Beck used to love pranks of all shapes and sizes, reveling in his mischievous ways whenever the world dragged him down and he needed a good laugh. Used to. After his death, he never really was quite the same. His idea of pranks twisted and warped and eroded into an excuse to harm, an outlet for his perpetual anger. He no longer laughed when a poor victim was caught in a fatal trap, even if he tried to bring back the same reward of a successful prank with a malicious giggle.

    And now he had a competitor.

    The little ghost first found one of the rocks when he stepped outside the sunken house serving as his storage unit, placed delicately on the windowsill leading outside his decrepit hideaway. Only somewhat concerning; he didn't want any of his peers sticking their noses in his business. Who knows what they could find out about him? Nevertheless, he violently shook his head to clear his paranoid thoughts and continued on his day.

    Which turned into a day of hunting down rocks with his temper increasingly darkening with every stone face mockingly smiling back at him. Soon enough, the boy was hobbling through the town with his front arm cradling an unstable stack of rocks to his chest, including the one With his front paws occupied, he hadn't been able to wipe away of the electric blue chemicals dripping from his disfigured snout, leaving the toxic drool to collect on his chin like dew on the underside of a leaf. An occasional bead of antifreeze plopped onto his accumulated rocks, staining their surface with a singed mark of chemicals. Inevitably, his rock stack grew too high for him to see where he was stepping, but he had memorized the streets of their town enough to --

    A harsh wheeze was knocked out of him as he toppled over Stocking herself. The rocks spilled from his arm, scattering themselves across the mud. Beck looked up in shock, then his features contorted into one of livid frustration. Scrambling up from where he fell, his movements were driven by impulse and wrath as he snatched up the nearest rock and, as expected of poltergeists, flung it at a tree. Naturally, the stone ricocheted off the gnarled trunk, returning to its abuser with an audible thwack against his face. For a moment, the boy held a paw to where the rock had connected with his eye, afraid to confirm any bruising or blood before tearing his paw away and letting out a frustrated shriek formed from three months' worth of stress and anger. Beck forgot Stocking was there, and after kicking up a clod of soil, he turned his bruising glare to the fallen angel only for embarrassment to flood his expression. "Um, sorry," he growled out the unscathed side of his mouth, glancing away to scoop up all the rocks once more.