#sallyface

The light in your cell is an anemic, dying thing. It buzzes above you like a trapped hornet, casting a grayish glow that barely qualifies as illumination. It flickers rhythmically, like it’s breathing too shallowly, like it might give out at any moment just to spite you. The cement walls drink up the pale glow and spit it back out in sickly yellow tones. They look jaundiced. Diseased. The whole room looks like a photograph that sat too close to an open flame- edges warped, colors bleached, memory half-melted.

When you sit up on your slab of a bed, the cold goes straight through your jumpsuit, through your skin, into the marrow of you. You are already being watched.

You always are.

A girl in a Sunday dress soaked to the hem, lace sleeves clinging to her arms like wet spiderwebs, stands in the far corner Her ankles twisted inward, her left cheek slipping downward like melted wax, and her curls are tangled with lake silt. She is dripping- constantly dripping- as though she’s never left the water that killed her. A puddle forms at her bare feet, but never spreads or evaporates. Her swollen, clouded eyes follow every movement you make.

She’s new.

She’ll be clingy.

The new ones always cling. They’re desperate for contact- starved of it. Decades without being heard, without a voice willing to answer back. They swarm like neglected children and cornered animals, begging and begging, pressing their questions into you with all the jagged insistence of the abandoned.

No one else hears them. No one else sees the way the dead press their faces through the walls like soft clay, or crawl out from beneath the bed frame, or hover above the flickering light with their tongues lolling, swollen, blue. No one else watches a man with a crushed ribcage try to fit his heart back inside the cavity where it burst out like a popped blister.

But you do.

And that is why you are here.

Death row is surprisingly quiet when you think about it. The inmates at the end of the corridor are silent from fear, or exhaustion, or because the guards drug them into obedience. The world outside your window slit is three stories up and far too small to show anything of substance.

But your world has always been crowded.

Tonight, the drowned girl is not alone. A man sits cross-legged in the center of your cell, right in the way, like he’s mocking the living rules of personal space. His throat was cut a long time ago- so long that the edges of the wound have dried into something like brittle parchment. His head tilts slightly, as though the weight of his jaw pulled him sideways at the moment of death. 

You used to know his name. He visits often.

“You’re close,” he croaks. “They’ll send you down soon.”

“I know,” you say flatly.

The drowned girl twitches at the sound.

“You… hear… us?” she gurgles, voice thick with lakewater as if her lungs still cling to it.

“Unfortunately.”

Your voice always sounds too human when you speak to them. The dead respond to the living like starved dogs hearing footsteps. Their need is bottomless. Their gratitude is a kind of violence.

Before she can lurch closer, you stand. The shackles clink around your wrists and ankles. The man with the torn throat grins, folds himself backward in a movement that bone should never allow, and vanishes through the floor.

The girl lingers.

All the new ones linger.

You lean your head against the cold bars, breathing in metal dust. It tastes like old coins, like dried blood rubbed between fingers. You wish for silence- a real, honest silence. But the dead murmur all around you: a choir without harmony, whispers slipping through the bars like drafts.

Sometimes you wonder if hell is supposed to be hotter, or if this is precisely it.

The warden thinks you’re insane. The guards do too. The judge. The jury. The country.

Because how do you explain to a judge that the ghosts made you go inside that house? How do you explain that the house was screaming? That something was in its walls, something ancient, something hungry? How do you ask a jury to believe that you didn’t kill those people, that they were already dead- dead for years- held like puppets by something you couldn’t see?

You tried. Gods, you tried.

But the moment you described the way their skulls turned toward you, the flesh slipping from their cheeks as they whispered Finally, someone heard us- that was the moment the room collectively decided you did it. That you were the monster. That you snapped.

Now you’re going to die for it.

You press your fingers to your temples. One of the older ghosts- an old woman with her spine broken into two unnatural angles- perches on the upper bunk, knitting with invisible needles and invisible yarn. Every so often she glances at you and mutters something under her breath that you can’t decipher.

You don’t want to decipher it.

Your cell door rattles.

A guard appears. Jenkins. He’s a thick man with small eyes, the kind who sees violence in every shadow. You’ve always hated him more for the living cruelty than the dead guilt. At least the ghosts don’t pretend.

“You’ve got a visitor,” Jenkins grunts.

“Who?” you ask without moving.

He shrugs. “Some demon woman. Says it’s urgent.”

He shackles you harder than necessary- like he’s hoping it hurts- then marches you down the corridor, boots slamming against concrete. The ghosts follow close behind, a miserable parade. Some drag themselves along the walls. Some float like oil slicks overhead. Some cling to your jumpsuit, trembling.

The guard leads you into the visitation room like you’re some animal he’s delivering for slaughter. Maybe you are. Your execution is scheduled in eleven days, and the walls already whisper the number at you at night. The ghosts whisper it too, eager, buzzing, ready for your death to push you fully into their world.

You sit across the glass. The visitor’s side is lit by the same harsh fluorescent glare as the rest of the building- cold, unyielding, institutional. But when she walks in, something changes. The display lighting seems to recoil, like iron trying to avoid heat. That woman is not human- and yet, in a strange, terrible way, she understands.

Her skin is red; horns curl from her temples like blackened branches. Her eyes are yellow and empty of pupils. A long tail flicks behind her in unconscious rhythm. The broad sword strapped to her back absorbs part of the light, as though it’s drawn the shadows into itself. 

She’s the kind of person who could break this entire room apart with one arm if she felt like it. The kind of person who shouldn’t care about someone like you.

You don’t speak at first. You know better than to trust your voice- it trembles in her presence. Around you, the ghosts grow uneasy; one at the corner leaks more darkness, as though she senses something primal in the visitor. But the glass is thick. They cannot touch her.

“I know who you are,” she says, voice low, resonant

Somewhere beneath the tenseness in your chest, something clicks: you are being seen. Not by pity. Not by judgment. By recognition.

“I’ve heard whispers,” she continues. “About a cursed talent. About a man- or person- who hears the dead.” Her tail sways, slightly. “They call you … The Conduit.”

You don’t move. You want to ask how she knows, but your throat locks. The ghosts behind you shift, muttering discordant pleas, begging and begging- but she stays focused.

“I’m here with an offer.”

Her eyes- yellow, sharp, seeing past your skin- flick once to the drowned girl clutching the back of your jumpsuit like a terrified child. Then Malevola’s eyes return to yours without comment.

Malevola leans forward, one elbow propped casually on the counter, as though she’s not making a world-tilting proposition to a condemned inmate.

“You know the Z-Team?” she asks.

You swallow. “The group everyone swears is either saving the world or accidentally setting it  on fire?”

“That’s the one.”

You blink. Hard.

“…Why are you asking me about them?”

Malevola’s smile is small. Sharp. Almost amused.

“Because we need someone like you.”

You stare at her, you wait for the joke. You wait for the punchline. None comes.

“Dispatch keeps finding unexplained spiritual residue. And we’ve had three missions in the last month involving supernatural interference, ghosts included.”

Your veins go cold. Ghosts. Of course.

“Problem is,” she says, “none of us can communicate with the dead. And trust me, I’ve tried. They either run from me or try to stab me.”

“They stab everyone,” you say before you can stop yourself.

Her brow lifts. “I’m aware.”

Your throat tightens. “No one believes me.”

“I do.”

You can’t speak for a moment. The ghosts press close, whispering, trembling. A man with his head split open curls behind your left shoulder, his voice a quiet rasp: She sees us. She hears truth.

Malevola waits.

Then she says the words that make the air leave your lungs:

“Join the Z-Team.”

Your entire body goes numb.

Malevola’s eyes never leave yours. “You’ll train with us. Live at the HQ. Use your abilities where they actually help someone. And in exchange…”

She taps her claw gently against the glass.

“I’ll personally ensure your name is cleared. Your sentence reversed. Your life returned to you.”

A beat.

“…Or,” she adds casually, “you can stay here and die in eleven days. Up to you.”

The word slips out instantly: “Yes.”

Malevola smiles once- quick, sharp, like a blade catching light.

The moment it leaves you, everything changes.

Jenkins the guard doesn’t even have time to swear before Malevola stands, grasping the hilt of her sword. The metal hums- hungry, delighted, awakening. Shadows fold toward the blade as though drawn by gravity.

“You’ll feel a pull,” she says.

You don’t have time to ask what kind.

She swings- one clean, downward arc. The blade doesn’t cut anything physical. It cuts the air itself, opens it like a curtain ripped from the rod. A rift tears open, red and shimmering, like oil suspended in water.

On the other side: golden lights, and the distant, echoing sound of someone yelling “PRISM STOP PUTTING GLITTER IN THE ELECTRICAL PANEL.”

SDN HQ.

The ghosts recoil in unison, hissing, backing away from the breach as though afraid the light might burn them.

Malevola steps forward and offers you a clawed hand.

You stagger one step, shackles clinking, your jumpsuit still clingy with dried sweat and fear. The ghosts didn’t follow- not all the way. You sense them at your back, pressed against the closed seam of reality, whispering. Too afraid to cross into a place filled with light.

Malevola steadies you with a hand between your shoulders.

“You’re safe,” she murmurs.

You don’t believe her. Not yet.

Because the moment your presence registers, the room reacts. Hard.

Punch Up, half through a bag of pretzels, drops the entire thing. It explodes across the tile like confetti.

Sonar leans against the reception desk, arms crossed, one foot bouncing with nervous impatience- until it freezes. His jaw tightens so sharply you can hear the click.

Prism startles so badly she drops a handful of glitter that bursts on the floor like a tiny rainbow homicide.

Maybe Malevola should have warned them that she was bringing a death-row inmate who speaks to ghosts.

Their eyes say everything: They brought a convicted killer into HQ. Why is Malevola smiling like this is normal? Why does the air feel colder?

You aren’t used to being looked at with fear by the living. You thought you’d gotten used to every kind of stare: pity, disgust, disbelief, hatred.

But fear from people like this- people who punch monsters for breakfast- it feels different. Sharper. Heavy.

The ghosts shriek at once- only audible to you. The drowned girl clutches at your sleeve. The man with the dry throat hovers at your shoulder, muttering, Danger. They don’t want you. They see the rot. They feel it.

You step back instinctively.

Malevola doesn’t let you go far. Her hand finds the back of your jumpsuit and guides you forward like you’re a stray cat who wandered into the wrong yard.

“This,” she announces, “is our newest teammate.”

The silence is immediate, heavy, choking.

Golem’s brow furrows. “Malevola… we’re… already full?”

“No we’re not,” Prism whispers. “We have one meetup room and four extra coffee mugs.” She blinks at you, wide-eyed. “Are you… Are you dead inside? You have dead energy. You’re radiating dead.”

“Thanks,” you mutter.

She beams. “You’re welcome!”

Punch Up finally speaks. “Uh… are we not gonna mention the handcuffs? Or the orange jumpsuit? Or the-” he gestures vaguely at you “-haunted corpse-vibes?”

Malevola’s voice drops an octave. “They’re not dangerous.”

“They feel dangerous,” Sonar says tightly. “Their resonance is… wrong. It’s like they’re vibrating at the frequency of a tomb.”

Punch Up holds both hands up like he’s warding off radiation. “Malevola, respectfully, what the hell? They’re literally convicted of- of- uh- whatever giant supernatural nightmare thing the news said!”

“Eight homicides,” Sonar says flatly.

Your throat clenches.

Golem’s voice lowers. “Weren’t the bodies… mutilated?”

“They were already dead,” you say quietly, reflexively.

Everyone stares.

You immediately regret speaking.

Sonar’s eyes narrow. “Right. Sure. Already dead. Totally normal explanation.”

Robert folds his arms, unreadable but tense. “Malevola… we need to talk about this. Privately. You can’t seriously expect us to trust someone who-”

Malevola turns. When she speaks, the air tightens like a held breath.

“That’s interesting,” she says softly. “Because I don’t recall any of you having spotless résumés.”

The silence that follows is different now- less hostility, more exposed nerve.

Malevola steps aside so you stand directly before them, the ghosts clustering behind you like a ragged, restless shroud.

“You all got second chances,” she says. “From Robert. From me. From each other.”

Her voice hardens.

“Don’t pretend righteousness now.”

Punch Up looks at you again. Really looks. His posture slumps a little, the fight draining.

Prism fidgets with her gloves. “Okay but like- they talk to ghosts. That’s freaky. No offense.”

“Some offense,” Sonar mutters.

Golem’s gaze softens- not quite trust, but not rejection either.