Psychodevil Kvlt

Was this series a COVID fever dream or a way to deal with a blossoming romance

The image I created for Dead Ball captures the emotional tone of the project better than I probably understood at the time. On one side is Arache, a Zombie-Vampire hybrid experiment with glowing eyes, stitches, and blood-tipped hair standing confidently beneath the moonlight. On the other side is Nire Reklaw, fully human, anxious and recoiling from her presence. Looking back at it now, the artwork feels less like a horror illustration and more like a snapshot of fear, instability, and emotional dependence during the pandemic.

I created Dead Ball between December 2020 and January 2021, during one of the hardest periods of my life. Earlier that year, in March 2020, I met Erin at college, someone who would eventually become the love of my life. Then COVID-19 disrupted everything. We struggled with isolation, financial anxiety, online classes, and the overwhelming pressure of being trapped indoors for months. Mentally, I was deteriorating badly and slipping into psychosis while trying to maintain some sense of normalcy.

That emotional instability shaped Dead Ball completely.

At its core, the story explored the relationship between Nire and Aranche, but underneath the horror elements were my fears about whether relationships could survive extreme circumstances. I worried constantly about relationship status, emotional permanence, and whether love could outlast instability and mental illness. Aranche’s existence as a human experiment also reflected a dangerous fascination I had with suffering and transformation. The project unintentionally flirted with glorifying human experimentation by presenting bodily horror and emotional pain as tragic beauty rather than genuine trauma.

Because of that, I sometimes wonder whether Dead Ball was overambitious or dead on arrival. The themes were emotionally heavy, and I lacked the stability and experience to fully handle them. Still, the project remains meaningful because it honestly reflects who I was during that period of my life.