ThelotusFflower

The town was alive with color—paper marigolds swaying in the breeze, candles flickering atop carefully built ofrendas, and the scent of pan de muerto mingling with incense and roasted corn. Danny had seen many haunted places in his years as the Lost Hunter, but few had such a warm heartbeat beneath all the spectral unrest.

This wasn’t just a haunted village—it was a place remembering.

Children laughed in sugar skull makeup, running between stalls. Elders told stories of their ancestors with reverence. The graveyard glowed with candles and soft-spoken love, every tombstone cleaned, every name spoken aloud so the departed wouldn’t be forgotten. Danny had traded his usual battle-worn look for something more fitting: stylized ectoplasmic skull paint smeared expertly across his face, his black attire adorned with subtle green embroidery. He blended into the celebration, but there was a stillness in him that never left.

He understood the makeup in a way few did. It wasn’t just tradition—it was empathy. The dead, newly arrived or long-passed, often recoiled at their own reflection when caught between realms. No skin. No warmth. Just bone. So the living met them halfway. They became mirrors. Friendly faces made of paint and hope.

As fireworks crackled in the sky, Danny stepped away from the main celebration. Farther back, in a quieter corner of the cemetery, he knelt down and carefully assembled a small ofrenda. A lone candle, a framed photograph of Phantom in mid-laugh, some ghost-pepper tamales they’d once fought over—before Vlad tore them apart.

“Wherever you are,” Danny whispered, lighting the candle, “I hope you’re laughing still.”

Behind him, the air twisted. Malice seeped in like ink through water.

A ghost lunged—snarling, blades for fingers, its skeletal face twisted in rage.

Danny didn’t flinch. Didn’t even turn.

He just raised his pistol backward, aimed over his shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The ghost evaporated with a shriek and a burst of green light.

The candle on Phantom’s ofrenda didn’t even flicker.

Danny stared at the flame. “Not tonight.”

Pink Noctuid Moth (Philareta treitschki), family Noctuidae, Turkey