We ran through that cured chaotic jungle that was formerly Crescent Moon Academy's Black Hall.

Shion. Me. And Yuki floated ahead like the world's most judgmental weather balloon.

The hallway was a war zone. Streamers tangled in ceiling fans, glitter dust storms erupted beside a crying umbrella. A nekomata in full Gothic Lolita regalia did a TikTok dance with a cursed mop.

Everything smelled like incense, cheap vape juice, and bad decisions.

But we ran towards the copy room as though our sanity depended on it because what was left of it did.

Skuzz was halfway down the corridor, limping with purpose. He clutched the stack of cursed yearbook negatives with his remaining hand.

Apparently he'd dropped his other arm somewhere by the vending machine spirit.

Yuki turned her head over her shoulder, hair streaming like wind through spider silk.

"I've got this," she said, dead serious.

I had no idea what she had planned. I was having enough trouble dodging random yokai as I tried to keep up with her.

Yuki floated effortlessly through anything in her way.

She surged forward—fast for a ghost—and spun midair, arms wide.

A flurry of frost bloomed around her. The air crackled and the temperature dropped quickly. Lockers frosted over.

And Skuzz struggled to keep his balance through the ice and snow.

One of the kappa slipped on a new patch of ice and screamed "Yuri on Ice!" before slamming face-first into a recycling bin.

He barely missed Skuzz.

The hallway was freezing. I could see my breath.

And it was awesome.

"Holy Crescent Moon Ice pageant," I said, skidding to a stop behind her. "That was so cool."

"The coolest" Yuki said, proud and icy.

But Shion wasn't impressed.

She stomped forward, barely slowing down.

"You could've just hit the fire alarm and triggered the sprinklers," she said flatly.

I blinked. "Then why didn't you?"

She gave me a look like I'd just asked her why water was wet. "Why didn't you, genius?"

Fair.

"Shion, where'd Skuzz go?" I asked. "He was just here!"

She pointed past my shoulder.

We turned the corner together just as Skuzz reached the copy room door. His bony hand grasped the knob.

For a second, I thought we were too late.

But he just stopped at the open door.

The three of us caught up to Skuzz.

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At least, as close to him as we dared, but he didn't walk into the copy room.

He just stood there.

"Skuzz?" I asked.

He stared at the copy machine like it had just broken his heart. Which was probably stitched together with floss and superglue.

"Why'd you stop?" Shion demanded.

And then—with the sound of wet Velcro—his severed hand fell off, slapping the ground in a pile of grainy photo negatives.

Skuzz stared at it like he'd just dropped his favorite sandwich.

"So," he said. "My hand."

He crouched to grab it. Picked it up gently, brushing the student pictures off like they were crumbs on a corpse. Then he turned back to us and held up the mess.

"Ryu-kun, be a pal," he said. "Can you help me duct tape this back on?"

Yuki immediately threw herself in front of me like a human (ghost) shield.

"No! Don't get near that thing!" she shouted.

Her voice echoed off the hallway walls.

At least, it did for those sensitive enough to hear a ghost speak, so about 1/3 of us heard Yuki.

But ALL of us heard the familiar squelch, the bitter muttering, the sound of someone who liked dragging their dirty fingernails across a chalkboard and getting pissed about it.

Obie the Bitter Dwarf waddled into view, holding a roll of duct tape in one hand and a dented lunchbox in the other.

"I'll help him," he grunted. "Only 'cause I like this one's idea."

He jabbed a thumb at me. "Lettin' students dress how they want? In THIS madhouse?"

He snorted in approval.

"That takes balls."

He looked me dead in the eyes.

"And I respect balls. You hear me, lad? I respect balls."

"Um… thanks?" I said.

He nodded like we'd just shared a beer in a back alley and sealed a blood pact.

Obie reached for Skuzz's missing hand with the grace of someone performing surgery in a truck stop bathroom and slapped on three full strips of duct tape. Industrial grade. Probably cursed.

Maybe just sticky enough to hold off the end times.

Skuzz flexed. His arm wobbled but held.

"It's not perfect," he rasped, "but it's got character."

He blinked. Shook his hand.

And he used it to point at the Crescent Moon Academy's one and only copy machine.

"There's no point in picking up the pictures," he said.

Nothing.

Then a small, laminated sign fell off the top of the copy mahine and fluttered to the floor.

OUT OF ORDER.

Of course it was.

Shion took a quick breath just so she could laugh.

"The machine's down?"

Skuzz looked at the duct tapped hand again. Then at the stack of photos.

Then, finally, at us.

"…Well, back to the old drawing board" he said.

I wasn't finished.

"Skuzz," I said. "Why the hell are you trying to spread madness in the first place? I mean, what do you get out of it?"

He just shrugged, like the answer was obvious.

"Kid, when you've been undead for as long as I have, you start falling to pieces. These yearbook photos? Hell, they're memories of when you're young. Fresh! All this unrealized potential!"

I nodded.

"Yeah, okay. And with the curse of madness and Necronomicon and all that stuff… what's that have to do with it?"

He grinned.

A cockroach crawled out from between his teeth.

"Someday, you'll look back at these pictures and realize, in a way NONE of you can now, just how cool you actually were. And maybe you'll laugh. Maybe you'll tear up, but hopefully you'll remember that you did okay after all. Or it'll drive you mad."

"I think you're just mad the copier's down," Shion said.

Later That Night

Back at Shin'yume-sou

I sat at the tiny desk by my futon, a sheet of paper in front of me, blank and waiting. My hand hovered over it for a while before I started to write.

Dear Mom,

I'm sorry I haven't written sooner. Things have been a little… weird at Crescent Moon Academy.

We had a cursed yearbook. Long story.

There's a zombie named Skuzz. Also a haunted vending machine. And a girl who may or may not be my soulmate tried to physically assault an entire hallway by manifesting her ghostly energy into a snowstorm.

You'd love her.

But that's not what this letter's about.

It's about family.

We don't always get to pick our family.

Sometimes we get thrown into it like a kid into the deep end—flailing, gasping, and hoping someone's there to grab our arm when we start to sink.

Just like you and Dad used to do for me when I was younger.

And honestly? Sometimes that's better than the family we're born into.

Because the people we choose, the ones we fight beside, laugh with, scream at, and somehow still walk home with—they become our family.

It doesn't matter how weird, broken, or insane they are.

What matters is that we try to love each other.

Even if it's messy.

Even if it's hard.

Even if the love has to claw its way through layers of sarcasm, trauma, staples and duct tape, or even Hell.

Because eventually… some of it gets through.

And that's a miracle that you and Dad kept trying.

Thank you for that, because you didn't have to. I'll NEVER forget it.

Love, Ryu

Yuki floated into the room, looking over my shoulder.

She didn't say anything.

But I saw her smile.

And I knew in a few moments we'd be meditating.

We'd be together, and that was enough.

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