Recently, I've been enjoying a thriller/romance novel over on Tapas called Mall Ghosts. It takes place in the early 2000's and centers around a mall... with ghosts! The ghosts haunting this mall are way more abstract than anything I've ever seen, which makes for a gripping read, in my opinion. There's a lot of fun to be had trying to figure out what the ghosts are and how they work.
I like the characters too, which is why I drew them. First, there's the protagonist, Aqua Moore, a recently graduated aspiring model forced to take a gig at a dying mall. And she doesn't even have a cell phone! She's really proactive, which I wish I got to show more, but I could only fit three doodles for each character.
Next up, we have Sean Mori, who works at the mall's arcade and does a lot of handy work like fixing vending machines and recovering mysteriously vanishing light fixtures. He's kind of like the mall's whisperer. Unfortunately, this means that he's tormented by... something. Even worse, he refuses to communicate what that is, but he seems to be looking out for everyone's best interests.
Finally, Roberto "Bobby Ray of Sunshine" Reyes! Currently a fast food worker, he was the class clown at Aqua's middle school, a funny, charming, dependable, and generally lighthearted guy. The kind of guy who'll look the other way when you're getting a free refill of "water." How much he believes in the mall's ghost rumors is unclear, but he seems to be taking it in stride.
Just as a heads up, the story's warnings include "graphic death and light gore," so if that's not your cup of tea, or if you end up catching up to the current chapter and want something else to read, I highly recommend the author's other story The Rising Sun Saga!
Also, since I've heard that Tapas can be kinda strict about any kind of toplessness, I made a censored version of this below with canon-compliant mysterious fog!
