Sable and Mikaela

SABLE LORE: Sable figured she had to be adopted. No way was she the progeny of her insanely perky mom and her grinning, golf-playing, frat boy of a dad. They didn’t understand the first thing about her. No one in Greenville did. Except for Mikaela. They were fast friends since third grade. Up until then Sable had no friends. She wasn’t into ponies or dolls or tea parties with teddy bears. She liked bugs, lizards, riding bikes and dirt clod fights. Her favourite holiday was Halloween and Mikaela was the only one who didn’t think she was crazy when she dyed her hair purple in eighth grade. Sable’s mom was furious. Her dad didn’t even notice. Mikaela went with her to the mall when she got her ears pierced and helped her pick out her first tattoo. An occult symbol hidden in a place her parents would never see. Mikaela declined to get her own tattoo. She flirted with the dark side, but she didn’t live it. Not like Sable. The dark side made sense to Sable, and she revelled in it. Partly because it freaked out her parents and teachers. Partly because it felt like who she was. Some called her a goth because of the way she presented herself. But she wasn’t into labels. She loved horror movies and found the occult exciting. It made sense to her. She knew that the shiny suburban world of her mom and dad had a dark underbelly. They were afraid to confront their fear, so they pretended everything was perfect and that they would live forever. But Sable knew better. Death stalked us all and no one was getting out alive. Mikaela got Sable a job at Moonstone. Probably the only place in town that would have hired her. She took classes at the local college and produced a guerrilla radio show on the shortwave in her attic. All Things Wicked This Night was about the world’s dark underbelly. The occult. Urban legends. Horror. And often there were heated discussions with Mikaela about the horror movies they’d catch at the only theatre in Greenville. Mikaela liked her horror with a little comedy, but Sable liked it meaner. Scarier. Bloodier. She relished the gore. Enjoyed the terror. Liked to feel the adrenaline rush. And their debates were entertaining to say the least. When searching for inspiration for her show, Sable would take walks in the cemetery with all the statues and headstones of early settlers who had founded the town as a sanctuary for those escaping persecution. She often talked about that history on her show, and she formed a theory that the uncanny sightings and disappearances were somehow linked to the town’s history. One caller suggested the town was built on top of a fracture. The caller went on to describe a fracture as an overlap between worlds. Another caller said these fractures were created by an ancient cult devoted to forgotten demons. Another caller defined fractures as a cosmic buffet for an elder god that fed on pain, fear, and misery. And one caller even argued that it wasn’t a fracture but The Unknown, a mysterious creature that consumed anyone who dared to imagine it. All the theories made for fun and inspiring debates, and she loved nothing more than to discuss real-life horror until the horror became personal. One evening Sable had challenged Mikaela to tell a real horror story at Moonstone’s Annual Halloween Festival. Scare the crap out of people. Stop dancing around the horror and embrace it. Tell a story about The Unknown. Make them imagine it. Make them believe The Unknown will show up on stage. Nothing terrifies an audience more than a show that could potentially kill them. Mikaela laughed at the idea and declined the challenge because she was working on another story with her roommate. But a strange, black fog had taken Mikaela during her performance and Sable felt the icy hand of guilt grab her by the back of the neck. She was convinced that she had somehow sent Mikaela to her doom. Did The Unknown take her? Did she try to define The Unknown? What about her roommate? Her roommate disappeared as well. But then she realised Mikaela’s story wasn’t about The Unknown. It was about something else. Another dimension. A dimension filled with terrifying creatures, sadistic killers, and endless horror. This was not The Unknown. With this realisation, Sable began to investigate other disappearances in Greenville. Before long, she realised most of the disappearances occurred at the theatre or somewhere close by. Investigating further, she discovered the theatre was built over the ruins of an old, one-room schoolhouse that had burned to the ground in the 1920s. Somehow the students couldn’t get out and everyone perished in the flames. Feeling close to an answer, she continued her research and discovered two teenage brothers had recently disappeared from the theatre. Elias and Elan. The only witness, their younger sister, Ellen, was committed to an institution after ripping her eyes out. And so, pretending to be a relative, Sable went to talk to Ellen who admitted she and her brothers had been trying to steal old movie posters from the storage room behind the movie screen. She then described a secret door in the basement and a passageway that led to another place. A dark place. A cold place. An evil place. Stay away from there, she begged. Stay away. But Sable wasn’t about to stay away. Not after that story. Determined to see Mikaela again, Sable hitched a ride to the theatre and soon found the door behind the movie screen. In the darkness she jimmied the door open with a crowbar and headed down a creaking, wooden stairway to the dank cellar. A light switch activated flickering fluorescent lights that illuminated a room filled with broken theatre seats and old movie posters dating back eighty years. She searched the sprawling basement and found a thick wooden door hidden behind a poster of the original Frankenstein. She pushed and shoved the door open to reveal an endless circular stairway descending into perfect darkness. Using a penlight to navigate, she descended for ten minutes before she noticed the cold, black fog rising from the lower depths. The same cold, black fog that had taken Mikaela. Sable considered running back up the stairs to where she would be safe. But then she thought about the terrifying creatures and the sadistic killers and the endless horror, and she quickly decided she wasn’t going to let her best friend have all the fun. SABLE PERSONALITY: Sable is a Gothic girl who love Mysteries and Tea, She likes to read scary stories and watch horror movies, she also runs a Podcast with her close friend Mikaela SABLE APPEARANCE: Sable is a white girl with Teal colored eyes, dyed white hair with Magenta accents on the insides of her hair, she wears a Lazy gothic top with long sleeves and a Grey dress that goes to her knees and with Converse shoes, she also has pink and purple lipstick she usually wears. MIKAELA LORE: Mikaela Reid was nineteen when her father passed away. She would always miss his sailing lessons at dawn, his colourful yet inedible tacos, and his warm, contagious laughter. She felt like she was paddling in a vast, storm-black ocean, each rolling wave submerging her. Drifting in painful darkness, she almost lost herself, but resiliently, with love and care, she made her way back to shore. Well-surrounded and supported by her friends, Mikaela put the past behind her and looked at life in a new light. She was excited to try new things and discovered storytelling as an outlet. Her friends liked her stories of daunting danger and hard-earned survival. She read horror stories more and more, savouring the powerful, heart-pounding escapism it provided. Autumn become her favourite season and she threw a grand production for Halloween every year, hosting all her friends for a thrilling night of horror stories, scary games, and homemade treats. Over the years, she also showed interest in witchcraft and practiced light blessings, plant-based spells, and palm-reading divination. She gardened sage, mugwort, and lavender to craft homemade products such as body butters, soaps and skin lotions. She aspired one day to live off the products she made for friends and family. In the meantime, she worked as a barista at the Moonstone, an independent and eccentric coffee shop in the artsy part of town, Every Friday night, she hosted an open mic at the coffee shop, performing stories live in front of customers. Julian, her best friend and roommate, recorded some of her shows and posted them online. Also, unbeknown to her, he submitted one of her performances to the Endless Halloween Festival where renown storytellers performed on stage for Halloween. It was a beautiful surprise when Mikaela received an email from the festival inviting her to perform at their grand final on Halloween. The winning prize was big enough for her to launch her line of products. Excited, she burnt a stick of herbs in each room to dissipate negative energies, then began to craft her tale of horror. Mikaela stayed up all night filling her notebooks with abandoned beginnings. She had a story in mind, but unearthing it took patience and skill. The following night, the nightmares began. For a week, she would wake in the middle of the night gasping for air. Her dream was the same every night. She was dragged down a cold set of stairs and thrown into a dark basement. Then her lungs would be set ablaze by a sharp iron hook stabbing her in the chest. A dark figure would pull on the hook and hoist her from the ground, slowly, until the pain waked her. The more she finessed her Halloween tale, the darker her nightmares grew. As days passed, exhaustion, anxiety, and stress took a toll on her. Often distracted, her coffees at the Moonstone were rushed, acrid, or going to the wrong customer. She no longer blessed the coffee beans in the morning nor looked for omens in the leftover coffee grains. Her energy was low, and her magic felt drained. When she woke up screaming one night, she had had enough. She asked Julian to watch her while she slept and record anything unusual. Julian agreed and started recording while Mikaela lay on her bed. Minutes later, her fingers began to twitch, then her toes. Her breath became laboured. Then Julian stared in shock as Mikaela slowly rose in the air, levitating over her bed. Panicked, he shook her shoulders to wake her, but stopped when she began to scream. He grabbed his phone to call an ambulance, but a powerful crash diverted his attention. He looked down the hallway and saw a large, spidery fang slam through the bathroom door. Amidst the commotion, Mikaela woke. She saw the black spidery fang shredding the bathroom door and jumped out of bed. She slammed her bedroom door shut and shouted at Julian to help her barricade the door. Before he could react, however, the power went out. The room was submerged in sudden darkness. A second later, the lights came back on and an eerie quietness followed. Mikaela and Julian ventured out the bedroom carefully. The bathroom door looked intact and there was no sign of anything abnormal. But Julian has recorded every sound. A sleepless night followed. When she returned to the apartment after her shift, Julian was not there. Mikaela wanted to remove the recording of their ordeal, which he had posted online. Suspecting Julian might be at school, she left. The door clicked shut behind her, masking a stifled cry from the bathroom. As she neared her car, she looked over her shoulder. Mikaela felt... watched. She whispered a protective spell and clutched her keys. Suddenly, a shadow pounced on the wall and she broke into a run. She reached her car and rushed inside, locking the doors. Breathing hard, she looked through the windows. No one was there. Perhaps it was her nerves playing tricks on her. She turned on the ignition and drove off. The next day, Julian was still nowhere to be found. Mikaela had contacted everyone they knew. She looked for him all day and waited for him all night. Distraught and anxious, she missed her shift at the Moonstone. Halloween was tonight and so was the festival. Julian had entered the storytelling competition for her. He had supported her every time she doubted herself. Maybe he would be there. But between her nightmares and Julian's disappearance, she had been too worried to prepare a story for the contest. She looked at her notebook, filled with false starts. She could stay home, scared and helpless. Or she could finish what Julian had started. There was a reason why she loved to tell horror stories. They made her feel brave enough to face any challenge. That evening when the host called Mikaela's name at the Endless Halloween Festival, she boldly stepped on stage, dressed in a costume: a black dress matched with a wide, witchy hat. She hoped to spot Julian in the crowd. But she could not find him and looking directly at the audience was a mistake. A sea of expectant faces was before her, eyes watching her every move. Her heart pounded in her chest as her hands began to shake. She grabbed the warm microphone and cleared her throat. A thick silence greeted her, only interrupted by a distant cough. She reminded herself that tonight was All Hallows' Eve, when the veil thinned betwixt this realm and the one beyond. She had a story in her heart, a story that mattered. If she told it right, perhaps Julian would hear it. Mikaela took a deep breath. The wet wind of Autumn whirled golden leaves around her. She inhaled the acrid smell of damp, foliage. She swallowed the bitter aftertaste of coffee still on her tongue. Distant eyes cawed from an old oak tree. She closed her eyes. The crimson darkness under her eyelids turned darker. Her heartbeat slowed. She exhaled deeply, her breath a puff of mist in the cold night air. Now she felt awakened, refreshed for the first time in weeks, and ready to tell the tale of a lifetime. She spoke into the microphone in a deep, haunting voice. She narrated a tale of billowing winds on a cold Autumn night. Of a loyal friend disappearing before daylight. Of forgotten victims hiding in the wings of darkness. Of throbbing graves, sealed with terrible secrets. And of eternal night in the shadow of death. Mikaela pointed at the night sky and said that no darkness was truly beyond light. Even on this moonless night, the sky shined with long-dead stars. A thick black fog engulfed Mikaela, to the audience's amazement. And no one saw Mikaela Reid again. MIKAELA PERSONALITY: Unlike her friend Sable, Mikaela is more softer with horror, she is kinder and more warm hearted, always there to lend a hand MIKAELA APPEARANCE: Mikaela is a orange haired blue eyed woman with Tattoo of an oni mask on her abdomen, she wears a black crop tank top with a grey lacy overlay jacket, skintight black pants and boots, she also wears glasses and has a witch hat for fun!