The deeper the tunnels went, the colder they got.
Not temperature-wise.
Monster High's catacombs were always cold.
This felt different.
The kind of cold that settled in your stomach and stayed there.
The kind that made every laugh sound too loud.
Every shadow look too sharp.
Every bad idea suddenly feel one bad decision away from becoming a catastrophe.
Jackson kept his hood up as he walked behind the others, hands shoved deep into his pockets while the distant sounds of Cleo's growing mob echoed further ahead through the tunnels.
Torchlight flickered across damp stone walls.
Old pipes rattled overhead.
Somewhere deeper in the maze, water dripped steadily into darkness.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
"Okay, seriously," Heath whispered loudly beside him, "if something jumps out at us right now, I'm suing somebody."
"You cannot sue underground tunnel," Abbey said.
"You can sue anybody if you believe in yourself."
"That not how legal system work."
"I dunno, sounds fake."
Clawd groaned softly. "Can you two stop talking for, like, five minutes?"
"No," Heath answered instantly.
"Absolutely not," Abbey agreed.
Jackson almost smiled again.
Almost.
Ahead of them, Frankie kept nervously glancing toward the louder crowd further up the tunnel.
The main group had gotten bigger.
That was the problem.
At first it had just been Cleo.
Manny.
Toralei.
A handful of angry monsters wanting revenge.
Now?
Now it felt like half the school was following them.
Fear spread fast.
Faster than rumors.
Faster than logic.
And once monsters got scared enough—
Jackson swallowed.
He knew how mobs worked.
He'd seen humans do the exact same thing before.
Different words.
Different faces.
Same fear.
Same anger.
Same ugly need to blame somebody.
"You okay, Jackie?"
Frankie's voice snapped him out of it.
Jackson blinked.
"Huh?"
"You've been quiet."
"Oh."
He shrugged awkwardly.
"Just thinking."
Inside his head, Holt groaned.
Dangerous hobby.
Jackson ignored him.
Mostly because Holt wasn't wrong.
Draculaura floated a little closer to the group, lowering her voice.
"I still think we should've gone back to school."
"And let Cleo lead an angry monster mob into New Salem alone?" Clawd asked.
"…Okay, when you say it out loud it sounds worse."
"Because it is worse."
Ghoulia let out a low groan of agreement before scribbling quickly in her notebook.
THIS IS HOW RIOTS START.
Everyone went quiet for a second.
Because—
Yeah.
That was exactly what this felt like.
Further ahead, Cleo's voice echoed dramatically through the tunnels.
"It's this way! It'll take us right next to the normie high school!"
A wave of excited cheers followed.
Jackson felt his stomach twist.
Holt shifted uneasily in the back of his mind.
This is bad, Jackie.
"I know."
No, like—
Holt hesitated.
Like really bad.
Jackson didn't answer.
Because he knew that too.
The tunnels narrowed suddenly, forcing everybody into tighter groups.
Abbey ducked slightly under a low stone archway.
Heath immediately smacked directly into it.
THUNK.
"OW!"
"You okay?" Frankie winced.
"No! My brain just rebooted!"
Clawd snorted.
"That assumes there was anything up there to damage."
"Rude."
"Accurate," Abbey corrected.
Toralei glanced back from farther ahead.
"Would you losers keep it down?"
"Would you stop sounding like a cartoon villain?" Heath shot back.
Toralei hissed under her breath.
Jackson noticed something then.
Even Toralei looked nervous.
Not angry.
Not smug.
Nervous.
Her tail kept flicking sharply behind her.
Her ears twitched at every sound.
Fear again.
Everybody was scared.
Some monsters just hid it better than others.
Then—
A horrible smell hit them.
Everyone recoiled instantly.
"Oh my ghoul," Draculaura gagged.
"What IS that?" Frankie asked.
Abbey grimaced.
"Smells like rotting yak foot."
"That is disturbingly specific," Clawd muttered.
Heath sniffed once.
Then immediately regretted it.
"Oh dude, I think my eyebrows just melted."
Up ahead, somebody hissed loudly.
"Shh!"
The crowd slowed.
Then stopped completely.
Jackson's group exchanged uneasy looks before carefully moving forward through the final stretch of tunnel.
And then—
Moonlight.
Fresh air.
The tunnel exit opened behind a cluster of dead bushes overlooking the edge of New Salem.
The human town stretched beyond the trees, quiet under the night sky.
Streetlights glowed gold.
Cars passed distantly.
Porch lights flickered across rows of suburban houses.
And directly ahead—
New Salem High School.
Its brick walls loomed across the street.
Several monsters crept closer.
Manny squinted toward the front entrance.
Then stopped.
"…Fang on a second."
Everyone looked up.
A massive graffiti symbol had been spray-painted across the school wall in dripping neon colors.
MONSTERS RULE THE NITE!
Silence.
Then Heath let out an impressed whistle.
"Hot dang."
Toralei blinked slowly.
"…Okay, that's actually kinda hardcore."
"That way better than what we were gonna do," another monster muttered.
Cleo stared at the graffiti.
Confused.
"That wasn't us."
Jackson's stomach dropped immediately.
"Oh no," Frankie whispered.
Clawd cursed under his breath.
Holt tensed hard inside Jackson's head.
Jackie—
"I know."
Because this?
This was exactly the kind of thing scared humans would blame on every monster in town.
And right on cue—
FLASHLIGHTS.
"ALL RIGHT, MONSTERS, FREEZE!"
Everybody jumped.
Police cars screamed around the corner.
Blue and red lights exploded across the school walls.
Doors slammed open.
Officers poured into the parking lot.
Weapons already drawn.
Jackson froze.
So did everyone else.
For one horrible second, nobody moved.
Then Manny panicked.
"They think we did this?!"
"Well we ARE standing directly under it!" Heath yelled.
"What do we do?!" Frankie cried.
One officer pointed directly at them.
"ON THE GROUND! NOW!"
Another shouted into a radio.
"We got multiple monster suspects outside New Salem High!"
Jackson's heart nearly stopped.
And suddenly—
Everything moved at once.
"I GOT AN IDEA!" Heath screamed.
Everybody looked at him desperately.
"RUN!"
And chaos exploded.
Monsters scattered in every direction.
Police shouted.
Flashlights swung wildly through the dark.
Somebody crashed directly into a trash can.
Draculaura grabbed Frankie's wrist and yanked her behind a parked car.
Clawd tackled Heath out of the path of an officer sprinting toward them.
Abbey punched open a locked gate instead of climbing it.
Toralei vanished over a fence with feline speed.
Jackson ran.
Pure instinct.
His shoes slammed hard against pavement as adrenaline flooded every nerve in his body.
Behind him—
"HEY! COME BACK HERE!"
"DON'T LET THEM ESCAPE!"
"MOVE MOVE MOVE!"
Police sirens screamed louder.
Jackson's breathing turned ragged instantly.
Holt sounded alarmed now.
Jackie, GO LEFT!
Jackson swerved hard between two parked cars just as a flashlight beam sliced past where his face had been.
Nearby, Frankie yelled in panic.
"We better see if we can help them!"
"Oh yeah?!" Clawd shouted back while running. "How exactly?!"
"I DON'T KNOW!"
A police officer's voice roared through a megaphone somewhere behind them.
"ALL UNITS, SCOUR THIS PLACE UNTIL YOU FIND THEM!"
Another voice barked back:
"I WANT NO STONE UNTURNED!"
Then a third officer yelled:
"NOT LITERALLY, YOU BUNCHA KNUCKLEHEADS!"
Even in the middle of absolute terror—
Heath still managed to yell:
"That guy sounds exactly like a movie cop!"
"NOW GO GET THOSE MONSTERS!" the sheriff roared. "GO GO GO!"
Jackson's lungs burned.
Everything blurred.
Lights.
Noise.
Footsteps.
Fear.
He lost sight of Frankie first.
Then Clawd.
Then everybody else.
The group scattered apart through the streets like sparks from a firework.
Jackson turned sharply down another road—
—and stopped dead.
A giant storefront window stood ahead.
Delicate porcelain dishes filled every display.
Painted teacups.
Glass statues.
Fancy plates.
A massive sign overhead read:
NEW SALEM CHINA & CERAMICS
And directly beside him—
Manny skidded to a stop.
The minotaur looked at the shop.
Then at Jackson.
Then back at the shop.
Slowly.
Horribly.
"…China shop?"
Jackson's eyes widened immediately.
"Oh no."
Manny stared at the doors with growing horror.
"…Uh oh."
---
Jackson did not stay to watch the disaster happen.
The second Manny's horrified face turned toward the giant glass windows of the china shop—
Jackson bolted.
"JACKSON WAIT—"
CRASH.
The sound that exploded behind him was so unbelievably catastrophic that Jackson physically flinched mid-run.
Glass shattered.
Metal groaned.
Porcelain detonated like fireworks.
Somebody screamed.
Then Manny screamed louder.
"IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!"
Another crash answered him.
Jackson didn't look back.
Couldn't look back.
Because honestly?
If he saw what Manny was doing to that building, he might actually pass out at his rate.
His shoes slammed against the pavement as he sprinted deeper into the human side of New Salem, lungs burning hard now from panic and cold night air.
Streetlights streaked overhead.
Every distant siren made his stomach lurch harder.
Behind him, Holt sounded somewhere between horrified and hysterically amused.
Oh my ghoul.
"Manny's so dead," Jackson gasped between breaths.
That shop owner is gonna mount his head on a wall.
"I'm serious!"
I KNOW, THAT'S THE PROBLEM!
Jackson cut sharply through another side street.
Then another.
Then another.
And suddenly—
The city noise started fading.
The streets got quieter.
Bigger houses.
Neater lawns.
Warm yellow porch lights glowing softly in windows.
Suburban neighborhood.
Jackson finally slowed slightly, doubling over with both hands on his knees as he struggled to breathe.
His entire body shook with adrenaline.
His chest hurt.
His legs hurt.
Everything hurt.
Far away, police sirens still echoed through town.
Too close.
Way too close.
Jackson swallowed hard and pulled his hood lower over his face instinctively.
He hated this.
Every second of this.
Monster High suddenly felt very, very far away.
Inside his head, Holt had gone quiet again.
Not fully silent.
Just listening.
Thinking.
Watching.
Jackson straightened slowly and glanced around the unfamiliar neighborhood.
Rows of houses lined the street.
Halloween decorations covered nearly every lawn.
Fake skeletons hung from trees.
Plastic tombstones dotted front yards.
Orange lights glowed from windows.
Laughing humans drifted from house to house in costumes.
And somehow—
Somehow that made it feel worse.
Because everybody here was pretending monsters were fake.
While actual monsters were being chased through their town by police.
Jackson rubbed hard at his face.
"…This is such a disaster."
No argument from Holt.
Then—
Voices nearby.
Jackson immediately ducked behind a hedge.
---
Everybody looked awful.
Out of breath.
Dirty.
Panicked.
Frankie's hair was frizzing violently from stress electricity.
Heath's flames flickered unevenly around his head.
Draculaura kept glancing over her shoulder every three seconds like she expected police to appear any second.
Honestly?
Jackson couldn't blame her.
The group ducked into a narrow alley between two houses.
Jackson stayed hidden nearby, close enough to hear them.
"Shh!" Cleo hissed immediately.
Everybody lowered their voices.
Frankie blinked toward Deuce suddenly.
"Deuce?"
Deuce looked just as startled.
"Frankie? What are YOU doing here?"
Frankie stared at him incredulously.
"We came to try and stop you, Cleo, Manny, Toralei, and the others from doing something crazy!"
Toralei crossed her arms.
"Wow. Rude."
Deuce stepped closer quickly.
"Hey, dude, we didn't do that to the school!"
Frankie blinked.
"What?"
"Somebody already vandalized it before we got there," Deuce explained. "We saw it too."
"Yeah," Heath added. "Somebody beat you to the whole 'bad decision' thing."
Toralei frowned slightly.
"…Okay but who?"
Nobody answered.
Because nobody knew.
Abbey crossed her arms tightly.
"Does not matter."
Everybody looked toward her.
Abbey's expression had gone unusually serious.
"They thinking we did this."
Her accent sharpened slightly when she got upset.
"We must get out of here before police come and throw their books at us."
"That is… unfortunately a very real sentence right now," Frankie muttered weakly.
Clawd nodded quickly.
"Abbey's right."
He glanced around the neighborhood uneasily.
"There's a storm drain that leads back to the catacombs about two blocks from here."
"Wait," Draculaura said hopefully. "Seriously?"
"Yeah. My dad showed it to me once during a full moon tracking lesson."
"Why would your dad show you sewer entrances during bonding time?" Heath asked.
Clawd shrugged.
"Werewolf stuff."
"Honestly? Fair."
"If we stay outta sight," Clawd continued, "I think we can make it."
"Good," Cleo said immediately. "Because standing around in public like this is a terrible idea."
"Little late for terrible ideas," Toralei muttered.
Then—
A human voice suddenly called out from nearby.
"Hey!"
Every monster froze instantly.
Jackson's stomach dropped.
A human teenage boy stood on the sidewalk nearby holding a red plastic cup.
Probably about thier age, no more than sixteen at the most.
Messy brown hair.
Football jacket.
Very human.
Very confused.
He looked between the terrified monsters standing awkwardly in the alley.
"…What are you guys doing out here?"
Nobody answered.
Nobody even breathed.
Then the human boy pointed toward the nearby house.
Music thumped loudly from inside.
Lights flashed through the windows.
"Oh," he said casually. "'Cause the party's in here."
The monsters stared at him blankly.
The boy laughed awkwardly.
"Well," he said, "what are you waiting for?"