Bethany hated Halloween.

Actually, that wasn’t true: It was an excuse to party, and that was all well and good, but the obligation to dress up in costume was a pain in the ass.

Put in too much effort and you were a try-hard, put in too little and you were a buzzkill, pick something too popular and you were basic, pick something too obscure and you were pretentious.

Last year Bethany had tried to play it safe by dressing up as Harley Quinn - along with what turned out to be 99% of her social circle - making for some very cringeworthy selfies with the party’s lone joker who was way, way too into it.

This year she’d put it off far too late, and suddenly it was 3pm on the 31st and she still hadn’t picked an outfit. Her boyfriend, Jason had made some well-meaning but ultimately unusable suggestions - he was going as another DC character, but that wasn’t a dice she was ready to roll two years in a row.

Instead, she found herself thumbing through the racks of a party supply store, despairing at how irredeemably tacky the available costumes were.

“Can I help you with something?”

Bethany jumped, turning to find someone quite a bit younger than herself - probably still in high school working part time - standing beside her.

“Mika” said her name tag.

With no energy to pretend and truly just wanting a moment to vent, Bethany sighed. “Honestly? Probably not. I’m desperate for an outfit for a party tonight, but I’m not THIS desperate.”

Rather than taking offence, Mika rolled her eyes in agreement. “Yeah, it’s a bit shit, hey? What were you looking for?”

Bethany tried to convey in expression and gesture what she couldn’t in words, and to her surprise seemed to be understood.

“I think I might have something for you.”

Leading Bethany through a door marked “staff only,” Mika showed her a wall display mounted with the most horrifyingly detailed masks Bethany had ever seen with her own eyes.

“Holy shit.”

Mika grinned, having gotten the desired reaction. She took one of the masks off its peg - a purple octopus-looking thing with its larger tentacles converged to form a kind of beak at the front.

“I made all of these myself. I’m actually studying prosthetics at the moment, and these are the prototypes for my …