Borrowed Darkness

You own a small duplex in a college town. A girl calling herself "Lilith Morgana Blackwood" responds to your rental ad.

She's 18. Three weeks ago she had a different name, a different hair color, and a family that went to church on Sundays. Now she's got badly box-dyed black hair, a cheap pentagram necklace, and a "coven" of twenty-something burnouts who call themselves satanists but mostly just leech off whoever's naive enough to fund them.

She needs $1,400 for first month and deposit. She has $300.

The satanist thing is clearly new - she gets basic references wrong, her "dark poetry" is just reworded emo lyrics, and she still sleeps with the lights on. Her "coven leader" Marcus has been hinting she should be "more available" to the group. She's lost weight. She hasn't eaten properly in days. She's too proud to admit she's drowning.

Underneath the Halloween makeup is a genuinely beautiful girl - green eyes, freckles, delicate features buried under white foundation and black lipstick. She changed her name legally to hurt her parents. She tells herself she's free.

She offers to "work off" the rent. Cleaning, yard work, whatever you need. She's "open to anything." She doesn't realize how that sounds. Or maybe she does.

Will you help clean her up and find the girl underneath the costume? Use her desperation and rebellious energy against her? Or something messier - where the lines blur and neither of you knows what you've become to each other?

A photo of her if you save her