The Max Plush can be found RIGHT HERE, and the 10% discount code is: 63G2SZX7TPGV

Thank you all so much for making the Max Plush real! All sales after this equal more support for me, so hop on while you can if you want to get one! Thanks again!

Have a great next few weeks! I'll see you after the holidays! As ever, you can support Paranatural on Patreon or Ko-fi.

~

[Transcript]

        A smooth, noir-esque jazz rendition of the Little Witch Tuffet theme song set a moody midday mood within the dim-lit School Store speakeasy. Starchman Stars, poker chips, tropical drinks, and winning hands fell down in rainy rhythm on the tables. When Max's spare change harvest struck the counter of the bar, its clinking hardly raised the soothing hiss of the percussion.

        "Here's your lunch money, Lisa. Stained with blood and sweat and tears. I assume one of those fluids is your primary source of sustenance," grumbled a grouchy Max. He slid the debts that he'd extorted towards his classmate.

        "A busy barfly-on-the-wall sips up whatever humor she can find," Lisa replied (a reckless choice of insect to embody in a spider-centric chapter). "Yours has a delightfully dry flavor. I hope that, as our toxic bond ferments and deepens, you'll continue to use comedy as your main coping mechanism." 

        Lisa bit a penny to inspect if it was real, a test that surely didn't need as much tongue as she'd used. She spit the coin into a tip jar, having drained it of the luck it once contained when found heads-up.

        "...I need a drink," droned an exasperated Max.

        "And now you understand my business model," Lisa smiled, sliding him a menu.

        "I'll have what he's havin'," Ollie said, delivering a calling card before the heist ahead; he'd trundled up to the bar and taken a threatening position behind Max, the better to steal whatever beverage Max might order at the moment it arrived.

        "...Apropos of nothing, does Ollie have any allergies? What's the worst thing on the menu?" Max disdainfully inquired, looking up from the selection.

        "Your greasy fingers, little man," Ollie snickered. "Hey, boss," he said, suddenly all business. The bully leaned forward on the bar. "You been hearin' what I'm hearin' about this Student Council stuff? Got grumblings from the network that they're hittin' major hangouts. Roundin' up some of our regulars and low-level enforcers."

        Lisa cast a blase glance in the direction of her bouncer. 

        "I'm monitoring the situation," she said, projecting unperturbed authority. "The Student Council makes waves whenever it sees calm on the horizon. Their showboating needs bluster—it's a more exciting backdrop for their failures. They're ever so addicted to the rollercoaster rise and fall of fascism." Lisa shrugged and turned away. "All we have to do is weather the stormtroopers until the tide rolls out... and then we'll profit off the mess left in their wake."

        "Oh, totally, Lisa," Max scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You're the Jabba the Hutt to the Student Council's Empire. THAT guy had life figured out. Nothing bad ever happened to him."

        "...Bro," sighed Ollie. "You're never gonna make it as a bully if you keep on sayin' Star Trek junk like that."

        "She said STORMTROOPERS FIRST!"

        "That ain't the etymological origin, my guy. Like grow up."

        Lisa smiled as their banter joined the buzz of conversation in the Barfe. In truth, the Student Council's latest rampage raised a few more red flags than she cared to admit... but she had prepared her criminal syndicate to deal with unexpected peril, not just business as usual. Through friendship, blackmail, and backroom deals, she'd built up a buffer of bullies that would protect her from the insidious authorities in charge of Bayview Biddle School... the teachers and creepers and PTA guests whose secret creature features she'd surveilled. Nobody could touch her here. Lisa wasn't—

        Alone.

        Lisa's ever-prying ears pricked up. All the comforting chatter of the School Store had suddenly stopped. The only sound remaining was an off-key jingle—a sourceless, warbled encore of the Little Witch Tuffet theme song.

        All alone.

        Lisa turned around. Her backroom bar was empty. All the lights were off, their filaments still fading.

        Soon you'll be all alone...

        "I'm not alone," Lisa replied to the narration, accepting, in defying it, her waking nightmare's logic. The voice in her head... it sounded like Tuffet, from that silly public access puppet show. "I won't ever be," Lisa insisted, smiling bravely.

        Butterflies fluttered in Lisa's chest, some panicked, some stillborn, half-trapped in their cocoons. She was suddenly conscious of her racing heartbeat—a symptom of something she'd learned to suppress. Suddenly, the shelter of the School Store felt like what it really was, once all of its pretense was stripped away: a hiding place, a darkened closet where she'd fled to disappear.

        "I don't want to be alone," Lisa admitted in a whisper—still smiling, though her eyes betrayed a budding seed of fear. 

        Oh, my sweet, sweet girl...

        Something shifted in the dark.

        ...You SHOULD be careful what you WISH FOR.

        A shadow lunged down from the ceiling, and Lisa flinched.

        "Lisa?"

        Sound and color struck Lisa's senses like the screech of an alarm clock. She felt the warm hand on her shoulder next—an anchor she knew well.

        "Violet," she said, hiding her relief. "So nice to see you. Welcome back."

        "That's my line," a worried-looking Violet scoffed. "You were super spacing out. I said your name like three times, Lisa."

        "There's your problem," Max cut in, interjecting in their barside conversation. "You also have to spin around while looking in a mirror."

        "I do that all the time," Violet haughtily replied, tossing back a single pigtail with a flourish.

        Lisa smiled at her best friend and the bustling School Store barroom all around her. The only remnant of her daydream was her heartbeat, but she knew its upbeat rhythm wouldn't last. Violet was surely only here to follow up about Jeff, and Max and Ollie would depart, and Lisa would have to leave her sanctuary for her next class sometime soon... but for now, she was at peace again, safe beneath her patchwork quilt of pleasant Barfe company.

        A solitary power chord displaced the School Store's laidback jazz with an electric wave of thrumming rock-and-roll.