HOLD ITS GAZE.
MEET YOUR
PROTECTOR.
Every October, a little more light appears in the city. No one can tell where it comes from.
THIS YEAR,
THE LIGHT
HAD EYES.
It spills out of alleys where the streetlights burned out years ago. Flickers in the windows of empty apartments. Shines on wet asphalt with nothing above it to cast a reflection.
The first pumpkin appeared outside a convenience store. The second, on the roof of a parked car. By midnight, there had been sightings in every neighborhood. Different shapes, strange objects, familiar symbols. Some looked like they’d spent a little too long in crypto.
No one saw who left them there.
Then one turned to watch someone walk past.
YOU’VE BEEN
NOTICED.
The city soon learned the rule: if a pumpkin is looking at you, you’ve been noticed.
First, the familiar sounds fade. Traffic grows distant. The music in your headphones cuts out. Something you recognize begins to take shape in its eyes: a dark window from your childhood, an empty hallway, a face you’d hoped to forget.
It shows everyone something different.
Most people look away. By the time they dare to look back, the pumpkin is gone.
But sometimes, someone stays.
They hold its gaze, even when every instinct tells them to turn away. They let the fear wash over them and notice the fire inside the pumpkin begin to settle.
Then it blinks.
The test is over. It has found its keeper.
And the keeper has found a companion that can see what moves beyond the light.
After that, the way home can change in curious ways. The door you need happens to be unlocked. A stranger who’s been following you for too long suddenly has somewhere else to be.
The pumpkin is always somewhere nearby. Sometimes, it looks over your shoulder.
SOMEONE’S WATCHING.
Jack
The first to turn up whenever something strange is happening. He likes busy streets, attention, and the moment someone says, “It’s just a pumpkin.”
Jack’s keepers recognize his laugh before they see his light.
Grim
He can spend an entire night beneath a single streetlight. People cross the street to avoid him without quite knowing why.
His gaze is especially hard to hold. But when Grim looks into the dark beside you, the dark tends to give way.
Ash
He often appears in places you won’t find on any map. He knows the shortcuts through the city and, for some reason, remembers doors that were bricked up long ago.
Sometimes his reflection lingers in the glass a moment longer than it should.
JUST OUTSIDE
THE CIRCLE.
Their keepers call them HoodPumpkins. Their next chapter is being prepared for Robinhood Chain.
The chats are full of theories about where they came from, why they choose people, and why those three familiar shapes keep appearing. People collect photos, compare traits, search for messages. Someone has already made a spreadsheet. Someone else is selling access to it.
The pumpkins say nothing.
But one symbol keeps turning up: a broken circle with a small spark just outside it.
It’s usually hidden somewhere no one thinks to look.
They say the spark used to be inside.
Yours is already watching you.