Some people spend their whole life searching for their other half. Me? You could say I have other plans. Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here waiting to kill someone else’s. I’m getting ahead of myself though.

I was 6 when my mother first explained marks to me: the mystical system by which we were all to be matched up with our soul-mates, our other halves, our ‘mark mates’. Mine was a crescent moon. My mother said no other mark could have better reflected my wilfulness than the star that pulls the very oceans within its grasps at will.

“It’s how your father and I met,” she explained, eyes glazing over with the ethereal memories of the past.

“It’s like meeting the other part of your soul, Faith,” she explained.

“Like all of a sudden you’ve stumbled across a missing piece of a puzzle you didn’t even know you needed.”

But mark mates weren’t always romantic; these could just as easily be lifelong friends.

However, some people clearly found the idea of being tied to one other individual for the rest of their lives somewhat tiresome and a black market trade in marks has long kept those with wandering eyes in the market for their next soul match. How does that work, you ask?

When I was 17, I was jumped by two men in balaclavas (a cliche I know), blindfolded and gagged, the skin of my beautiful crescent moon mark cut mercilessly from my flesh whilst all I could do was scream in futile agony. As I laid there bleeding, numb and trembling with shock, I couldn’t understand what had happened to me. Why would somebody do this?

I would later come to learn that this was all part of an illicit trade in marks for bored men and women no longer willing to settle for their existing other half, and willing to pay the price for a trade. For the right price, it turns out anyone can be in the market for a new mark mate, should the first one be deemed undesirable. Just a quick and painless operation under sedation to transplant their existing mark with a new hijacked mark and you’re the brand new owner of a future full of new possibilities. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of robbing someone else of theirs.

Once I realised what was going on, I made it my mission in life to stop it. I may have been robbed of my soul mate, and all the hopes and dreams that may bring with it, but I will be damned if I am going to let these scumbags keep on doing to others what they did to me.

It turns out the undesirables who jumped me were involved in an organisation called Metamorphose (talk about playing to your audience - I feel nauseous just thinking about how the customers must eat up the poetic imagery, whilst the likes of me get sliced and diced). With a little sleuthing on the dark web and a new connection with a not entirely salubrious new hacker friend, I was able to track down the two meat heads who’d stolen my future from me.

Truthfully it wasn’t too difficult to dispatch them - it was easy enough to set up a terribly tragic gas leak in the hovel of an apartment they both shared. They were both so high I honestly doubt they’d have been able to put up much of a a fight on their own turf if i’d have gone in a strangled them both to death at that point, but I’m not a monster. They needed to pay for what they did. Now they have.

They were just the start though: the brawn of Metamorphose’s billions dollar operation. I was after the brains, a man called Dimitri Walker, and I’d found him. Some digging had shown me that Dimitri held the keys to the castle and, without him, Metamorphose’s whole operation would crumble.

So here I am, staring across into Dimitri’s £3 million penthouse through a pair of obscene binoculars as I watch him sipping from a particularly expensive glass of Macallan 1926 whiskey gifted to him by a trusted colleague. Except, spoiler alert, this particular bottle might have had a little something extra added by yours truly. As I see Dimitri’s body crumple to the ground through the circular lenses of my binoculars, I can tell you one thing - revenge is best served in a crystal glass on the rocks.

I wish That you could see Into the soul of me My yearning to be loved for me I wish

The rain pounded on my umbrella as I pulled the scarf up over my face, hiding myself from the startled eyes of everyone around me. You see, I’m not the kind of ‘individual’ most people expect to see walking across from them on their afternoon stroll. But I’m getting ahead of myself. It all started this morning.

“Blorgh, I’m sorry, but this just isn’t working.”

I stared back into Greugh’s empty, soulless eyes. If only I could have eyes like that.

“You’re just not Terror Town material.”

“But I can do better. I swear. My lurking is getting better all the time, and I’ve been really working on my scowl. See...”

Summoning all inner scariness I could, I furrowed my brows and contorted my face into what I hoped was an expression that would inspire terror in children. Greugh looked back at me blankly. Pity is not a strong suit of the demonic race, but by his look of apathy, I assumed I had not hit the mark.

“It’s not up for discussion. Get your things and go.”

Greugh swept out of the room, leaving the scent of decay behind him. What was I going to do now?

I’d never been normal; never like my brothers or sisters. When they were lurking in dingy corners and dark alleyways waiting for their unsuspecting victims, I had always felt rather at odds. Not for me, was the life of scaring, haunting, killing or terrorising. There was just no joy in it. Whilst they were out stalking their prey, I was peeking in living room windows lit with the warm lights of lamps, wide-eyed with envy at the cozy family settings and smiling faces. But when you’re a blank-eyed, leathery green skinned demon, humans tend not to be so forthcoming with the their affections.

Wandering down Scare Street, I had donned my longest trench coat and tucked my bald, wrinkled head beneath a wide sweeping umbrella, slipping through the swirling portal tucked between the demon and the human realm I headed for the only place that gave me any sense of hope when I was feeling like this.

What was I going to do? No-one wanted me. I was no good at being a demon, and there was no way that I could fit into the human world. Not like I was.

Heading towards my favourite bench, shoulders slumped in defeat, something flitted past me in a fluttering blur of blue, coming to settle on my hand. It was, I think, what the humans called a butterfly. It was the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Delicate turquoise wings gently fluttering beneath the shelter of my umbrella. It’s wings were fringed with blue, and speckled with black spots, each unique in shape. It’s legs tickled my hand gently. Incredible. How could something so beautiful choose me to land on?

As quickly as it had landed, the butterfly took to the air, sweeping off on those gentle wings through the rain but, before disappointment could completely fill me at the disappearance of my new-found friend, I saw it descend on a chalkboard sign in front of a dimly lit shop just outside of the park gates. As if drawn by a magnet, I followed quickly behind, reading the sign with wonder.

“Are you a friendly spookster looking for work? We’re looking for scary but loveable characters to take part in Halloween parties and shows this year. All applicants welcome. Please ask within! ”

Maybe things were looking up after all.

There have been many times in my life when I have felt scared. Not just nervous or worried. Not an everyday kind of fear. I mean that heart racing, sick to your stomach kind of fear. That “But I don’t want to go to bed, the man with no eyes is waiting for me in the closet!” kind of fear that you feel when you’re too young to know that the real dangers, the real things to fear, are outside. Yesterday I heard a news story about a boy who was shot. Some kind of gang crime gone wrong. How can you not be scared in a world like that? Then there’s the fact that, even if you do manage to avoid real danger, there’s always that snarling black dog in your mind ready to rip you to shreds the second you step a toe out of place, or someone looks at you the wrong way, because it’s not just the monsters outside, but the ones inside too. The most nefarious of all. Harder to pin down. Harder to fight. Harder to run from. Their diaphanous impenetrability rendering them inescapable.

With the years, the insidious unrelenting vines of fear have wound their way further and further into my mind. I guess ultimately I was right be afraid of the man with no eyes, but he was never in my closet. He was in me.

For a long time I’ve felt unloveable, Unseen and unheard, I’ve grown used to words unspoken Knowing no one would hear a word.

In the past I’ve been mistreated, Have been left to cry alone, Though there’s been plenty of opportunity, Often little love has been shown.

So I’ve spent a long time longing, For someone to hold me close, Hoping in vain for some comfort, At the times I need it most.

Then when you came into my life, It feels something began to change, Behind the fireworks and fun, Something more meaningful and strange.

I’d be lying if I told you, That it happened straight away, Still over time, little by little, You’ve shown me there’s another way.

That not everyone will hurt me, Beneath scars others left behind, There is so much there to cherish, So many treasure troves to find,

So whilst I know I held the key, I found the map with you, You gifted me with a new hope, To see myself anew

Without your lighthouse in my dark night, Who knows when I would have found land, My life without your shining beacon, Helping me start to understand,

Would be lonelier and sadder, A life lost far out at sea, Drowning in misunderstanding, Of those who never could see me.

So whilst I don’t believe in saviours, I hid the key within myself, You shone the light that helped me find it, On my dusty attic shelf.