this is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. All students and staff members are to report to the gymnasium for lockdown!”

It was the voice of Skultastic Superintendent Petra Fied, a tall and lanky mummy who was as expressionless and blank-faced as ever.

“Students are to report to the gymnasium now! I repeat, now!” Superintendent Petra continued as pandemonium ripped through the masses of students. Screams, flailing limbs, and even clawing abounded as the monsters fled the field. Never mind that they didn’t know what the siren was for; as far as they were concerned they were running for their lives.

“Students, there is no time for trifling, walking, or chatting! We are in the throes of a code dead! Not a code yellow! Not a code orange! A code dead!!”

The use of the term code dead immediately amplified the hysteria, prompting the already frenzied crowd to start running around like bats in the sunlight. But upon closer inspection, one could see that not everyone was responding to the superintendent’s instructions. There, in the midst of all the commotion, stood four serenely still ghouls. Much like the eye of a storm, they were static as everything moved around them.

Robecca, Venus, and Rochelle were the picture of tranquility as they stared down Wydowna, silently pleading for her to fess up. Clearly agitated, Venus felt her pollens of persuasion starting to rumble. Eager to control them, at least until absolutely necessary, she quickly closed her eyes and took a deep breath. However, just as the ghoul closed her eyes she felt a soft slap to the back of her head. It was the fabric-covered arm of Hoodude Voodoo, a life-size voodoo doll.

“Frankie!!! Frankie!!!” Hoodude hollered as he charged across the field.

“Hoodude! Take my hand!” Frankie Stein, Hoodude’s creator and consummate crush, screamed while barreling across the lawn.

“Wydowna…” Venus started, but quickly found herself drowned out by a booming voice.

“Move it, zombie!” an impatient werewolf roared as he pushed the slow-moving creature out of the way. “Code dead means there’s no time for slow-pokes!”

“I’m about ready to pollinate this whole crowd one monster at a time,” Venus said, brimming with frustration.

“Steamers, that sure would be a whole lot of sneezing,” Robecca muttered to herself as two pumpkin heads passed by, their large orange jack-o’-lantern heads bobbing violently atop their minuscule bodies.

“Listen to the master and run a bit faster!” the descendants of the Headless Horseman sang.

“Look around you, Wydowna,” Venus said loudly as she did her absolute best to ignore the near-deafening cries of her classmates. “You helped start this.…”

“J’ai une idée. It might be plus facile, that is, easier, if you just sneeze on Wydowna. Your pollens of persuasion will surely prompt her to give us the information we need,” Rochelle whispered to Venus in her delightful Scarisian accent.

“Spider monsters are immune to pollens of persuasion, and as you’ve probably realized by now, we also have extra-sensitive hearing,” Wydowna responded while continuing to stare at the ground.

Venus’s vines tightened with irritation as she steadied herself against the barrage of creatures bumping into her while fleeing the field.

“Wydowna, chérie,” Rochelle said with genuine kindness. “Tell us who is behind this. We know you aren’t a bad ghoul.”

It was an odd thing for the ever-rational Rochelle to say. Especially as she was one for facts above feelings; but in this case Rochelle could not deny what she saw in Wydowna—a good heart. Sure, she had been caught living in the attic, a supposed stowaway looking to advance her education. And sure, Rochelle knew the truth about her, that she had been working with Miss Flapper and some secret organization called ASOME to try to destroy Monster High. And yet still, Rochelle sensed that Wydowna was not the enemy.

“We need the truth about ASOME in order to stop them. Who are they? Who are you and Miss Flapper working for?” Venus pleaded as she reached out and touched Wydowna’s shimmery black arm.

“I thought I was helping monsters,” Wydowna uttered emphatically, her six eyes still locked on the ground. “I believed them when they said that I was protecting future generations, securing a brighter future for monsters everywhere.”

“But now you know that you were not in fact helping monsters, so it’s time to do the right thing,” Rochelle implored Wydowna while tapping her sharp stone claws against her leg.

“I bet the normies are coming! That’s why they sounded the alarm! Run, monsters, run!” Henry Hunchback hollered as he sprinted hump-first toward Monster High’s main building.

Robecca, Rochelle, and Venus knew that it was not the normies who had taken Headmistress Bloodgood. They also knew that the normies were not the ones behind the threats of walling off Salem. The only problem was, they couldn’t prove any of it. They needed Wydowna’s help to identify the members of the secret organization pulling the strings.

“Rochelle!” Deuce Gorgon called out from a swarm of sea creatures. “Come on! I just heard the normies are coming! Word is they’re going to try and kidnap as many of us as possible!”

“She’ll catch up with you in a second,” Venus replied casually, much to the boy’s surprise.

“But, but…” Deuce stuttered from behind his ever-present sunglasses.

“See you soon, D,” Venus said with a friendly wave as the boy with a snake Mohawk disappeared into the crowd.

“Heavens to batsy, Wydowna! This is your moment! You can stop it before it’s too late!” Robecca hollered, and then flipped the switch to her rocket boots and soared into the air to avoid a manic werewolf headed straight for her.

“I’m afraid it’s already too late,” Wydowna said while shaking her head.

“It’s never too late to do the right thing! Absolument jamais!” Rochelle responded sincerely as Robecca returned to the ground.

“ASOME is powerful, connected in ways you could never imagine, with moles everywhere. They’ll do anything to protect the creature hierarchy that they believe in. Anything.”

“Let us at least try to save our headmistress, our school, our town from whatever it is that they’re planning,” Rochelle begged.

Wydowna lifted her head, stared directly at each of the ghouls, and parted her lips to answer. Anticipation immediately seized Rochelle, Robecca, and Venus as they saw that she was finally ready to tell them the truth.

“ASOME is—” Wydowna said, before being slammed by a river of frantic vampires storming across the lawn.

At first Wydowna’s onyx skin made it easy to track her in the sea of pale monsters, but as the group moved faster, the trio lost sight of even the smallest swath of black.

“I’ll follow her in the air!” Robecca offered as she bent down to flip on her boots again.

“Save your fuel. We know where she’s headed, where all of them are headed,” Venus said as she motioned to start walking.

“Let’s just hope that Wydowna doesn’t change her mind about telling us who is behind ASOME in the meantime,” Rochelle added.