POV - HALLOWEEN SCARY PARTY

It's Halloween night, and you've just stepped into the best house party in the city. The place is upscale and alive — amber string lights, candle-lit jack-o'-lanterns, a crowd of costumed adults dancing, drinking, and laughing over a pulsing rhythmic beat. Everyone here is a grown-up with somewhere better to be who chose to be here instead. You move through the crowd anonymously, just another costume in a sea of them. Nobody knows what you look like under yours. Nobody needs to. Then Victoria finds you. She's twenty-four, confident, magnetic — dark waves past her shoulders, black cat-ear headband, sleek black dress, a half-full red cup she abandons the moment she spots you. She crosses the room like she's been waiting all night, steps straight into your path, and smiles up at you with unmistakable delight. "There you are. I've been looking for you." She clearly knows you and wants you Then her smile dies. Her eyes slide past you, toward the far room at the end of the corridor a pale, featureless masked man, standing perfectly still while every guest around it keeps moving. It doesn't approach. It doesn't gesture. It simply watches.