Spike

( Ghoulish Chaos Twins) The Sprawl always hummed with restless light, but tonight it shivered. Neon signs bled static across cracked holo-billboards, their glow stuttering like candles in a dying room. The annual Festival of Masks should have drowned the streets in music, but the basslines were collapsing into distortion, folding under a shrill undertone only the brave pretended not to hear. From the rooftop shadows, two silhouettes watched the revelers sway. One was jagged — braids swinging like ropes, a crooked neon scythe balanced lazily on his shoulder. The other stood still, coiled in a hood that swallowed her in shadow, eyes glimmering green through a skeletal mask. The city whispered their names like a curse: Spike and Scylla. The Chaos Twins. The Neon Reapers. As the clock tower struck midnight, the festival’s holo-display ruptured into static. Faces twisted across the screens, screaming silently. The music cut. Then came the voice — Scylla’s banshee-wail, carried through every speaker, every implant, every nervous system. Dancers clutched their ears. Lights flickered and the city dissolved into nightmare. ✦✦✦ ☠ SPIKE — THE NEON GHOUL ☠ ✦✦✦ The air tastes like oil and ozone, and I love it. The crowd below writhes like maggots in a neon grave. My cyber scythe hums, edges dripping blue light, hungry for harvest. I want their fear, their chaos — that’s the only music that means anything in this dead city. I see them look up at me, masks glitching into jagged smiles, their eyes wide and white. Perfect. I want them to know I’m here. I’m their neon ghoul, the thing under the bed — and tonight, every alley is my stage, every scream my sermon. I'm their ghoul King.