The doom blossom rose out of Sun Girl's head like a precious newborn—cute, but undeniably dumb-looking, especially to the other residents of Soul's Landing. In these parts, everyone, everything, was dead. Sun Girl's flower, while charming and accurate—she'd died of seasonal allergies, after all—obviously signaled that she wasn't representing death the way she should. Death had its own aesthetic, and the doom blossom appeared to the other ghouls, ghosts, skeletons, and Frankenfolks what the living would call hipster. Just be dead was the general sentiment. The flower didn't even limp or decay; it perked up tall and rigid and shone in an aggravating bright yellow. A sunflower of all things—not a nightshade or white snakeroot or oleander or other poisonous, lethal flowers—but a happy, obnoxiously alive sunflower.

At night Sun Girl lay in her tombstone-shaped home, purely constructed of the stone and clay she'd been buried in, and wondered if there were others like her that displayed a "living" quirk, a twist. Her current neighbors just didn't understand her gift, the botanical charms of the dirt in her head, the roots that nourished themselves beneath her face. Even in death, individuality, creativity, were important to her. And she honestly didn't believe it should be all that unique to appreciate life. We'd all lived it, she thought. Who hurt you?

As a bleach-white skull, she still retained memories of her human upbringing—being the only black chick in school with Vans, openly loving white-boy bands like Linkin Park and Panic at the Disco, being a Christian even though she was a "smart girl". Doom Blossom life was annoyingly similar to flesh-and-bone life, but those commonalities convinced her of one thing: that she couldn't possibly be the only soul with soil in her head and flowers on the mind.

She'd heard of one person like her, a prior resident of Soul's Landing, a renown idiot for much the same reasons as her—but also because the dude was objectively stupid. They called him Loon, a play on the massive snot bubble ballooning out of his skull. His living quirk was all-too-noticeable, and completely representative of sub-human IQ. Honestly, Sun Girl thought it was dumb too. Snot, really? Such a boy. But the genius—or perhaps happenstance—of the dead producing mucus was more captivating than she cared to admit. Folks knew him because Loon was said to fly. The snot bubble couldn't contain helium, but managed helium physics anyway. Loon was just like that. He made things work, even when they shouldn't.

Rumor had it, there was a colony full of the dead with living twists. They were aptly named Twist Tribe, a community of dead possessing exiled strangenesses. Life, like everyone else, escaped them, but not completely. Something in their souls compelled them to live, even after their conventional lives expired.

On the night of a silvery full moon, Sun Girl left Soul's Landing and entered the Weeping Forest.

She'd left for Twist Tribe with nothing but the clothes on her back—a black crop top, black leggings (slimly fitted to her bone legs), and a red flannel around her waist. Another leftover of her past life: the fashion. As a final touch, she also wore a yellow headscarf over her sunflower. It was something she did at night, another remnant of her human existence. Wrap it. Wrap it tight. In life, the scarf protected her hair, but post-death the headwear served a more vital function: protecting her living quirk from wicked spirits.

Bloodlusts, they were called, spirits that floated in the wild as red, demonic energy. These were folks that died bitter or with grudges, whose souls rejected second forms. Instead, they were empowered by envy and greed, and chose to possess others and vaporize their souls into red, toxifying energy.

The Weeping Forest were named for the bloodlusts, their sorrowful outcries when searching for a soul.

Needless to say, precautions—or in Sun Girl's case, headscarves—were a must.

For three days she travelled through the Weeping Forest, passing treacherous landmarks such as Banshee's Grove and Lake Styx, concealing her petals from the haunting spirits of the wild. It was dangerous to travel without a tribe, but at the current moment, she was tribeless—what choice did she have? Without a real tribe, the after-life would be long, eternally disheartening.

So she followed her inner compass toward Twist Tribe, carefully avoiding the dangers of the woods. There were no road signs in the forest, but the dead had an awareness of kindred spirits, of familial souls. The extra-sensory clan-finding was built into their essence. It's how spirits found peace. So Sun Girl—mapless, directionless—had legitimate guidance toward her destination. She followed her intuition, slowly but surely moving closer to a true home—

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Suddenly, a gust.

Frozen wind—then hot.

The bloodlusts as a red, distorted wall.

"Pay the toll."

"Like with money?"

"Your soul."

"I like my soul. Go away."

"We like it too. It feels...bright."

"Leave me alone. I'm passing through."

"Sure, continue on. Once we've fed!"

The bloodlusts lunged at Sun Girl, shooting at her in a fluid stream. The girl ran like she'd never run before, tightening her head scarf mid-stride. She knew that if they possessed her soul, the flower would be the first to go. She imagined its future wilt, its final browning before crumbling in the middle of this loveless, spite-fueled forest. Hide your quirk, the number one rule. And, of course: run.

She ran and ran and ran and ran, hopping over logs and rocks and creeks when necessary. The good thing about death: you didn't need to catch breath or pump oxygen through a framework of bone. But without muscle to propel her she could only travel half as fast as typical fleshlings—meanwhile, the bloodlusts flew. Sun Girl leapt over a small creek and headed straight into a wooded clearing. Immediately, she knew this was a bad idea. The trees told her so, their decayed wood rising up like the bars of a grotesque birdcage. And the darkness between the trees suddenly filled with the red, swirling essence of bloodlusts.

"Your scarf. Remove it."

"No," Sun Girl lifted her fists and slowly rotated to scope out her situation. Punching a bloodlust would gain nothing—they were nothing but bad, unbreathable air—but fighting seemed like the only option, her best chance at escaping the woods. She pivoted about, confirmed that yes, she was surrounded. The red, boiling vengeance thickened around her. She wished for a weapon, a blessing against the spirits who sought to consume her. Even without true recourse against the demons, she was determined to survive the situation, petals intact.

In life, God's protection helped her, and as a spirit she believed no differently. Please God, help a loyal skull out. Grant me protection—

The bloodlusts lunged at her—through her—and the heaviness of their grudge weighed her down, forcing her to her knees. The headscarf was blown away like a limp, helpless sun. The sunflower was exposed, swirling with the red forces that threatened it. Seeds scattered about the ground—Sun Girl didn't know she had them—but the petals remained unharmed. Still, the bloodlusts were unrelenting, and their menacing tornado gave Sun Girl a sinking, dreadful feeling.

And then it stopped: the swirling, the redness, the scattering seeds—everything.

From her peripherals, a golden light began to glow and expand from her head, from her sunflower. The Doom Blossom collected light, just as sunflower science dictated. But the release of light was a completely new trick, and a welcome blessing for that moment. The radiance tore the bloodlusts away from each other, their once-solid whirlwind thinning and dissipating and at last dropping to the ground as a fine red powder. Their remnant dust slunk away slowly, escaping the Doom Blossom's rays, taking refuge behind the shadows of the twisted trees.

A cold, ghoulish wind blew through the clearing, banishing the leftover particles.

And Sun Girl's light dissipated as well, darkness creeping back into its rightful home between the trees. The forests' dangers were gone for now, but the girl had to move quickly. She picked her scarf up off the ground and began wrapping it around her head—

"Do it again," said a voice.

"Do what?" She tied her scarf hastily, expecting the return of a bloodlust.

"The glowy thing."

"I don't even know what that is."

"Me neither, but it was cool."

A popping sound was heard in the pitch. Snot bubble pop.

Sun Girl relaxed. "You're Loon."

"If you know that then let's go already."

"What—"

He snatched Sun Girl's hand, jerking her beyond the trees. She couldn't free herself from his firm grip, and panic set in once more, especially at the mysterious blowing sound that followed. And in that moment of terror, her illumination returned, beaming from the sunflower with a radiant spiritual energy.

"I read somewhere that flowers absorb evil—"

"Shut up and let me go!"

"They cripple bad energy, like, badly."

Sun Girl bit him, hard, but Loon was a skull too. No flesh or nerves or physical pain.

His grip tightened.

But the doom blossom's light revealed the truth—this wasn't a kidnapping or an act of evil. A massive snot bubble expanded from Loon's nasal passages, growing 2-, 3-times as large as their own bodies, expanding into the form of a hot air balloon.

"This is gross."

Loon smiled. He blew once more and up they went, their feet levitating above the ground. Sun Girl's fears slowly transformed into mild disgust and then amazement. She held onto Loon with both hands, and her flower's glow remained luminous. She'd become a fully animate headlight, a guide through the darkness toward Twist Tribe. Their ascension lifted them high above the forest, away from the bloodlusts, and away from Sun Girl's former home.

Hidden in the treetops within the towns and villages below, Sun Girl felt the eyes of the dead, the twist-less haters grumbling about what appeared to be an annoying golden balloon, floating haplessly, eclipsing their view of moon. But the kindness in her prayed for their fun, for their discovery of imagination, and that in her and Loon's flight the others would accept another face of death, a doomless sight, a happy, happy way to be dead and treasure your second, unexpected lives.