Ghoulia decided to visit Draculaura's house after school—not because she particularly wanted to, but because the numbers weren't adding up, and Draculaura had the highest emotional intelligence of anyone at Monster High. Maybe she'd see something Ghoulia couldn't.
Plus she lives on the same street as one of the two boys that's been on her mind recently..
NO NOT IN THAT WAY!
Actually,... where did Holt live?
Anyways, Ghoulia didn't just *visit* people.
Not without a reason.
Not without a question she couldn't solve on her own.
And right now?
She had too many questions—and none of them were behaving.
The walk to Draculaura's house should've been simple.
Same cobblestone street. Same crooked lampposts that flickered like they were telling secrets. Same row of houses that leaned just slightly too far, like they were eavesdropping on each other.
But today?
Everything felt… off.
Not in a loud, obvious way.
In a quiet way.
The kind that made you double-check things you'd never questioned before.
Ghoulia clutched her notebook tighter under her arm, pages filled with neat, precise observations:
Jackson Jekyll → left-handed, messy handwriting, avoids attention
DJ Hyde → right-handed, precise handwriting, seeks attention
Appearances → never at the same time
Her pen tapped against the page.
*Tap. Tap.*
She stopped walking.
Because even that—
Didn't feel right anymore.
"…Rrrgh."
She shook her head and kept moving.
Don't jump ahead.
Just observe.
Draculaura's house rose in front of her—tall, gothic, dramatic in a way that somehow still felt cozy. Black lace curtains framed the windows, and a wrought-iron gate creaked softly in the evening breeze.
Ghoulia barely noticed.
Her thoughts were louder than anything else.
*Why now?*
The rumor had been loud, sure—but rumors were always loud.
What mattered was what came *after*.
And what came after?
Things weren't lining up.
The door opened before she knocked.
"Ghoulia!" Draculaura beamed, immediately pulling her into a side hug. "It's so good to see you, ghoulfriend!"
"Rrrgh," Ghoulia replied.
Translation: *I need your perspective.*
Draculaura blinked, then smiled knowingly. "Oh, this is about Jackie and DJ, isn't it?"
Ghoulia tapped her notebook once.
Yes.
Exactly.
They didn't stay inside.
Instead, Draculaura looped her arm through Ghoulia's and led her back down the street, heels clicking in a steady rhythm.
The sunset stretched long shadows across the ground—orange and purple blending together in that eerie Monster High way that made everything feel a little more dramatic than it needed to be.
"So," Draculaura said, glancing sideways, "you're trying to figure them out too, huh?"
"Rrrgh."
Translation: *They don't make sense.*
Draculaura nodded slowly. "Yeah… I kinda get that."
Ghoulia raised a brow.
That wasn't the answer she expected.
"I mean," Draculaura continued, softer now, "the surprise cousin thing is a bit weird—but that's not what's bothering me."
Ghoulia tapped her pen.
*Continue.*
Draculaura sighed. "It's Jackie."
Her voice shifted—less playful, more honest.
"He's been… not okay lately."
Ghoulia's pen paused mid-air.
"Like," Draculaura went on, "he's been laughing at the wrong times more often lately. Or not at all. And sometimes it's like he's listening to something nobody else can hear. I mean, you've seen him."
Ghoulia's grip tightened on the notebook.
That wasn't data.
That was *feeling*.
And Ghoulia didn't usually rely on feeling.
But that didn't make it irrelevant.
They reached the end of the street.
And there it was.
The Jekyll Family House.
It didn't stand out at first glance.
Just another slightly eerie home in a neighborhood full of them.
But now that Ghoulia was looking?
Really looking?
It felt… quieter.
Like the air around it didn't move the same way.
Draculaura slowed. "He's grounded, you know."
"Rrrgh."
Translation: *I am well aware of that.*
"I just…" Draculaura hesitated. "I feel like he shouldn't be alone right now."
Ghoulia didn't respond.
But she didn't disagree either.
They stepped into the yard.
The grass was damp beneath their feet, cool and slightly uneven. Somewhere in the distance, a zombie groaned—long and low, like background noise in a world that never really went silent.
Ghoulia's eyes lifted.
Three windows.
The middle one—
Half open.
And sitting there—
Was Jackson Jekyll himself.
He looked… small.
Not physically.
But the way he held himself—shoulders drawn in, hands tucked close, like he was trying to take up less space than he actually did.
"Rrrgh," Ghoulia called softly.
Jackson blinked, startled.
Then smiled.
Or tried to.
"Ghoulia," he said simply. "Hey."
His voice was quiet.
Flat.
Like he hadn't used it much today.
Draculaura waved brightly. "Hi, Jackie! We were just passing by!"
Jackson huffed out a small breath. "Yeah? Lucky timing I guess."
He didn't sound convinced.
But he didn't sound unhappy either.
Just… tired.
"You should come out with us," Draculaura offered gently. "Fresh air always helps. We promise not to tell anyone!"
Jackson shook his head almost immediately.
"No, no—I can't," he said quickly. "I'm still grounded after all. And the house is… kind of a mess."
His eyes flicked behind his galsses.
Just for a second.
Too fast.
Ghoulia noticed.
She always noticed.
Even if barely.
"Rrrgh."
She gestured downward.
Translation: *We can stay here if you like Jackson.*
Jackson hesitated for a moment.
Then he slowly nodded.
"…Yeah. That works."
So they talked.
Or they tried to anyways.
Draculaura carried most of the conversation as you could expect—light, easy topics, little jokes meant to pull him out of whatever headspace he was stuck in.
Jackson responded when he could.
But still Ghoulia watched closely as ever.
His left hand rested on the windowsill.
Fingers twitching slightly.
Not in a pattern.
Just… restless, from something.
As if they were interrupting something.
His eyes kept shifting.
Not to them.
To the side.
Behind him.
Like something inside the house was more important than the conversation.
And then—
Ghoulia noticed something else.
The glass.
It reflected the yard.
The sky.
Draculaura's pink and black silhouette.
Ghoulia's own still form.
And Jackson Jekyll hinself.
But not quite right.
It was subtle.
So subtle most people wouldn't even register it.
But Ghoulia did.
Because she was looking for things that didn't fit.
His reflection moved—
Just a fraction of a second *off*.
Not enough to be obvious.
But it was smore than enough to be wrong.
Ghoulia's pen stilled.
"Jackie?" Draculaura said softly as she began to float up to him. "Are you really okay?"
Jackson smiled again as she was almost up to the second floor.
And this time—
It held.
For about half a second.
Then it suddenly dropped as Ghoulia could faintly hear some music suddenly start playing as she hears something fall onto the floor inside.
Not faded.
Not softened.
It just dropped.
Like it had been *taken* away by something.
His eyes widened.
It was fear.
Fear of something.
But is was sharp.
It was was sudden.
And it was very much real.
And for a single, flickering moment—
Ghoulia could've sworn—
There was something else there.
Not a different face.
Not something clear.
Just…
Not the same somehow.
*SLAM.*
The window then suddenly crashed shut.
The sound echoed across the front yard.
Then—
There was only silence.
Draculaura froze.
Ghoulia didn't move.
"…Jackie?" Draculaura called still on the other side of the window, not looking any further in so as to see something she couldn't unsee (Jackson was a nice guy but he was still a teenager) and to respect his privacy.
As much as she wanted to help her friend.
She waited for a response.
But there was no answer.
Ghoulia stared at the glass.
At the reflection.
At the place where something hadn't lined up.
Her notebook felt heavier in her hands.
Because now—
The neat columns of observations didn't feel neat anymore.
They felt even more incomplete than before she decided to visit Draculaura's house.
"Rrrgh…"
Translation:
*That wasn't right at all.*
Draculaura wrapped her arms around herself slightly. "That… wasn't just nerves, was it?"
Ghoulia shook her head.
It was a simple answer.
No.
No it wasn't.
Because nerves didn't do that.
Well, most of the time anyways.
Nerves didn't make reflections ever so slightly lag.
Nerves didn't make expressions just disappear like that.
Nerves didn't make a moment feel like it had just suddenly *slipped* away.
Ghoulia looked down at her notes.
At the clean, logical structure she'd built.
And for the first time in along time, all the way back when she was still a human—
It didn't feel like enough.
Because whatever was going on with Jackson Jekyll—
Whatever connected him to Holt Hyde—
It wasn't something simple.
It wasn't something clean.
It was messy.
Uneven.
Full of gaps and things that almost made sense—
But they just didn't somehow.
And that simple statement?
That bothered Ghoulia more than anything else.
Because she could solve problems.
She could follow patterns.
She could build answers.
But this?
This felt like trying to read a page where half the words kept disappearing.
And no matter how many times she looked—
It just kept getting stranger somehow.
Draculaura then floated back down to Ghoulia on the ground, her usual bubbly energy dampened like a candle flickering in the rain. She opened her mouth—probably to suggest they pretend nothing happened—but Ghoulia was already scribbling in her notebook with frenzied precision. The pen moved in sharp, deliberate strokes, sketching a rough diagram of the window frame with arrows pointing to the glass.
*Reflection delay: 0.8 seconds.*
*Expression shift: involuntary.*
*Possible cause:—*
Her pen hovered over the page, ink bleeding into a question mark that mirrored the twisting in her gut. Ghoulia didn't believe in ghosts—not the jump-scare kind, anyway—but the way Jackson's reflection had *stuttered*? That wasn't just bad glass.
Draculaura's hand landed on her shoulder, cold as midnight. "Maybe we should—"
*Tap-tap-tap.* Ghoulia's pen answered first, circling *0.8 seconds* so hard the paper tore.
Inside the house, something thudded—heavy, like a body hitting the floor.
"JACKIE?!?!?!"