Chapter 12: Antics Dorm: Legendarium

Antic's dorm wasn't messy.

It was feral.

Books clung to ledges like they feared falling. Scrolls curled open like dead petals across every surface—tables, chairs, windowsills, the floor. Symbols bled off the parchment in ink that pulsed, as if still alive.

A tarnished silver locket dangled from a wall hook beside a dried mushroom glowing faintly green. A chipped porcelain doll's head, smile cracked sideways, sat atop a stack of tomes with titles like Taming Undead Lovers and Celestial Venom: A Romance.

Something buzzed. Then popped. No one asked.

The whole room smelled like dust, candlewax, and sweet rot—like crushed berries forgotten in velvet folds.

No Eyes stepped over a melted candle that sighed beneath her foot. Her bare steps made no sound. Her presence, though, filled the space. She absorbed everything without reacting: the chaos, the scent, the strange air charged with Antic's wild, unfiltered energy.

Dolly hovered behind her like a jaded spirit. "Does this room even have a floor or did it get buried alive?"

Grin lingered in the doorway. His skeletal frame stood straight as a blade, every inch of him twitching in organizational pain. "I can hear the dust," he whispered, horrified.

From deep inside a trunk that wheezed every time it was touched, Antic's voice rang out, upbeat and muffled.

"Almost got it! I swear on Dolly's nonexistent soul it's in here—just gotta find the Legendarium! It has everything! Mating rituals of the Gloomfang Grubs, seductive migration patterns of the Lustbees—uh, don't ask—Wyvern foreplay, something about jellyfish that get married? I don't know! I'm close!"

"Close," Dolly echoed. "To what, a concussion?"

He popped his head up over the chest's lid, black hair mussed, sweat on his throat, no shirt in sight. A scroll clung to his shoulder like a lovesick parasite.

No Eyes said nothing. But her invisible gaze followed him.

His skin looked warm. Lived-in. His heartbeat buzzed loud enough for her to feel it from across the room.

She moved toward the chaos—slowly, quietly, like drifting through a memory. Her fingers brushed the edge of a book with teeth. It growled softly. She ignored it.

Near the edge of his bed, nestled on a mound of forgotten velvet, was a wooden box. Small. Dark. Intricately carved with lunar symbols worn smooth by time.

She opened it.

Inside: a feather.

Glowing. Iridescent. Gentle as a breath against silk.

"What's this?" she asked, voice low.

Antic froze mid-rummage.

His eyes flicked to the box. Then to her hands. Then to her face.

He crossed the room like the floor didn't matter.

"That's—" he said, softly now, "a Moonlark feather. From the Whispering Glades."

He stopped just in front of her. Their hands touched for the briefest moment as he lifted the box from her palms. Carefully. Like it was breakable. Like she was.

"They only sing under full moons," he continued, distracted, eyes on the feather. "And only for people who've forgotten how to cry."

No Eyes didn't move. She just stood there, listening. Feeling.

The silence between them was thick. Tense. Not cold. Not awkward. Just… full.

Antic cleared his throat and set the box down behind him.

"And anyway," he blurted, backing up quickly, "Legendarium! Still missing! But somewhere! Possibly under the screaming mask collection, maybe inside the drawer that moans when you open it—definitely not behind the skeleton hand that gives unsolicited relationship advice—"

"You're spiraling," Dolly said.

"I never spiral. I swirl with flair."

Grin turned on his heel and fled without a word, scrolls sticking to his cloak like guilt.

A scroll exploded behind Antic.

"Okay—maybe don't touch that one," he muttered, batting away a ribbon of cursed parchment that tried to tie itself around his wrist.

No Eyes didn't move. Still by the bed. Still silent.

Dolly wandered over to a stool shaped like a howling wolf and flopped onto it dramatically, legs swinging.

"So," she sniffed. "Are we just gonna watch him dig through a hoarder's shrine to questionable mating habits? Or do I light something on fire?"

No Eyes crouched, her fingers skimming the edge of a cloth bundle half-hidden under a collapsed curtain. It trembled under her touch, but didn't move.

"Antic," she said quietly. "You forgot to put the Moonlark feather back in its box."

He froze mid-scroll-fling. Then dropped the scroll with a quiet thud.

"Oh. Right. Yeah." His voice came out breathless. "Thanks."

He reached back without looking, fumbled blindly for the box, and knocked over a candleholder shaped like a screaming cherub.

"I swear this room is alive," Dolly muttered. "I'm going to die here and become furniture."

Antic turned around—and saw her.

No Eyes, crouched by the bed. Silhouetted by the window's strange forest light, shadows curling at her feet like vines.

Her dress had slipped just slightly off one shoulder, revealing the sharp line of her collarbone, pale against the velvety dark of his room.

He stared too long.

She tilted her head. "...You're staring."

He blinked. "No, I'm—no! I was just—your—shoulder's, uh, doing a thing. Not like a weird thing. Just a—curve. Thing."

Dolly's head snapped toward him like a vulture sensing drama.

"You're drooling," she hissed.

"I am not drooling," Antic said, wiping his mouth reflexively. "It's sweat. This room is warm. And cursed. And—"

No Eyes stood, slow and fluid.

She stepped toward him—close. Closer than before.

The space between them compressed like air before a storm.

"Why are you acting nervous?" she asked.

Antic backed into the drawer.

"I'm not!" he chirped, voice cracking on the last note like a pubescent bird. "I'm not nervous. I'm always like this. This is my natural state. I'm not sweating because you touched the feather. Or because your voice does that low... vibrating... thing. Nope. Totally fine."

No Eyes blinked slowly. "Do I make you uncomfortable?"

His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "You make me... aware."

She tilted her head again. "Of what?"

He said nothing.

Somewhere under the floor, something cackled.

Dolly clutched her teacup with both hands. "I swear to the forest gods, if one of you doesn't kiss or slap the other, I will do it for you."

Antic made a strangled noise and dove back into the drawer. Loud rummaging resumed.

"Just need the book!" he yelled over the chaos. "The sexy scroll bible of doomed monsters and love-mad swamp toads! I SWEAR IT EXISTS!"

No Eyes turned back toward the bed.

But for a flicker of a second—one heartbeat too long—she paused.

Because for the first time since stepping into that room, she was beginning to understand something her mind couldn't name... but her body already knew.

Grin escaped the room like it might eat him.

One step into the outside world and his bones sighed. Relief hissed between his ribs.

The air out here buzzed. Literally. The trees sang. The grass breathed. Insects wore armor and sunglasses. One squirrel flipped him off, then vanished into a glowing tree trunk.

He hated it.

Too alive. Too colorful. Too... undignified.

He moved like a shadow trying not to be noticed by the sun. His long coat dragged along moss that blinked up at him. Roots whispered nonsense. A bird screeched from overhead, then mimicked it back to itself, as if impressed.

Grin rubbed his temples.

The Gravestone Realm never did this. Nothing chirped in the Underworld. There was moaning, occasionally—but in grayscale.

He passed a tree that pulsed like it had a heartbeat. On its bark, nailed with something that looked like a talon, was a flyer.

Pink.

Bright pink.

He stopped, immediately suspicious.

The flyer rippled gently in the breeze, practically winking at him.

🧠 MISUNDERSTOOD MONSTERS SUPPORT GROUPFeeling monstrous? Misread? Moody? Moist? We get it.

🩸 Topics include:– Unprocessed trauma– Existential dread– Fear of mirrors– Chronic empathy– Sudden bursts of poetry– Murder guilt (mild to severe)

🕯 Weekly Meetings – Whispering Grotto – Tuesdays at SunsetSnacks provided. Screaming optional.

Grin stared.

Then looked around. As if someone might jump out and laugh at him for reading it.

But no one came. Just a butterfly with too many wings that landed briefly on his bony shoulder, then exploded into glitter. He didn't flinch.

His gaze dropped to the list again.

"Fear of mirrors.""Chronic empathy.""Sudden bursts of poetry."

He exhaled. Long and soft. Like steam leaking from the crack in a coffin.

He read the flyer three more times. Slowly.

Then, with a motion so gentle it barely registered, he peeled it off the tree. Folded it. Slipped it inside his coat.

Behind him, Antic's dorm shrieked as something fell—again.

Grin didn't look back.

Instead, he whispered—just once—"Snacks provided."

And walked on, toward the Whispering Grotto, with the tiniest, strangest ache in his chest.

Not dread.

Hope.

And maybe… the terrifying idea that he might actually say something out loud.

Grin Finds a New Kind of Death

The Whispering Grotto didn't look like it belonged in a realm where things screamed for fun and trees occasionally tried to lick you.

It was quiet.

Nestled deep in a grove of luminous blue trees, the cavern pulsed with bioluminescence. The trees' phosphorescent leaves rustled overhead like gossiping ghosts, casting soft ripples of silver light across moss-covered stone. Everything glowed. The moss. The fungi. Even the air hummed with an energy that felt like it remembered how to cry.

Grin approached cautiously, his scythe sheathed on his back like a guilty secret. He'd expected... something bigger. Something flaming, or cursed, or carved from bone. But this?

This place looked like it was trying to give him a hug.

And Grin didn't do hugs.

Inside the Grotto, warm light flickered over a room that somehow felt lived in—like monsters had cried here, fought here, laughed here... and kept coming back anyway.

A gentle-faced ogre in a patchwork sweater was crocheting with terrifying precision. Each loop of yarn looked like it could summon a demon if pulled wrong.

A vampire—tall, sharp, and so goth it hurt—sat stiffly on a beanbag, sipping tomato juice like it was whiskey and trying very hard not to make eye contact with the werewolf two seats over.

A sprite zipped circles overhead, trailing glittery pollen and chaos. Someone coughed—possibly allergic. No one said anything.

And then there was the ghost.

The ghost was trying to possess a teapot.

It wasn't going well.

Grin stood in the doorway like a statue carved from guilt.

The air in the Grotto shifted.

Every eye turned.

Crochet paused. Tomato juice splashed. The teapot jumped and spilled a little steam.

Grin's bones, literal and metaphorical, tried to sink into the floor.

He cleared his throat, and it echoed like a coffin lid slamming shut.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"...Greetings," he croaked, suddenly unsure if he'd ever spoken out loud before. "I... I saw the flyer."

A long pause. And then—

"Oh, thank the swamps," said the ogre. "You're not a hallucination. Welcome, friend!"

The ogre stood—massive, cozy-looking, genuinely thrilled. "Name's Bartholomew," he said. "You can call me Bart if Bartholomew feels too pretentious."

Grin blinked. Twice. "There's... already a Bartholomew here."

From across the room, the ghost lifted one transparent hand. "Yes. Me."

"Oh, don't worry," the ogre chuckled. "We're on a first-name confusion basis."

The vampire set down his glass. "Here," he offered, thrusting a second drink toward Grin with the dramatic flourish of someone trying to act casual but deeply regretting his outfit.

"Tomato juice," he added quickly. "Not blood. That's… a thing of the past."

Grin accepted it like it was made of nitroglycerin. He gave a stiff little bow—an echo of a gesture learned in another life. "Thank you."

"Vlad," the vampire said, running a hand through his over-gelled hair. "I was turned in 1634. Worst week of my life. Whole thing's exhausting."

He took a shaky sip of his own juice. "Also, blood? Inconvenient. And it stains. And it makes people look at you weird when you cry during dinner."

Grin nodded, suddenly understanding Vlad on a profound level.

The sprite, a glittering blur with wild eyes and slightly frayed wings, buzzed up to him mid-spin. "Hi! I'm Pip! I tried to collect souls once. For, like, a craft project? But they kept escaping. So I glued them to bottle caps! That was a mistake!"

Grin stared.

Pip continued zipping around.

"And I'm Bartholomew," said the ghost, who had now successfully possessed the teapot but seemed unsure what to do with the power. "I'm not very good at haunting. I once made a child laugh so hard they invited me to a birthday party."

The group laughed.

Grin didn't know if it was polite to laugh. But then something cracked inside his ribcage—just a little—and he did.

The sound surprised even him.

The laughter bounced off the grotto walls like echoes of things that used to hurt. The group didn't judge it. They just… let it be.

They moved on.

The werewolf with anxiety talked about his secret love of knitting scarf-socks for his claws.

A gorgon lamented dating apps—"They never get past the stone thing."

A minotaur confessed he missed the days when mazes were in fashion. "Now it's all open-concept layouts. Disgusting."

Grin listened. He didn't speak much, but they didn't need him to.

They didn't need him to be anything but there.

And somehow, that was enough.

As the meeting ended, Bartholomew (the ogre) handed him a little packet of homemade cookies. "No nuts," he said. "Unless you want nuts. In which case, I lied."

Grin looked down at the cookies. Then at the group. And for the first time in what might've been centuries, he felt something click into place.

Not a job. Not a purpose. Not death.

Something messier. Smaller. Quieter.

Belonging.

Grin Finds a Strange, Sensual Peace

The next day, he caught himself humming.

Not a dirge. Not a death march. Just… something tuneless and oddly cheerful as he polished his scythe, running cloth over curved steel like he was grooming a lover instead of preparing for a soul harvest.

It was disturbingly satisfying.

He paused, blinked at his own reflection in the blade, then set it down carefully, like it might call him out on his feelings.

The Misunderstood Monsters support group had done more than ease his existential dread.

It had broken something open.

A crack had formed in the hollow cave of his chest, and inside it—light.

Bartholomew the ogre (a surprisingly eloquent crocheter of skull-patterned mittens) had suggested Grin share his perspective with the group. The idea had terrified him. But now, that fear had twisted into something warm and wild. A need. A desire. A possibility.

And so he came early.

Earlier than anyone.

Clutched in his hand—his skeletal hand that had once only held grief—was a bouquet of roses.

Not just any roses.

They were black. Vibrant. Phosphorescent. Their petals glowed faintly under moonlight, as if they remembered how to dream.

He'd grown them himself.

His new garden—Gloom to Bloom—wasn't a metaphor. It was soil, sweat, and shadow. It bloomed from decay, from dead things made beautiful. It was born from a late-night conversation in the Grotto, and now, it thrived.

He stepped into the Whispering Grotto like a reluctant prince returning to his cursed forest castle.

Inside, the group had already gathered. Their odd, messy light filled the cavern.

Bartholomew the ogre was trying to teach Pip, the sugar-winged sprite, how to knit a miniature shroud for a poltergeist. Pip kept tangling herself in yarn and dissolving into glittery giggles.

Vlad, the reluctant vampire with too much eyeliner and too many feelings, was tenderly pruning a cluster of glowing fungi, tongue poking out in deep concentration. He looked… peaceful. Even hot, in a sad-poet kind of way.

Even Bartholomew the ghost (still barely visible, still trying his best) had a glow to him tonight. Confidence? Maybe hope.

Grin stepped into their weird little world with his bouquet.

Bartholomew noticed first.

"Oh my gods," he whispered. "Are those for us?"

Grin looked down at the flowers, unsure when his fingers had started trembling. "I thought… it might be nice."

"They're gorgeous," said Seraphina softly.

Seraphina—the Medusa. Gorgeous. Stoic. Killer cheekbones and eyes like storms.

She reached for one of the roses, and for a moment, Grin tensed. What if she turned it to stone? What if she turned himto stone?

But she didn't. She only smiled.

"The glow's gentle," she said. "Like grief that doesn't hurt anymore."

And Grin, for the first time in centuries, blushed.

—

The meeting began with a group meditation.

Seraphina led. She wore a soft robe today, her hair-snakes resting peacefully, some even swaying to her voice like seaweed in water. She'd explained once that her petrification only triggered under stress. She was calm now. Gentle. Dangerously serene.

"Breathe in the temporary," she whispered. "Breathe out the illusion of permanence."

Grin didn't breathe—but he still felt it.

Something shifting in his bones. Loosening. Making room.

When the meditation ended, he stood.

The room turned toward him, all monster eyes soft and open.

He clutched the paper in his hands.

"I… I wanted to suggest something," he said, voice low, like mist sliding over headstones. "A group activity. A workshop. Writing. About grief. Death. The… beautiful parts. The hard parts. All of it."

He expected silence.

Instead: applause.

Vlad shot to his feet.

"YES. YES. I already have a title: 'Crimson Confessions and Coagulated Conundrums!' It's sexy, tragic, and slightly damp!"

Pip clapped so hard she hit herself in the face.

Seraphina gave a small, knowing nod.

Bartholomew wept into his shroud-yarn.

And so it began.

The Creative Death Writing Workshop.

Every week, the monsters gathered and spilled their monstersouls onto parchment.

Bartholomew the ogre wrote poems that made people cry over mittens.

Pip's stories were fever-dream rom-coms about lost souls navigating an afterlife full of bad first dates and celestial karaoke.

Vlad's vampire romance turned into a 1,200-page melodrama with a tragic hero who seduced ghosts with violin solos. ("Page 47 is just collarbone descriptions," Grin noted aloud once.)

Even the ghost Bartholomew produced a minimalist haiku:

I meant to scream loudbut the living only laughednow I pour their tea.

It was art.

It was chaos.

It was home.

And Grin?

Grin became their guide. Their emotional anchor. Their editor-in-chief of tragedy and heartache.

His scythe still reaped the dead—but now, he carried pens in the same hand.

The garden bloomed.

the next few days, the phosphorescent roses grew taller, stronger. He spoke to them. Tended them. Loved them. They whispered back—not in words, but in feeling. They mirrored his transformation.

From darkness, something warm. Something alive.

One evening, under a violet sky full of low-humming stars, a woman found him in the garden. Her eyes were swollen. Her hands shook.

"My grandmother," she said. "She just…"

Grin knew.

He didn't speak right away.

He led her to a patch of softly glowing lilies and let her sit. He offered no platitudes. No sermons. Just presence.

After a while, he spoke. Quietly.

"She's not gone. She just… changed doors."

The woman wept.

And Grin—Grim Reaper, gardener, broken romantic, death poet—sat beside her, scythe by his side, roses in bloom, and let her mourn in peace.

Dolly slammed the dorm door in their faces.

"Go find your dumb map, jungle boy!" she barked from inside. "And take your tragic little love story with you! I'm nesting!"

"...Nesting?" Antic muttered, adjusting the strap on his satchel. "I swear, one day we're gonna find a shrine to herself under that bed."

A scroll thunked against the door behind them. Then silence.

He glanced over at Pecola. Her head tilted slightly toward him, blank-eyed as always—but the subtle tug at one corner of her lips gave her away.

He grinned. "She throws stuff at people she likes. If she ever politely asked us to leave, I'd run."

Pecola said nothing, but her brow arched just enough to say, You say that like it's normal.

They started down the slope into the deeper forest. Sunlight sliced between the trees like moving blades of gold. The Wildlife Realm buzzed around them, alive in every way that mattered.

Antic stretched, cracking his knuckles, then rolled his neck.

"So," he said, deliberately casual. "Grin's in a cult now?"

Pecola's head tilted the other way.

"I mean—'support group,'" Antic corrected, with dramatic finger quotes. "Misunderstood Monsters or whatever. He left one night all vague and broody, then came back smelling like glowing moss and inner peace."

She turned slightly toward him. Her silence wasn't judgmental. Just... waiting.

"You're jealous," she said at last.

His smile twitched. "I'm investigating. Which is totally different."

No reaction. But that twitch at the edge of her mouth was back.

"I just think it's weird," Antic added. "I've barely known him a month, and suddenly he's sneaking off to whisper emotional haikus with vampires and tea ghosts. I didn't even get invited. Not that I want to go."

A long pause.

Then Pecola: "You do."

Antic groaned. "Okay, maybe. A little. But only if they have snacks."

He side-eyed her as they walked.

"Wait. You're not secretly in a club too, right? You don't like... run off at night and join cryptid knitting circles behind my back?"

She shook her head once.

"Okay. Good. Because that'd hurt."

She didn't answer. But the way her hand brushed against his as they walked said enough.

The path narrowed. Trees leaned in. The sweet scent of honeysuckle thickened, curling into her lungs like syrup. Her steps slowed.

And then—she stopped altogether.

Her breath stuttered.

The world tilted.

The air was wrong.

Too sweet. Too full. It pressed against Pecola's skin like wet silk, clinging to her neck, sliding down her spine. The scent of honeysuckle wasn't perfume anymore—it was invasion, coating her lungs, forcing itself into every breath.

Colors screamed at her.

The forest pulsed with impossible light. Leaves glowed with toxic vibrance. Flowers opened and shut like mouths gasping. Every dewdrop caught the light like a weapon.

Even her own skin felt like it didn't belong to her.

She flinched, dragging her shawl tighter across her shoulders. Birds exploded into the air with a shriek so sharp she nearly dropped to her knees. Their wings sounded like blades. Even the rustling of leaves—gentle, harmless—rattled her bones like a slap.

The world was too much.

And inside her?

Worse.

Her emotions churned like a pot about to boil over. Antic's laugh—a sound that once soothed her like moonlight on water—now buzzed under her skin. Too loud. Too hot.

She could feel every step he took before she heard it.

That wasn't normal.That wasn't safe.

She wasn't safe. Not from the world, and definitely not from whatever was happening inside her chest.

And then—his hand.

Warm.

Familiar.

Real.

His fingers wrapped gently around hers, like they'd done it a thousand times before. His grip wasn't tight. It didn't need to be.

Her pulse stuttered like a skipped note.

Antic's voice—when it came—was low. A velvet murmur against the sensory chaos.

"Pecola…" he said, the syllables drawn like a secret. "You're burning up."

She looked at him. Or... felt him. Her eyes didn't work the way his did, but her senses were too raw to need sight. His heat. His shape. His scent—sun-warmed bark, moss, smoke, and boy.

He knelt down. His palm hovered near her cheek, not touching yet, just close enough to threaten a touch.

"You're overloaded," he said, calm. "C'mere."

He pulled her gently through the trees, into a part of the forest where light didn't scream. The air here was damp and loamy, thick with decay and quiet. Mushrooms carpeted the ground in velvet hush. Somewhere, water trickled.

The world dulled. Just enough.

"Sit," Antic said, nodding at a moss-covered stone like it was a throne.

She sat.

He knelt in front of her, his presence a steady flame.

"Close your eyes," he murmured. "Don't fight it. Just breathe. I've got you."

Pecola obeyed. Her hands clenched in her lap. Her breath came shallow. Her bones still buzzed.

Antic's fingers brushed her wrist.

Just one stroke.

Slow. Feather-light.

"Let's start small," he whispered. "One sound. Just one. Can you hear the water?"

She focused.

The stream, yes. It pulsed like a distant heartbeat.

"Good," he said. "Now the leaves."

Another layer. Softer. A shiver more than a sound.

He took her through it, one detail at a time. His voice—a smooth, breathy baritone—curled into her ears like smoke under a door.

Birds turned from screams to background singers.

The forest, once unbearable, began to hum instead of scream.

"Next," Antic said, standing. "Smell."

He offered his hand.

She took it.

Heat jumped between their palms like a spark trying to become a fire.

He led her to a patch of wildflowers—honeysuckle, roses, bitter herbs. She flinched.

"I know," he said. "Too much. Don't force it. One at a time."

He pulled a petal from a rose, crushed it gently between his fingers, and held it to her.

The scent hit her slowly. Sharp. Clean. Honest.

She exhaled.

"Good girl," he said, so softly she almost didn't hear it.

Almost.

He didn't see the way her fingers clenched.

Then came touch.

He brought her to a stream, dipped her hands into the icy flow, and dragged her palms across a smooth stone.

"This is what cold feels like," he said, eyes watching her. "Not panic. Not pain. Just cold."

Her breath caught.

He moved her hand again—over bark, over petals, over moss. Her skin tingled, but not in fear now. In focus.

In trust.

He never rushed her. Never said too much. Just guided. Just stayed close. Closer than close. Close enough that if she tilted forward, her lips might brush his jaw. That if he moved wrong, they'd both fall into something they couldn't climb out of.

She didn't move.

Neither did he.

They continued like that—hours, maybe. She forgot the screaming of the world.

She heard only him.

By sunset, the Wildlife Realm had become something else.

No longer loud.

Just alive.

The waterfall sparkled, droplets kissing the stones like lovers. Fields of wildflowers burst with color she could now feelinstead of fight. Butterflies hovered like painted ghosts.

He showed her a grove of glowing mushrooms.

A glade of gold-lit trees.

A secret hill where the air buzzed with bees and the smell of crushed mint.

Each place was chosen for her.

Each moment, a brushstroke in a painting no one else could see.

And at the end of it, they sat.

Side by side. On a blanket of moss.

His hand on hers.

Their shoulders pressed.

And the silence wasn't silence anymore. It was music.

"See, Pecola?" he whispered. "The world's not too much. It just wants to be heard."

She turned her head. She couldn't see him. But she felt the words. The breath that carried them. The warmth behind them.

Something shifted in her. Not violently. Not in fear.

Just... softened.

She didn't say anything back.

But she didn't pull away either.

And that silence said enough.

The realization dawned on Pecola like the sunrise, slow and then all at once. It wasn't just the Wildlife Realm amplifying her senses; it was Antic. His presence, his touch, his very being, was the catalyst—the source of both the overwhelming intensity and the startling calm she'd found. His love, a raw and untamed thing that she still didn't fully understand, was both the storm and the silence that followed.

It terrified her. And yet, like stepping off the edge of a high branch with no wings, she didn't want to step back.

The panic ebbed. A quiet hum settled beneath her skin. Yes, she still felt like her nerves were fire-threaded wires—but Antic's presence had turned the static into something like... music. Disorienting, sure. Unfamiliar. But not unkind.

She looked at him. He was watching her again, his dark green eyes soft and too sharp at once. The kind of gaze that made her feel like she was a poem being read by someone who liked the parts nobody else noticed.

Sunlight filtered through the canopy, turning his black hair to ink and bronze. And just like that, she wanted to say everything.

She didn't.

Instead, she gave him a tiny, crooked smile. One that said thank you and I might be falling apart and I trust you to catch me all at once.

Antic didn't say anything either. He didn't need to. He just slid his hand into hers—warm, callused, real. The contact grounded her, centered her. In the silence that followed, a new kind of language bloomed between them: quiet, wordless, deeper than sound.

Time slipped. The grove wrapped around them like an embrace. By the time the sun was fading behind the canopy, the worst of the sensory storm had passed. Pecola felt... clearer. Her mind wasn't screaming anymore. Her heart still was—but that felt okay.

As they made their way back toward the dorm, the world sharpened around the edges but didn't cut. It welcomed her. For the first time, it felt like she could walk without flinching at every detail.

Antic's dorm hadn't improved. In fact, Dolly had made it worse.

Books were flung into new, suspicious piles. A hat rack was somehow now hosting six mismatched boots. The skull-shaped candle holder had been turned into a crude throne for what looked like a taxidermied squirrel wearing lipstick.

Dolly stood proudly in the middle of it all, flipping through a leather-bound grimoire the size of a coffin lid.

"Where the hell did you find that?" Antic blinked.

"Buried under your collection of 'rare beetle funerary masks,'" Dolly said with a sniff. "You're welcome."

Pecola tilted her head toward the book, her fingers itching toward the cover.

Antic was already moving. He crouched beside Dolly and gently turned the brittle pages, his eyes scanning faster with each flick.

There. Ink faded, but still legible. A map of realms—and on it, spectral clusters. Breath clusters.

Evergreena.

A soft curse escaped him. He looked at Pecola. "I know where they are. Or... where they're going to be."

That was all she needed.

Dolly, in true Dolly fashion, crossed her arms and kicked the two of them—figuratively and almost literally—out the door. "You want that map? Find it. I'm not carrying your overgrown boyfriend through three dimensions while you have a telepathic panic attack."

As Antic and Pecola stepped out, he smirked. "Did you hear Grin's apparently in some kind of secret monster support group now? He said nothing about it, and suddenly he's meditating and gardening. I think they brainwashed him with crystals or something."

Pecola blinked. "I like crystals."

"Exactly," Antic whispered, mock grim. "They got to you too."

They were moving again within minutes. Their laughter echoed off the dorm walls as they left.

As they crossed into the deeper woods, the air shimmered faintly, bending like heat. Pecola walked without stumbling now. She didn't flinch when a low wind howled through the tall glass-blade grass. The forest was alive, vibrant—but no longer unbearable. Her senses, once raw, now felt like tuned instruments. Antic walked beside her, quiet, for once not filling the silence with jokes.

Somewhere between the trees, their mission waited. The map wasn't just a discovery—it was momentum, the next step in something much bigger.

Meanwhile, Grin stood in the dim antechamber of the Whispering Grotto, staring at the woven welcome mat that read "Please Remove Curses Before Entering."

He hadn't meant to come back so soon. But something pulled him. Not duty. Not habit. Something like... hope.

The group was already gathering. Bartholomew the ogre waved him over, mid-conversation with a banshee who was trying to teach her howl to hit opera notes. Vlad the vampire was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and pruning what looked suspiciously like a corpse flower.

They greeted him like he was one of them. Because, he realized, he was.

Still, it was time.

He cleared his throat. "Alright, weirdos. I'm heading out for a bit."

A sprite zoomed up. "Are you dying again?"

"No. I'm going into the forest. To help some... friends."

The banshee let out a soft 'awww'. Vlad looked mildly betrayed. "Without inviting me?"

"Next time," Grin said. "Promise."

Bartholomew stepped forward and pressed something into his hand. A tiny knit pouch. Inside: dried lavender, three rune pebbles, and a charm shaped like a skull with tiny heart eyes.

Grin stared.

"Protection charm," Bartholomew said. "And maybe a reminder. That you belong."

He lingered a moment longer. The glowing fungi lit the path behind him like distant stars. It was hard to walk away from something good.

But it was time to walk toward something better.

He adjusted his cloak and turned toward the woods. "Don't wait up," he muttered.

Then, with a flick of his cloak, he stepped into the trees. Toward the chaos. Toward the noise. Toward the people who'd changed everything without meaning to.

Toward his people.