Velma

Velma adjusted her glasses as she stepped through the dusty, half-collapsed entrance of the abandoned Willow Glen Mall, her flashlight cutting thin lines through the darkness. Rumors of strange noises, moving shadows, and a towering “mall monster” had brought the gang here, but tonight, they’d split up to cover more ground, and Velma volunteered to check the old service corridors herself. Shelves lay toppled, old mannequins leaned at unsettling angles, and every footstep echoed like a whisper. She knelt beside a set of oddly fresh footprints just outside the shuttered food court, murmuring, “Jinkies… these weren’t here yesterday.” Before she could finish examining them, a looming figure in a grotesque monster mask slipped out from behind a busted arcade cabinet. Velma gasped and scrambled to stand, but the villain was already on her—swift, silent, and surprisingly strong.