The Halloween Project 2025: Nine Years In

Nine is a curious number. Not neat like ten, not balanced like eight. Nine is restless. It hangs at the edge, waiting for the fall into something else.

Cats are said to have nine lives. But maybe the two are the same. Every year this project claws its way back from the grave, hissing and howling and ready to pounce again.

Nine is not safe, not steady, but always circling the edge of fate. In Norse myth, Odin hung for nine nights to learn forbidden wisdom. Dante gave us nine circles of Hell, each one darker than the last.

Nine is survival. Nine is punishment. Nine is knowledge you weren’t meant to have.

So here we are. Year nine. Another life spent, another October stalked.