The Planner by VViz Morrison at Inkitt

The Planner

THERE are some pages that should not be turned. Some thoughts would be better off behind secret corridors,

Zari Gale Ebañez always found comfort in any random cute things like squishy toys, pastel notebooks and pens, cutesy stickers, post cards, and so much more in her collections. At some point, they all brought a sense of control to her, like a curated joy in a world she found increasingly exhausting to talk about.

Her tiny condo unit in Cebu City was a shrine to this serenity she have built since she became independent. Her pink-painted shelves were lined with Sanrio plushies and pink LED lights. Her closet are even more astonishing that it could rival any lifestyle vlogger’s organization porn.

However, despite all this, her real obsession always falls on planners. Every year, she bought one, not to stack them up with cobwebs but to literally plan her life for the whole year. She even have bulletin boards in her little working space with lots of sticky notes and mood trackers.

Truth be told, planning gave her structure. For her, it’s safe to say she has the control of the steering wheel by the mood stickers, stamps for appointments, and her drawer full of washi tapes. She also loves journaling aside from planning her schedules.

When HiBunBun’s newsletter finally announced the limited-edition 2025 Labubu-themed planner, she pounced with excitement. She just found the said store because of her random searches at the online sites where she can find affordable cutesy things for her collections.

One that caught her attention was the planner. She automatically added it to cart. The cover design of the said planner is a Labubu with its mischievous goblin grin and scruffy fur. It had always been her guilty pleasure and she doesn’t even know why.

When she have read all the details, she stared at the planner’s cover illustration. The Labubu seems a little twisted but it’s cute nevertheless. Maybe it’s because of the purple pink palette or it has something to do with the fancy font.

She didn’t think twice upon ordering and for the whole week, she was so excited for her upcoming planner since it’s her gift to herself this New Year. True to that, just before December ends, the package had already arrive.

It was wrapped in adorable scented bunny-print paper. Inside was the planner, of course. It was a soft faux leather, purple pink with Labubu embossed in silvery glitter. Beneath it were freebies such as stamps, stickers, thank you card, pen, and a shredded pink tissue with a Labubu-shaped candle.

“… Enjoy the following random freebies we’ve got for you including our complimentary Labubu Candle. It’s our little way of keeping you company as you plan your day ahead. We recommend lighting it during your writing sessions for the full HiBunBun experience!” she read the letter.

She then smiled, inspecting the said candle. “Hmmm… it’s cute.”

She blinked at it. It was too perfect. The waxy Labubu had a face that seemed too detailed for mass production. Its eyes looked glossy as well. Its grin was wide, too wide to be exact. Zari shivered at first until she laughed it off. She just opened the planner and she found that even its leaves are scented. If she’s not mistaken, it smelled faintly of ylang-ylang.

So the night before the New Year’s Eve, she sat on her usual working space and lit the Labubu candle as instructed. It flickered with a strange, reddish hue but her room smelled so nice after and she can’t pinpoint what that kind scent at all. All she knew is that the vibe inside was immaculate.

As usual, she opened the planner and turned to January 1. She then wrote something. “New Year’s Reso: No doomscrolling. Second, water is life so stay hydrated. Third, avoid flirty guys and just mind your own business. Stop toying with them for your own entertainment.”

She doesn’t even know if it’s just her imagination but at some point, the candle on her table hissed. She looked up and the flame seems like dancing as a response to her notes. It felt weird but still, she took a snap on the planner after layering her table for a minute. She then posted it on her social media account with a caption, “new year, new chaotic and demanding doodles ahead.”

HANGOVER took a toll on Zari the moment she woke up from her deep slumber. She got to celebrate New Year with her family and everyone was wasted after that. When she woke up the next morning, she found a bottle of flavored water on her bedside table. She didn’t remember putting it there last night. She just yawned after realizing she’s at her parent’s house. Maybe her Mom leave it there for her.

However, what made her brows furrowed is how the hell did all the flirty exchange of messages with random flirt guys went? They’re all gone for some odd reason. Even weirder, she also can’t open all her social media accounts. So no doomscrolling too?

Her eyes widened before she rummaged her bag. She checked her notes on the planner last night. She have indeed written something on January 1 and oddly, it all happened. She cleared her throat and laughed.

“Maybe I just deleted those messages while I am tipsy last night,” she murmured more to herself. “Maybe, the connection here is bad, that’s all.”

Since she’s bored, she wrote again on her planner but this time, to just mess around. She just wanted to see if it’s her hangover acting up or she’s just delusional that whatever she’ll wrote here will come true.

January 2, 2025

1. Go to Auntie Gemma’s coffeehouse and compliment her nice hairdo for a free coffee.

2. On the way home, see if I can spot something cute to make my day.

3. The very important thing: avoid an annoying bastard ex who loves to blob-blob like a fish.

The next morning, she went for a casual walk at the park. She then went to her Aunt’s coffee shop. Sure thing, she got a free drink right after she spotted Zari and hearing another compliment about her always nice and stylish hairdo. Her aunt even said they’re having a promo today and she’s just lucky.

On her way home, she passed a store window of a gift shop. There’s two plushies there stared back at her joyous eyes. It’s a rare Kuromi and Hello Kitty toys that had her squealed in glee. She badly wanted to have them but she scurried away after she saw her ex across the street right before he noticed her.

Zari’s heart pounded heavily. It’s three for three. She wanted to believe it’s just a coincidence but her guts says it’s the other way around. This made her anxious. Even when she’s finally back to her own condo, she can’t help but overthink a lot.

So the next time she wrote something on the planner, she’s more careful. However, each day, what she wrote came true. Sometimes, in ways she didn’t expect. Sometimes, in ways she didn’t even like.

January 5, 2025. Minor inconvenience on the mall. That very same day, she tripped on an escalator in front of everyone.

January 9, 2025. Our cheater Team Leader will be exposed. True to that, the cheater suffered the consequences of his action. She secretly celebrated.

January 13, 2025. Office bullies will get a bad karma. Our poor janitor will get the justice he deserve. Hell, it happened too. They didn’t even just got scolded by their superior, they even got fired. The poor janitor stayed though.

For the very time, Zari didn’t planned her life too well. Instead, she’s plotting something. She started writing vaguer things, safer ones even. However, the candle burned lower each passing day. Despite everything, she couldn’t stop lighting it. Somehow, it needed to be lit while she wrote. It’s in the instructions anyway.

She came to a point where she already tremble whenever she opened the planner. Though she still continuously writes to it, she couldn’t help but wonder what will happen if she stop writing. She wanted to know but too afraid to take a risk.

However, during one of her overtime, she got home dead-tired. She didn’t even have the time to change her uniform and just go straight up to bed. She accidentally skipped the writing on her planner.

The next morning, she was panicking only to find her planner open to the unfinished page. Beside was the candle that had melted faster than usual. Something had written for her in her very own handwriting.

January 16, 2025.

1. Sleep weary and late and then wake up late.

2. Missed something important, it is what it is.

3. Lose a piece of myself because again, it is what it is.

She froze upon reading, blowing the candle in one go. She remembered the letter that comes with the package. “… Write something every day no matter how small. Even a one missed page can change your whole year experience.”

“W-What do you mean lose something of myself?” she growled, checking her limbs. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

With her trembling knees, she scurried in front of the mirror only to find her reflection had changed ever so slightly. Her eyes looked hollow for some reason. Her smile seemed off and she doesn’t like the vibe it gives.

“Oh, hell no! It is not happening!” she grabbed a portion of her hair. “This is just a dream…”

She doesn’t know what’s really happening to her but all she can do now is scream. However, even her voice felt so thin like it belonged to someone else. That very same day, her laughter also felt foreign. Her coworker now started to look at her strangely, like she was someone else wearing Zari Gale’s skin.

SEVERAL days and weeks have passed until it turns into months of struggles and confusion. Her health started deteriorating and her weight loss is too much that everyone around her notices. Her paranoia isn’t helping her at all and even if she wanted someone to talk to, no one even believed in her, not even her very own family.

She has lots of regrets. She cried buckets of tears but to no avail. She tried contacting HiBunBun’s store but they’re unreachable. She even tried throwing away the planner and burning it for good only to be disappointed over and over. It’s just like throwing away a Chuckie doll then the next morning, it was back as good like nothing had happened.

She found the planner she tried to destroy yesterday sat neatly on her kawaii desk. Even the burnt candle was also there and to her surprised, its waxy grin became wider now. Her whole system quakes and her bones shuddered at the scene.

Helpless, she sat cross-legged on the floor as she opened the planner again. She also light up the candle before she rummage through her closet. When she finally got what she was looking for, she sat again on the floor and grabbed the letter from the planner’s package.

HiBunBun Official

Dear Valued BunFriend,

Congratulations on your purchase of our exclusive limited edition 2025 Labubu-themed Planner! We at HiBunBun are absolutely thrilled to have you join our growing family of passionate collectors, creatives, and dreamers.

Enjoy the following random freebies we’ve got for you including our complimentary Labubu Candle. It’s our little way of keeping you company as you plan your day ahead. We recommend lighting it during your writing sessions for the full HiBunBun experience!

Always remember that a magic of a good planner is in the consistency of our actions. Write something every day no matter how small. Even a one missed page can change your whole year experience.

Thank you again for trusting HiBunBun. We hope your 2025 is everything you’ve planned for.

Respectfully yours,

Lucien B. Buer

Founder & Owner, HiBunBun

The official HiBunBun welcome letter lay on her lap. It was neat and the texts are harmless enough. She wasn’t sure why she had kept it though. Maybe because it smelled so nice? She sighed, still staring at it.

She even leaned closer, frowning at what she noticed. There was a smudge blooms between the lines… or maybe not a smudge. It’s more like a faint shadow seeping through the white paper. Refusing to breath, she held the letter closer to the candle’s warmth.

“W-What the actual fuck?” she hisses.

The shadows then began to writhe and then letters began to sim into focus. It’s not printed at all but it’s scrawled in a brownish-crimson ink that bled outward like freaking veins or something.

I see you.

Her breathing became ragged. Her throat aches. The words crawled down the page. It was slow and deliberate, curling between the cheerful customer service lines as if they had always been there the whole time, waiting for her to notice.

Every word you write will feed me.

Every missed day will take something from you.

Then the candle’s flame flared suddenly, licking higher than it should. It made her flinched but she couldn’t stop reading. As if something was telling her to keep going. Despite her trembling figure, she still sat there, unmoved.

The candle is my clock.

Soon, you will be my wax.

Her eyes widened. She glanced at the candle. Its grin seemed sharper than before. Just like that, the writing began to fade as quickly as it happened. It was retreating back into the fibers of the paper until it was only a letter again… well except for the candle’s smile because it never changed.

After like forever of recovering, she write something on the planner before blowing the candle out. She composed herself, swallowing hard. She turned to her desk and silently sat on her laptop. She typed something into the search bar.

HiBunBun.com

HiBunBun Planner 2025

Lucien B. Buer

HiBunBun Founder and Owner

The page will only load and will not go through in the end. She end up slamming her desk in anger, glaring at the grinning waxy Labubu.

HiBunBun store origin.

Right after she hit enter, still, nothing happened. The page will just froze. She tried again. This time, she searched for the said store’s 2025 reviews. Unfortunately, what greeted her is just a loading wheel spinning endlessly in front of her.

She checked her internet connection and it was just fine. Her YesTube worked. Even her GetFlix also worked. Other sites loaded just fine… everything is fine but anything related to HiBunBun just simply stalled. VPNs doesn’t even work since it will just redirect her to blank pages with blinking cursor, as if someone else was about to type something.

She even tried her phone, typing Labubu candle weird stories. The moment she tapped the search button, the app automatically crashed. Frustrated and desperate, she restarted and tried incognito mode but she found nothing like it didn’t exist at all or maybe, it wasn’t meant to?

She looked at the planner on her desk. It’s like waiting for her to write something. It’s even whispering dread into the air. Massaging her nose bridge, she slammed the laptop hard. She silently swore that if the internet will not give her answers or clues, she will definitely find something else to uncover the truth.

TOO desperate, Zari turned to books instead after a week of failure. She tried doing the research on her cousin’s tablet but it didn’t work, not even in the internet cafes. Now, she’s in the city library. The said library is kind of old and it had a niche folklore section.

Maybe, just maybe, there’s something there. Maybe it has something like the cursed Labubu case or maybe a cursed stationary thingy. However, the moment she opened some of the books she have carefully collected earlier that’s related to occult items and such, her eyes would glaze over.

Even worse, words there for some reason twisted. Sentences became scrambled egg for breakfast. She would blink and the entire paragraphs would be gone and was replaced by childish scrawls or worse, eerily familiar entries written in her own planner’s font.

“Oh fuck, I’m doomed!” she screamed internally.

She flipped a page in a heavy grimoire titled “Ethereal Artifacts and Binding Tools,” only to find a crude drawing of a grinning wax figure with black hollow eyes and a stitched mouth. There was something below the drawing.

It feeds on the unfinished, on thoughts unspoken. Do not give it names. Do not give it dates. Do not give it a purpose unless you want to serve it for eternity.

With wide teary eyes, she snap the book shut. She watches her world crumbles apart little by little before her eyes were blinded by an unending tears.

ZARI began to lose track of days. The planner was always right and she hated it. She can also feel like it is just observing and is watching her closely. Her handwriting appeared even when she didn’t touch it.

Of course, she tried to get rid of it again. She tried burning its pages but they wouldn’t catch fire. She tried tearing it apart but they will just heal weirdly. She tried to just leave her unit and never come back but every night, the planner just appeared out of nowhere with the already-lit candle.

There are some nights that the flame spoke to her, not in words though but by images. Zari saw herself on New Year’s Eve, sitting in her room but she wasn’t alone at all. For some fucked up reason, there she saw Labubu sat beside her, grinning widely.

Since then, even in her dreams, she saw that twisted images. She’s growing tired of it but it keeps on coming back. She came to a point where she stopped writing when August came. The pages will be filled anyway regardless if she cares or not.

August 3, 2025. Witness something unspeakable. That very same day, she saw her neighbor hang herself in the hallway mirror but when she opened the door, nothing was there.

August 7, 2025. Betrayal is painful but things happen anyway. Just like that, her best friend blocked her on all social media platforms without proper explanation except for the final message she have received.

“You changed a lot, Gale. I don’t know you anymore. I have enough of your backhanded compliments and yelling. I don’t think I even know you at all. Bye.”

All she does was weep, watching her life turns in spiral of heartbreaks. Her memory dimmed. The candle slowly shrunk. She even stopped eating when September came but the planner forced to feed her.

September 5, 2025

1. Eat sweets like delicious bar chocolate and some cakes.

2. Cook delicious pasta for dinner.

3. Smile prettily and cut my hair short.

4. Bleed… just bleed.

Right after consuming everything that the planner told her to do, she choked on blood while smiling in front of the mirror after cutting her hair unevenly. She then vomited over and over with a disgustingly greenish substance before she passed out from exhaustion.

November 12, 2025

1. Wake up early and clean the whole unit.

2. Watch GetFlix all day.

3. See what lies beneath.

Even if she’s scowling because she wanted to go to work, she still did the general cleaning, as if she had a choice. Right after exhausting herself, she plopped uncomfortably on the couch, watching GetFlix nonstop.

Then at night, while she’s on the bathroom for shower, she peeled off a scab accidentally and there, she found wax beneath her freaking caramel skin. She froze in horror and her wrists even creaked when she moved. Outside, she heard a low growl after a mocking laugh.

MONTHS and months have passed, no matter how much she scream for help, it’s as if no one heard her. No one even remembered her. December came in silence and Zari was just a shadow of her own self. Her skin was pale, eyes were wide, and she smiled without meaning at all. She’s like soulless or something like the undead.

Until one day she discovered herself in a room she didn’t recognize at all. Her reflection on the mirror smiled first but she didn’t return the favor and she will never be. Day by day, she was no longer Zari. She was instead a routine, a habit, an echo on a page, and a sentence waiting to be written.

It was the planner who dictated it all and she just obeyed helplessly. The planner even wrote something like. “One of you will read this story and one of you will write tomorrow’s page.”

Sighing, she sat at an unfamiliar desk. There’s a single page left in the planner and the candle was nearly gone. It was December 31 anyway so it’s not a surprise anymore. She just sat there motionless with her empty eyes while Labubu stood behind her.

This time, it was not on the planner’s cover illustration anymore. It’s not in a form of wax figure either. This time, the Labubu is real and its smile was split too wide that it hurts. It leans to her ear.

“You were the best planner I’ve ever meet, Zari,” it whispered sarcastically. “But it’s my turn to plan now.”

She tried to open her mouth but no words came out. She wanted to protest but how when she’s trapped inside a room with no way out? Although it mirrored her own place, the eerie atmosphere never lies to her.

She slowly shakes her head but Labubu only laughs mischievously. “No, Dear… I call the shots here.”

Tears fell from her tired eyes as the planner slammed shut. The candle then finally snapped out after.

HiBunBun Official

Dear Valued BunFriend,

Congratulations on your purchase of our exclusive limited edition 2026 Labubu-themed Planner! We at HiBunBun are absolutely thrilled to have you join our growing family of passionate collectors, creatives, and dreamers.

Always remember that a magic of a good planner is in the consistency of our actions. Write something every day no matter how small. Even a one missed page can change your whole year experience.

Thank you again for trusting HiBunBun. We hope your 2026 is everything you’ve planned for.

Respectfully yours,

Lucien B. Buer

Founder & Owner, HiBunBun

Unknowingly, Labubu grins from the cover. The candle was lit up after and for the very first time in a while, Zari smiled—grin rather.