Author's Note: I started listening to creepy podcasts again and caught a case of the spooks. Now it's time for the spooky scary. (I hope this actually does turn out to be scary)

For those of you who have been following When We Were Invincible-first of all, thank you. Secondly, that story is on a break. I have legitimately gotten tired of writing it. 36 chapters, can you blame me? Don't worry, I will be picking it back up at some undisclosed point in the future. Maybe after a week or two. If you've been waiting for an update, sorry. Please be patient :)

As always, leave a review and let me know what you think. Thanks fam.

Now, without further ado, spooks.

I think I first became fascinated with witchers after I heard people talking. People always talk. At the Imperial Academy, it was usually about classes… What was the lecture about in O-Chem yesterday? Was there a quiz? No, I didn't go—I was in bed with a hangover. Did you finish the homework? What did you get for number three? Other times, the conversations became invitations to parties, get-togethers to celebrate the end of the week. And lastly, there was gossip. Who reportedly went home with who last Friday, that weird kid who sat at the back of the lecture hall… shallow, garbage topics like that.

At home, people talked too. I hailed from a town just a few miles away from Castel Graupian and the academy. It was a small, cozy place called Trivant, and while it wasn't as big or rich as its neighboring cities, it was… well, home.

Trivant manufactured textile, so the heart of the town was a cotton mill. It started as that mill, and then the rest of Trivant just kind of grew around it. Eventually, it got large enough to start dividing itself. At the core, nearest the mill, were the lower and middle class. The upper class lived in a ring around the edge.

I came from that outer ring. My parents were well off and could to send me to the Imperial Academy without much hassle. Though that privilege hasn't been lost on me, I do often find myself taking things like classes for granted.

Because people in the outer ring didn't have to busy their hands at the cotton mill, they talked. Gossip, mostly. There wasn't a neighbor in the world that didn't gossip. And because the Coviers were the richest people in town, we gossiped about them most of all.

I didn't know the Coviers. Hell, I didn't think I ever saw them. Most people never did. Old Marci once told us she saw Lady Covier step outside to view the rosebushes, but that was it. And because of that, we all came to the conclusion that they were odd and creepy. Maybe they had something to hide. Maybe they were doing something illegal. And yet, no one bothered to find out the truth. It was much easier, much more fun, just to gossip.

I remember the time when, for once, the Coviers were not the hottest buzz around town. It was during my first year at the Imperial Academy. Being a first year, I was unaccustomed to academy life and was stressed out, so I went home for the weekend to cool down. I came home to gossip about a monster.

And about a witcher.

I never saw him while he was in town to deal with whatever cretin had appeared before him, but that didn't stop me from hearing about him. Until then, no one knew anything about witchers. Then, as soon as he laid his first boot print in Trivant, suddenly self-proclaimed witcher experts started popping up like weeds. I laughed at them and their inflated heads like everyone else. At the same time, I listened to them.

Witchers, they said, used to be men but then underwent experiments and became mutants. Like lab rats, I supposed, except witchers didn't get euthanized in the end. They had cat eyes, superhuman reflexes. They smelled strange. Their accents were weird. And most importantly, they didn't feel. "Like crabs," these 'experts' told me. "Pull off a limb and they writhe in pain, but they don't cry. They don't laugh. They don't hug their mothers."

I found it odd comparing men to crabs, but I didn't know shit about witchers so I couldn't really say anything. And even if I didn't get to see him while he was hard at work saving the town, I managed to catch a glimpse of the witcher just before he left. It was when he was being paid after the job was done. The man paying him was my father's friend, a member of the town's council. I was peering from the window as he, the witcher, and my father stood outside on the long drive that led up to our house.

And, well, despite his cat eyes, his alleged weird smell, and everything else the 'experts' snickered at, that witcher was damn attractive.

I had a weakness for men with big arms. Sorry.

My mother came up behind me and asked me what I was looking at. I told her to go away. But I came away from the window. After that, I never saw the witcher again. He had gone. Their lives were nomadic ones, I was told. They didn't have a home, except wherever they conglomerated come winter.

A strange thought bubbled into my head. They went home for the winter. Just like me.

After that, I went back to the academy. This time I didn't just have a craving to learn about business administration. I became interested in witchers. It was just a healthy curiosity, mind you, not an obsession. Witchers were interesting. They were different. And, for the longest time, I thought they weren't exactly human. So when I say they fascinated me, it was akin to the fascination that many wealthy young girls, my neighbors, had for horses.

When I had the time, I visited professors of anthropology during their office hours to ask about what they knew on witchers. This surprised them. Students who weren't in their classes usually didn't come to talk to them. Students usually didn't ask about witchers. And students usually didn't come to office hours.

I hardly learned anything about witchers from them, but that didn't surprise me. And, as fate would have it, I never did. Over time, as exams and reports consumed my soul, I stopped caring about witchers. I didn't have the time to invest in learning about someone else's life while my own was tearing me a new one.

Eventually the academic rainstorm cleared. In the summer, the academy let out for four weeks to give us a breather. As usual, I went home.

Many strange things happened in those four weeks.

The first happened when I was out with Benji. He was a tiny, fluffy little dog that had cost a fortune. A foreign breed, the dog breeder had told my mother. And like that, she was sold.

Despite his short, stumpy legs, Benji loved to run. My parents weren't very keen on jogging after him. They wanted one of the housekeepers to take care of his daily exercise, but I wouldn't let them do it. I liked taking Benji out, and it was amusing to watch his tiny legs turn into a blur trying to keep up with my pace.

We were on our usual route. It was a scenic one. It went towards the hall used for art galleries and auctions, and we curved around it to exit the outer ring. We would go through a meadow where we could really run. Then we would loop back around, taking a path that came close to Covier Manor. And that's when I saw her.

I only knew who Alani Covier was because of the gossip. When I spotted her as Benji and I approached, I could only guess who she was. Luckily, I was right.

Alani Covier was the youngest out of all the Covier children. I didn't know exactly how old she was, but I estimated she was at least ten years my junior just from looking at her. Surprisingly, she was very friendly when I approached. I'd expected her to not say a word or run away, but she acted as any little girl would. Alani asked if she could pet Benji, and I told her yes. Benji was elated to have his head scratched. We had a friendly little chat. She was a bit shy. I noticed that she had bags under her eyes and asked if she was tired. She mumbled a response as she ruffled her dress.

Benji started growling. Not at me. Not at Alani. Not at anything. I looked down at him, a little vexed. Benji was always growling and snapping at the smallest distractions—a fly buzzing a little too loud, a waving leaf, or a blade of grass that looked at him the wrong way. I nudged him with a foot and he stopped.

I bade farewell to Alani and we went our separate ways. She was a sweet girl, but that wasn't going to stop me from telling my parents, friends, and everyone I knew what had happened. Like I said, we loved to gossip.

Benji and I returned to the house and I put the meeting with Alani Covier behind me… mainly because Benji promptly shit on the foyer rug and I got yelled at for it. In eight or nine years' time, I was looking at an executive seat in an institution or Nilfgaard's Board of Commercial Regulation. I'd be deciding which businesses stayed and which ones faced the block… metaphorically. And yet at home, I was still being scolded over dog shit.

And then things went from strange to horrifying.

If what the coroner said was to be believed, the day I talked to Alani Covier was her last. The next day, she and her entire family were murdered. But no one found out until a week later. Those living closest to the Covier Manor reported an awful stench. When it didn't fade, a couple of men went to the manor to complain. I wasn't with them, but I imagined the smell was unbearable as they marched up to the porch.

They told us later that they hadn't even walked up the first step when they stopped. They could only stare in horror, frozen. Something was leaking out from under the front door. Something dark. Something thick. Old, fetid blood.

Morris Lettle, the father of my childhood friend Louise, claimed he was the first to snap out of their shared shock and hurry up the porch. The others followed quickly after. The sight of the blood spurred a sense of urgency that overcame their manners, and they forced the door open without a moment's hesitation.

The door hit something as it opened. It was heavy. A body.

Alani Covier, it seemed, had been trying to escape when she died. The men told us her hand was stretched out as she lay on the ground, as though she had tried to reach for the door. Her pale, waxy face was stretched into a look of pure terror.

Hers wasn't the only corpse they found. As the men explored the manor, they found the others. And what they saw made them believe more and more that this had been no ordinary murder.

Lady Covier was found at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck. Her eldest son was on the floor of his room, though much of him was also on the wall. The other son's state was no less grisly. Lord Covier's body was tangled in the ballroom chandelier. The bodies of servants were found strewn across the kitchen and living rooms. They found more in the servants' quarters, after they'd broken down the barricaded door. Barricaded.

The gathering around me that was also listening to the men's recounts tittered that the killer must have been a monster. One of those supernatural ones. The men did say they felt a cold, eerie feeling in the air, though at the time they chalked it up to being in a manor full of corpses.

The men returned to the porch to clear their heads with fresh air while one of them ran off to summon the authorities. After the guards came, they helped search the entire manor and collect all the bodies. Morris made one last remark that set the entire gathering alight with excitement.

He emphasized the part of the story where they had searched the entire manor. Then, as they were carrying the last of the bodies out, Morris glanced back at the house.

He said he saw a face in one of the windows. Looking at out him.

It scared him. He shouted, and a couple of guards ran over. But when they looked, the glass was empty. Morris told us he had probably imagined things, as spooked as he was. The gathering agreed, entertained by the chilling story. I was silent. Then, I whispered to my father, excused myself, and stepped out of the living room.

For the past week, I had cared more about the fact that I'd actually talked to Alani Covier rather than what we actually talked about. But now, the details of our conversation flooded back to me. First of all, Benji hadn't been growling at nothing. I had been facing Alani as she stood behind the row of rosebushes, and Benji had growled towards my right. At the manor.

And then there were those bags under Alani's eyes. I'd asked her if she was tired. She admitted to me she was having trouble sleeping. "How come?" I had asked. Her voice had been only a mumble, and the ruffling of her dress covered most of her words. But I'd heard her, and her words suddenly resurfaced in my mind like something horrible and ugly from the bottom of a pond.

"Because the boy in the wall keeps scratching," she had said.