younger, like this, with her hair mussed by the weather and comfy in her hoodie. Like the windbreaker it is oversized and of indiscernible color. Ava can almost convince herself that it’s bruised lilac or dark blue. More likely it is some shade of plain gray.

Ava exhales, and feels more than hears the wood creak beneath her feet. The water is opening up and closing shut endlessly and Beatrice is looking at her, waiting, watching, and suddenly Ava needs to move; needs to curl her toes and stretch her fingers and get somewhere else. Move somewhere.

And somehow, somewhere inside, needs also –hopes also, for Beatrice to move with her.

Ava nods quickly. The wind changes yet again and her throat is dry. Instinctively she licks her lip and finds it salty.

“How about the path behind the airstrip?”

Beatrice smiles tentatively. “Okay.”

They retreat from the water to concrete. The motel is built on part of an old private airstrip. There’s no longer sand here, just rocks and gravel petering out into the water. Behind the airstrip, though, there is a path that inclines upwards, lit by lamps until it reaches a boarded-up platform that drops harshly down into foam.

Hands in windbreaker pockets, Ava leads them farther from shore. She doesn’t know if it’s the temperament of the sky or an illusion of distraction but the drizzle is slowing down now until it is in comparison barely noticeable as they head up the slope by the lamplight.

“So, why I joined this place,” Ava huffs. Beatrice hums in acknowledgement.

“A few things, I guess. You’ve watched the video,” Ava goes on, and Beatrice nods. “It was about storytelling, and scares, and honestly there’s some truth to how much you can do behind squeaky clean Disney barricades. I said it the first day – I love horror and what the OCS has done with it.”

She tells Beatrice about the first time she went to an OCS House, years ago; they must both have been in college at the time. University, she rolls her eyes, as the corners of Beatrice’s mouth dance upwards, whatever. She’d taken two days off class with a bunch of friends just to travel, because it was the only major independent place that had good wheelchair access back then.

Ava’s not using a cane now but she’d had it with her yesterday after getting out stiff and sore after the long car ride. Beatrice doesn’t ask.

“That halloween, with all the houses – it blew me away. God. No kitschy carnival music, no colorful performers prancing around giving candy out to children at the doors. The food stands?” she gestures, “All outside the gates. No fucking carousels in the scare zones.”

Back then there were fewer Houses, and the compound was significantly smaller. Already it was a carefully calibrated maze, ready to scare in every weather contingency, with traps that would move and performers that would sit very still on steel chairs and, back then, the services of expensive external contractors to beef up the outdoor scenic design.

“But d’you know what’s scary?” Ava turns to Beatrice and stops. Beatrice doesn’t startle, like Ava had feared in the split second after she’d spun around. “Traditionally, you don’t talk about a House, right? It’s rude to put spoilers in reviews or whatever. I loved that. I thought it made it fun, like a secret you’re all in on.”

“Then the OCS comes along and says: No, actually it’s important that people have access to our Houses, and the full extent of that means discreetly available trigger warnings and official spoilers, anytime. We’ll make it a keystone of our design that every House has easy Outs in every section, and advertise it front and center.”

Ava knows Beatrice knows this, of course.

“Which people thought was stupid, right? A terrible business move at best, if not a betrayal of the values of the art.”

Everyone knows what happened next. The move turned out wildly successful: a careless, confident vaunt that the OCS could afford to go to such daring lengths and still terrify people. Daring would-be visitors, almost, to try and stay unaffected. We’re different, it said. Fucking try us then. They were free then, too, to do the worst possible things, in the safest possible environment. And nobody who didn’t need to have a look at the trigger warnings did so, while the number of first-time haunted house visitors shot up.

“Psychology,” Ava nods fiercely, “which is, as everyone knows, at the heart of manipulating fear.”

She leans forward, finally, looks Beatrice in the eye. It’s honest, and it’s terrifying. “I want that – to break the rules. All of them.”

Is that a controversial thing to say? To someone whose modus operandi famously is carefully twisted and controlled restraint, compared to the overflow and excess of most Houses. Who calculates, psychologically, the impact and ideal-slash-worst-case reactions to each moment in the House cascade, as if the mind is a kind of a machine and the House is a code passed through its system. Ava’s read what her critics say of her – that she’s cerebral to a fault. Technically masterful and horrifying; nauseating, in that cold, disturbing way, but that sometimes she fails to recognize that bombast is not a bad thing. That some excess does not the route suboptimize, or that instinct can give rise to flair and not undercooked loose ends.

Frigid, aloof. Beatrice tugs her from where she was headed towards a dead end off the slope, and nudges her up towards where the gradient beneath their feet tapers off. The back of her hand, where it brushes accidentally along Ava’s wrist, is warm.

They’re standing on an outcropping now. The rain has stopped fully and the path is more clearly illuminated by the higher density of lamps on the ground. They’re paid for by the motel, presumably, and somehow dug into the earth. There’s a bench here, too, and in sync Ava and Beatrice wordlessly sit down. The stone surface is wet, the kind that will soak into their dark jeans and leave the seats damp.

They sit, anyway, the bushes crudely truncated so that the view looks out to dark water.

Ava is one of them, now, no matter how much it doesn’t feel like it. Yet, a telltale voice quietly hopes.

The business of haunted houses is a cyclical thing, isn’t it? Unlike working in the park year-round. Sure, there are two permanent fixtures that run through the year and get refreshed every year or so to keep the base revenue going and the OCS name in people’s mouths, but ultimately that’s the side show. It’s a seasonal business and so now the main seasonal campus is dark, strewn with work lights and scaffolding and blueprints.

But even if the OCS as the upcoming season’s visitors will know it is primordial now, with nothing even to show for it yet, she’s one of them. Even if she feels out of place, knee deep in viscous fluid.

In Disney they’d hardly ever travel, because the rides she worked on were drawn from existing fictional worlds and their stories. Perhaps if she was lucky they would visit the place from which the fictional world was mined. Many other haunted house production companies, too, mostly drew inspiration from local or regional folklore or culture. Currently, the trend was, in fact, to camouflage the House itself into the very environment and location on which it stood.

Not many production companies would have her here, in a scraggly nowhere town of her own choosing, filmy with rain-gunk and algae, roofs discolored by harsh caustic cleaning sprays. Dipping her toes into somewhere unknown and parsing out something to bring back to the city and its bad 24-hour coffee vending machines and paint spills on uneven concrete and rough graffitied walls. There is, ironically, something fresh, new and strange about it all.

And it’s why Ava’s here, really. To eat food from different places. Run her toes through grass in every country. Put her tongue out to the breeze and bring it back in the form of twisting walls that cave down around the people within. To behold nothing the same way twice, and to insist on nothing as sacred. Break all the rules.

The waves are distant but the sound carries up and towards them.

“That’s what I gathered,” Beatrice says, wistfully, or thoughtfully, “from the presentation.” She sits a little way away on the bench, her hands crossed at her wrists and fingers peeking out from the thick sleeves. Under Ava’s hands, pressed down on either side, the seat is rough. And Beatrice, back straight and so calm, is soft. Like her eyes.

Beatrice looks down and runs her fingers over the grain of the bench too, coarse and stuck together, although smoothened with time. She seems to sigh, soak the air around her into her pores, and relax. Rise, like foam in a glass.

“In the beginning of the video,” she starts, “You compare a good ride to a good haunted house.” She puts up three fingers and duly counts them off. “Both tell an immersive story. Both twist away from what the audience knows to be reality. Both break convention to surprise.”

Her voice, Ava finds, is endlessly different from the only times she’s heard it at length, over a stuttering video call. Far away from the stricturing of bad connection and Zoom audio, it sounds different – just as modulated and thoughtful, but full of something, contained, yet to overflow. Ava thinks of a pot with a lid with hot, rich soup in it, sizzling lightly with a fragrance that perfuses the whole kitchen.

She talks through the presentation – Beatrice, that is, in her own words, and Ava’s maybe-kind of-perhaps bewitched. It’s the way she fits Ava’s points gently into a structure and perspective that even Ava hadn’t thought of; the way she spins Ava’s hamfisted tangent on dueling flight-or-hug-tight instincts into a dizzying fifteen-second suckerpunch insight into isolation versus community in group horror experiences. Or the way she recites her favorite of Ava’s bad jokes, word-for-word, from memory, and looks genuinely pleased by it too.

Ava doesn’t know for sure. She’s still reeling when Beatrice simply pauses and settles. She bobs her head, a tiny, barely-there smile on her face. “So yes,” she says, “that’s what I’ve learned about your design outlook.”

Her expression changes in hints and tiptoes to something more considering. “But about you, and how we – I, will work with you – that’s not so easily gleaned from one video.”

Ava laughs at that, almost speechless. Still breathless and oddly naked, in a way she’s not used to feeling. “No, no it isn’t.”

She looks up and away, registering suddenly and overwhelmingly the indistinct shapes of trees. Grass. Path markers.

It’s true. They don’t know her, and she doesn’t know the three of them. Not like they know each other, twisting like moss and creepers around each others’ spines. There is something there that’s old and impenetrable and bound in the covers of a book in a different language she doesn’t speak. And she speaks a whole bunch of languages, yes, but none like this one.

“We need to learn how to work together,” she admits. This is an understatement, Ava knows, and grossly so. She thinks about Lilith, but also about Camila and her expansive imagination, its rhythm slightly out of sync from the drumbeat of Ava’s mind, and her easy physical affection that masks an unspoken space between them. She thinks about Beatrice and her uncanny wordlessness and then her uncanny wordfulness that Ava hasn’t had the chance to learn how to anticipate. To everyone that’s not her closest circle Ava thinks she must seem like a pendulum that’s always being chased, and never getting caught, her thoughts running and pivoting a hundred miles ahead.

And together they are musical lines in a contrapuntal piece, and hell, Ava knows only four chords on a guitar.

“We will,” Beatrice decides, suddenly. Ava’s mind has slipped from the conversation, but the bite of it snaps her to alert.

“What will we– what?”

In her alarm their eyes meet. She watches Beatrice’s fingers stretch out towards her on the bench instinctively, and then quickly retract into a half-fist, drumming once, twice on the seat before slotting into her pocket to slide her phone out to sit loosely in her palm.

She wrinkles her nose apologetically. A hairball of worry in Ava’s chest untangles itself.

“I.. just know that you’ve googled us like we’ve googled you.”

As Beatrice talks she turns over her phone slowly, hypnotically. Long fingers press and flip it in a well-worn sequence: the screen forwards and over twice, then clockwise along its side, before repeating in the opposite direction.

“Earlier on you said that Lilith locks herself in a room to brainstorm.”

Huh? Oh yeah, she did. When they were arguing over timeline flexibility for their project and the frequency of check-ins. Lilith said she was flighty and ill-disciplined. Ava told her she was out of her mind and a cold-blooded reptile who’d lost touch with all shreds of human needs and interactions. She’d made a snarky joke about Lilith’s grotesquely fancy ensuite bathroom and finding someone else to try and shit on.

“Well, that piece of trivia is only found in an interview from two years back that’s out of print. You can only find its scans on some niche member-only forums.”

Ava shrugs – this is what you do with new co-workers, is it not? You do your part. And Ava is doing the best she can.

“Yeah, sure,” she concedes, “but that’s not – it’s not–” plainly, it’s not the same. What can Ava do except shrug again?

Beatrice makes a small noise.

“I know,” she reiterates, and the deep furrows of her forehead release and smoothen, like she seems to have come to a realization.

She offers cautiously, hesitantly, “the article does say that. But it’s not true.” She inhales sharply.

“Lilith appreciates her independence, yes, but she knows better than to entirely isolate herself anymore.” Clearly, there’s a story in that. “But the deadline was at midnight, and the editor wanted to add something else in the copy they sent. Lilith was grouchy, we were drunk, and Camila made it up in the return email without telling her.”

Beatrice pauses and tilts her head. Up the curve of her chin to her cheeks, dimples reveal themselves shyly and momentarily.

“Lilith was furious. She only found out when the article was released. The only reason she grudgingly refrained from further action was because, I believe, the falsified information fit into the image of how she wanted to present herself to the world.”

She gazes straight at Ava then, curious and the most open that Ava’s ever seen her. “Nobody’s ever brought it up again,” she remarks, searching Ava. “Well. Not until you.”

Beatrice’s hands still; she wipes her phone against her shirt, and looks carefully at Ava. Ava’s intelligent; far more than people give her credit for. She knows what Beatrice is doing – trying to do, in her own way.

After a long pause, during which the drone of the waves becomes deafening and then recedes, “I won’t pretend that Lilith is merely aloof, or that the things she has said are not unkind or unfair. She’s treated you poorly.”

Ava resists a scoff, and scrambles instead to clear her throat noisily. She doesn’t bring up again the simple fact that, foremost amongst a host of reasons, Lilith is why they’re here. The last straw. The final trigger.

Beatrice regards her like she isn’t fooled.

“She is less coarse to those she’s close to, but has been known on occasion to be rather prickly, even then.” Beatrice, as if remembering something then, chuckles lowly. Gorgeously. “She’s very particular about safety standards and protocols, for example.”

“Once, she yelled at me in front of the whole crew for taking a nap on the floor of an unfinished room in a maze in the dark during lunch. She was angry, and worried, but still. I needed to get away from everyone for a break, and as you might expect, it backfired.”

“I’ll try not to do that,” Ava offers. “I’ll break into her trailer and sleep on her desk instead.”

“Oh dear,” There’s palpable mirth in it. Ava’s poker face shatters into a beam.

Beatrice probably can’t see it. It’s dark.

“Ava?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t expect you to be alright with any of it.”

Ava breathes.

“Okay,” she replies, finally. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

She lifts the palms from where they’ve been pressed tightly to old, uneven rock. The soft flesh of the heel is kissed with the pattern of the grain.

So Ava turns, on the bench, and her feet squelch most uncomfortably in the wet shoes as she adjusts herself to face Beatrice – not directly, but at the slight angle from which the light of the moon and the light at their feet call out to each other and meet on the tip of her nose.

Beatrice tucks her phone carefully in her lap and turns to Ava too.

And slowly, in dribs and drabs that spill out like the corners of dough sheets cut out from metal molds, Ava introduces herself to Beatrice.

No, not the dramatic, tragic moments – the accident, the orphanage, all that. The night is transient and thinning fast into its wee hours, and it’s the little things first, you know?

The one-coffee-one-energy-drink-one-juice combo routine that gets Ava through long days and overtime hours. The overnight movie marathon treat she grants herself at the culmination of each project. The lucky Super Mario Bros. spoon and bowl set that she’s got to eat out from the day before a big pitch.

Her hiring, Ava thinks, is still a dry and excoriated topic, and so she tries to skim over it. She tries to avoid going into detail on how she got poached, and then how she’s painstakingly combed through all their archival documents and notes, so as to understand. She doesn’t mention the fan content and critic reviews she’s pored over, the world beyond OCS doors she’s tried to immerse herself in to grasp the scale of the project and the context of her addition.

Beatrice narrows in on it, anyway. It looms, Ava supposes, far too large to avoid.

It’s sometime after one A.M. when she puts her head down slightly, and Ava feels the shift.

“You know, I’ve seen some of the forums,” Beatrice strokes down the damp strands of hair that have come loose over her ears. “They’re – not entirely true. I don’t dislike working with others.”

Ava had seen the forums too, and the flint-tipped speculation that slithered about the different pages. Usernames pockmarked with numbers, an argot of acronyms and the slang of self-proclaimed megafans. Posts that didn’t have Beatrice’s name in them but that were transparently about her, describing with vulgar flippance a cool, isolated oddness that locked crew members out from the indecipherable machinations of her mind.

Beatrice’s hands tighten over her phone. “It just takes me some time –” she forces out, and then bites her lip.

Ava thinks about Camila in the corridor this afternoon, after Beatrice had wordlessly entered her own room and shut the door – now, she knows, to watch the video. Ava had stopped for a second too long, looking puzzled after her, when Camila had brushed breezily past.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she’d laughed, “she’s like this. Once she opens up, she’s a completely different little beast.”

Ava hadn’t doubted that – there was evidently a Beatrice that bantered with Lilith and Camila in branching links of long chains that she couldn’t understand; a Beatrice that must have climbed up the towering tree at the back early in the morning to pluck yellow flowers from its crown.

This Beatrice had been ready to go ahead to the counter before Camila and Lilith had even sat down at yesterday’s lunch to place their orders on their behalf.

She hadn’t even needed to check in with them, but came over to Ava’s seat and looked over her shoulder. “What would you like?” she’d asked, and Ava rushed, panickedly, to look over the menu. She traced each line with her index finger, and looked up to find Beatrice, eyes wide and patient.

“This one, please, the burger,” she’d jabbed the flimsy laminated paper, “and a Pepsi.” Beatrice had strode off before a waiter could come over. She’d refused to let any of them pay her back, and when Ava had tried to send her money on her phone she raised her eyebrows very questioningly and Ava melted back into the plastic-backed seat.

In the end, Ava can only personally vouch for the epipelagic – the shallowest fraction of ocean pierced by sunlight. The parts of the person allowed tentatively to surface in every halting, hesitant attempt forward as a quartet. As of now, too, in the drizzly shadows of tonight.

Perhaps the light can reach only fingertip-deep, but Ava wagers there has to be water all the way down. The rest is gut feeling and instinct; slowly glowing embers like a fist in her chest.

“Beatrice,” Ava says, once it’s clear she’s still working her way out of a labyrinth of word finding, “Listen. I believe you.”

Tense shoulders quieten and flatten into a horizontal plane. Ava feels Beatrice’s eyes scan her face, go past her ears and her messy hair and the tip of her nose and then settle, finally, with a helpless little smile.

Ava calls out on the boardwalk. She listens to Beatrice whisper on this stone, and Beatrice listens back. There’s sunlight, hours away, on the horizon but at this moment there’s only secret shades of moonbeam, and those shades are all for them. It’s not enough, still. It’s not enough. Ava wants more.

She wants, she finds with some desperation, to be inside of the invisible circle. There is nothing worse than dragging her feet outside, half a step offbeat, unable to reach in and with nobody reaching out. A ghost, intangible and aware of it, when all she wants is to feel the hot flames of real life – to have Lilith’s sharp tongue lash out and scald her in the way it does Camila or Beatrice – with blunt honesty and easy comfort instead of probing malice. To have Camila’s name light up on strings of text notifications as it buzzes constantly on Beatrice and Lilith’s phones almost the moment they are apart. Beloved, joyful, alight. To have Beatrice… to have Beatrice —

The phone in Beatrice’s hands lights up, too bright, and it makes her squint. A flash of numbers – time – sears itself into Ava’s eyes before Beatrice frowns and puts it away into her hoodie. It’s late, Ava thinks, considering the boat is coming by early to bring them out for sunrise. But Beatrice doesn’t move to go back, and neither does Ava.

Of all the things Beatrice finds terrifying – enough, she’s always been quoted, to transplant them into the nightmare fuel of haunted houses – the dark now doesn’t seem to be one of them. Ava agrees, she thinks: there is no place safer now than where they are, on a rock one measly wooden fence away from a dizzying drop into rock and rushing depths. It feels, for once, and for maybe the first time –

(since the start, after that final infuriating video call when she screamed into her duvet and yelled into her shower and limped to the computer where she bit her lips raw and booked the tickets here and told a trio of uneasy still-strangers that she might struggle to pull them out their homes with her own hands and nails but they would be getting out and traveling to a coastal nowhere-town and fucking sitting down to get this partnership going –)

–it feels like she’s making headway.

Not on the Houses, not on the inspiration for them or the mechanisms and processes with which to put them together, no, although all those, too, in their own ways.

Here, far off from home, next to choppy waters, shorn into grass and trees readying themselves to be busted up by summer storms, amongst flowers somehow poking up through the salt and sand, a breath away from the touch of waves and the tiny crawling organisms that besiege it, (beside an odd girl in the giddy, open air,) – here.

Solid ground.

And maybe Beatrice is right, you know? Maybe life is more similar to the business of soul-sucking fear-buildings than people believe.

Ava’s always had, she thinks, an incredibly lucid understanding on what makes good haunted houses tick. It’s trust, essentially, and safety. How do you enter a situation that frightens more viscerally and wholly than a movie or even a 3D dark ride – and then keep walking?

Headway. The only thing that gets you out of a haunted house is burrowing deeper within.

Arms outstretched, palms open, into its guts and chest. There’s extensive academia on thrill rides: on how much of the atmospheric and storytelling work goes into the sections of the experience that precede the ride, because once the carriage croaks to life, it’s easy to close one’s eyes and lose all clarity.

Haunted houses aren’t like this.

Since she got out of St Michael’s, Ava’s gotten by on a brand of fearlessness, a reputation built on a willingness to try almost anything. But fearless perhaps isn’t the word. She’s scared, still, with every step forward. Worried out of her mind of having to work from scratch all over again. Terrified of going back to before. But this, unfortunately, or blessedly so, is life: the only way out, Ava’s found, is further in.

She doesn’t want to be here. She wants to be there, already there.

Ava wants so badly to be elbow deep in the mud and wires of bringing stories to life far more fully and physically than in almost any other medium. She wants it so bad and so bare that she doesn’t even really know how to spell it out on a cloudy spring-summer night in a way that won’t chase Beatrice away with the breathless depth of her desperation to make people feel in a way they will never forget. Or frighten her with the too-much, too-fast of it all.

She wants to flood people’s imaginations and send adrenaline through their arteries; have them wrap themselves around each other until the impression of lovers’ arms are engraved around the frame of each other’s bodies, shared warmth and solidity the only things keeping them upright through the maze.

And Ava doesn’t need someone to hold her through a haunted house – god, she’s the one with her fingers tugging the strings that shift and twist its spine in circles around its terrified visitors – but it would be nice for once to stand in the control tower, eyes alight, heart racing, with hands as bloodstained as her own.

To run through second-by-second early test run footage and data with another pair of eyes over early morning coffee and buns, discussing furiously the corners where the tourniquet can be tightened or loosened. To have conversations over the mixing console worth muting the scream track for. Even if – no, especially if they have nothing to do with work; conversations past awful awkward shop talk and instead all-in on the minutiae of home furnishings and dream pets and eschatology.

There was an impermanence to the constant shuffling of working groups, the fast paced turnarounds at Disney, but truthfully, she hadn’t been unhappy there. But then the email came through to her inbox on the rare once-fortnightly day that she would sit in her office, cartoonish vampire mug in hand, daydreaming with her laptop open, and that was it.

She flew down to headquarters to meet Suzanne in December. It was quiet in the office, with everyone off on final scouting trips and finalizing plans and sourcing materials and manpower. Suzanne had therefore been able to give her a private tour, and Ava did everything to pretend her mind hadn’t been made up long before.

First there was her personal office, which was the downright coolest room Ava’d been in for a while, forest green and quietly centered around the unassuming framed family picture on the desk. Cabinets of fossils with extra labels in a child’s scrawled handwriting: Terry the trilobite :D and spoonface and illustrated stickmen with swords. Delicate, beautiful, floral watercolor diagrams mounted on the wall and a soft, thick rug with complicated, beautiful depictions of scenes from the Tempest.

Suzanne showed her the generous pantry, which would have sealed the deal if it hadn’t already been set in stone, and then they passed the meeting rooms into the archive gallery.

This was, essentially, a museum of past mazes. A large, dark place of glass and thin, sharp panes of burnished golden light. Suzanne brought her, wide-eyed, through its displays of early Houses.

“You’ve been visiting our Houses, on and off, over the last few years, correct?”

Ava nodded. Since that college trip, really, and whenever she could spare the time and the money.

“Good,” Suzanne said. “If you accept this offer, you will be joining a team of some of our best young designers, so you may be familiar with some of their work.”

Indeed, within the glass cases sat Camila’s famed dioramas, fixed in place now but ready to stir to life once hooked up to a battery. Detailed, hand-painted and assembled, its parts sliding apart into modular sections that could be split open and shifted around.

Lilith’s meticulous blueprints too, and ruthless postmortems and analyses she’d done of her own work, although those were sealed away. “I had to demand that she hand them over and not keep them pinned up at her desk hanging over her head,” Suzanne remarked beside Ava, looking up into the glass at the nondescript manila folder.

“If not you, it would have been her.”

Unsurprising. Disney had used Lilith Villaumbrosia-masterminded sections of mazes in case studies for scene-setting and scare actor interactions. And Ava had entered her House two years ago. She knew.

“I will be honest with you, Miss Silva.”

“Ava.”

“Ava. Lilith is not what you may be expecting, and it may be difficult to get across to her at first. She is as acerbic as she is brilliant.”

That was the twist that was coming, of course: that they were all good friends. That the three designers that Suzanne had long had in mind to join Ava already knew each others’ minds and neural pathways so keenly that they could probably unzip the gyri of each others’ brains like a ribbon and then put them back together.

“They don’t know it yet,” Suzanne warned, “and they will not like it at first, but I see it.” She opened up one of the cases with a key to remove a polaroid of three grinning faces, arms looped together. She held it to the light. “You’re the missing piece to the puzzle.”

But what about everything she’s still missing?

The gravelly ground is solid beneath their feet, and Ava doesn’t feel the vibrations of the waves. The world appears still and frozen even as everything is changing and morphing and blooming, and gaping thirstily for something more she can’t put a finger to.

The water could flood and Ava’s eyes might smart with exhaustion in the morning, or she might try to get two or three hours of sleep and wake up after one anyway, screaming as usual, and all the same Ava thinks she would still be chasing. Running.

There is nothing in her mind resembling gory sets and the creak of animatronics, then, as she looks to her right at a girl she can scarcely even see in the dark, yet that she finds she cannot look away from. Ava can see why the magazines call her a mystery: Beatrice says she’s always on heightened alert, and yet – and yet –

She’s gazing back at Ava in a blanket of complete calm.

The wind from the ocean is blowing, the darkness feels safe. Ava and Beatrice, on a stone bench, talking, close. Easy steps, Ava thinks. Small steps, small questions. Maybe this is how it starts.

She takes a chance. Asks.

Beatrice closes her eyes, exhales, and begins to answer.

(Here are some requirements for a successful haunted house, or a horror film, or a heart-pounding roller coaster: it must evoke emotion that travels in icy ringlets down your spine, and it must stay indelibly in your mind.)

#warrior nun #wn haunted house au #i think my phone might explode from that readmore so i'm sincerely sorry and hope your devices survive 🙏#this takes place (1.5-3??? months???) after the first excerpt i won't lie i did not sit down to sift through the timeline

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