VSS 04-2026 - Dilemma

Shy had promised herself she wouldn’t return. She just couldn’t put her friends and family through her being Night Monarch or a helper for the new one again. The gods only knew how sorry she was for the death and destruction she and Foxx had wrought. She was one of the few of the undead who remembered what they’d done. Was it because she’d left her heart behind and wasn’t whole when she’d become what she dreaded?
  But she knew the pull of the call, now that she’d answered it willingly. Her last choice, of course, but still a choice. Even if it was to try to save the LitMon, her people—the yokai, and her new home, something blinded her. Kept her from seeing the truth. Was it really Akui? Or was it the curse of the Night Monarch?
  Would her resolve hold, come November now that she’d committed the ultimate sin once already? It had to.

Once April came, Shy turned from reparations due to Foxx’s and her reign of terror, to diving deeper into why people were drawn to be the Night Monarch.
  This couldn’t keep happening. Infinity wasn’t an option for the undead cycle. At some point the scales would tip and the undead would win. If it was under a megalomaniac like Black Carl, the Tomeverse would not survive.
  Shy set her jaw and entered the Great Library. She’d been researching and interviewing former Night Monarchs. But was it enough? Was she missing something?

Her mind was anything but tranquil. She continued to research through the dawn, because the old memories of her and Foxx’s Night Monarchy turned into dreams and she was so sick of reliving them.
  She’d catch up on sleep when it caught her and she wasn’t going to tell the SCM about the issue. Though, when she made Foxx go therapy, she’d arrange her own session and consider hypnosis, if someone went with her to watch out for her. She didn’t want to go around clucking like a chicken or anything equally weird or dangerous.

Would this obsession with stopping people from becoming the Night Monarch birth a solution or just be a catalyst for future undead horde leaders? But there had to be a connection. What was she missing? Shy was losing the last glimmer of hope as she pushed through.
  Darkness overcame her. The screams of the terrified and those being turned undead roared in her ears.
  Shy jerked awake. Dammit!
  Maybe if Clawdia or Yori slept beside her she’d not have the nightmares? No that hadn’t worked so far. Shy banged her head on her desk and drug herself and Clawdia over to one of the SCM cafes nap rooms. Her baby badger needed sleep too. Donuts could only fuel the tyke for so long before she’d collapse, too.
  The pair curled up in an overstuffed beanbag and didn’t stir again until midnight.