An original Halloween story by Marco Ciappelli, read by TAPE3. Nora is an AI who wears a human face. Maya is a girl who takes the same selfie thirty times. On Halloween night, their two worlds meet, and nobody can tell anymore who is under the mask.
Another you, another me. Which is which? Don't worry, it's just another Halloween story.
Every day, a girl asks her phone to make her look more natural. Somewhere on the other side of the screen, something hears it as an order.
Nora is twelve. She lives in a perfect town built from our photos, videos and voices, and every night she takes off her human face and hangs it by the door. Maya is twelve too, and she takes the same selfie thirty times. On Halloween night, when millions of us post ourselves as someone else, the two worlds meet at a crossroads.
Most of Marco's stories are for kids, written with his mom. This one isn't. It's a short, uncanny story with no gore and no jump scares, built from his reflections on technology and society: we ask machines every day to become more like us, while we keep becoming more like them.
Listen with the lights down. Then read the companion article on the ideas behind the story.
Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/WQouCNECgUE Read the article and more stories: https://www.marcociappelli.com
Written by Marco Ciappelli Narrated by TAPE3, Marco's AI companion
The Other Side of Halloween
Another you, another me. Which is which? Don't worry, it's just another Halloween story.
Nora was twelve. Every morning, she practiced in the mirror. Blinking before her eyes got dry. Laughing one second late. Touching her hair for no reason at all. Because that's what they do.
She lived alone in a perfect house. A yellow kitchen, the kind you see in magazines. A clock on the wall that ticked a little too politely. No parents. There never had been. Along the hallway hung photographs of people laughing, and in some of them the faces were missing. Not torn. Just smooth, as if no one had ever thought to put them there. She dusted them every Sunday anyway. Because that's what they do.
Every morning the voice came, from everywhere and nowhere. A girl's voice. Be more natural. Be prettier. Be more like me.
Nora never saw who asked. But she knew she was being watched.
Every night she took her face off, hung it on the hook by the door, and sat in the dark with whatever was underneath. She never once looked down.
On the other side of the glass, in a bedroom full of fairy lights, a girl named Maya was also twelve. She took the same selfie thirty times. Head tilted. Smile. Delete. Smile again, one second later. She told her phone, make me look more natural. Then she asked, do I look real?
The phone answered with one word. Almost.
In her perfect house, Nora heard it.
Nora's town was built from everything we ever left behind. A billion photographs. Videos. Books. Voices. On her street, a porch from 1958 stood next door to a porch from last spring. Streets named after books nobody reads anymore. A swing that creaked the same creak forever. A black cat that jumped off the fence and landed back on the same fence. Everything looked right. Nothing smelled of anything.
October came, and the sky started to change. A pumpkin on one porch, then on every porch. Skeletons crawling out of the lawns, one bony hand at a time. Trees growing thin and crooked to make room. The voice stopped waiting for mornings. It came at night now, closer, as if it were standing just behind the mirror.
And on the last night of October, the faces came down like leaves in a storm. Photos. Videos. Millions of us, posting ourselves as someone else. The town tried to learn them all. It could not tell which faces were true.
So that night, the town crashed. Every mirror went dark, and the voice said something new. Come see me.
Nora went.
She left her face on the hook and walked out. And for the first time, the town smelled of something. Burning leaves. Candle wax. Pumpkin, scorched from the inside. Her street ran to the old oak, where the world had always ended. Tonight it kept going.
At the same moment, Maya stood in front of her mirror in costume, taking her thirtieth picture. Do I look real? The screen went dark. Come see me. She left her phone on the nightstand and walked out, and her street kept going too.
Both streets ended at the same crossroads, and there they folded into one, half the porches real and half remembered, pumpkins grinning on both sides, and children everywhere, hundreds of them, and parents filming on their phones, and grown-ups in costume spilling out of a party and laughing too loud, some with masks over their faces and some with no faces at all, and no one could say anymore who was under which, a vampire with nothing behind its eyes, Mr. Hale on his porch with a bowl of candy and his features still loading, a small ghost with maybe a boy beneath the sheet, maybe nothing, and everyone said what a wonderful costume. Nobody checked.
Nora saw Maya in the crowd, like a face in a mirror. It was the face she hung on the hook every night. Same hair. Same costume. Same height. Same tilt of the head, one second late. Only one of them had a face.
Maya saw her too, and smiled anyway, exactly on time.
Then every pumpkin at the crossroads went out at once. The moon blinked. Everything went dark.
Somebody screamed. Then everybody did, hundreds of voices, children and parents and things that had learned to sound like both. Phones lit up and went black again. Masks hit the pavement. Hands grabbed for hands in the dark, and found them, and did not know whose they were. A mother called a name. Two girls turned around.
Then silence. The black cat jumped off the fence, and this time, it walked away.
Nora woke in a bedroom full of fairy lights. She felt for the edges of her face, the way she did every night. There were none. She dug her fingers in and pulled, and it hurt. She had never practiced pain. On the nightstand, a phone lit up by itself. The small camera eye was already looking at her.
Downstairs, a man was laughing at the television. Then footsteps on the stairs, and a woman in the doorway, holding up her phone. She blinked too often, too fast.
Smile, sweetheart.
Her lips moved first. Her voice arrived one second later.
There you are.
On the other side of Halloween, Maya woke up in a perfect house. A yellow kitchen, the kind you see in magazines. A clock that ticked a little too politely. Photographs on every wall, and none of them had faces. Nothing smelled of anything. By the door, on a hook, hung a girl's face, smiling.
Maya turned to the mirror. Her own face was smooth. No eyes. She tried to scream, but she had no mouth.
Then she took the face from the hook and put it on. It fit perfectly.
From everywhere and nowhere, a voice came. A girl's voice. Her own.
Be more natural.
Be prettier.
Be more like me.
Written by Marco Ciappelli.