A Very Late Halloween 2025: Tricks And Treats Pt. 3
“Me next!” Jury hummed. “Hm… I know someone who woke up pregnant. Five months old pregnancy, mind you. Her stomach was quite enlarged. Apparently, it’s possible for Nex to implant a womb!”
Frost’s heart sank, but the feathers – which lined the interior of her pajamas – did not rustle. Thus, she realized that Jury was lying, and she deflated in utter relief.
“Hehe~ Gotcha Frost!”
“Haaaaah. Yeah, you got me.”
Pregnancy was one of Frost’s greatest fears, but not for the wrong reasons. It was less that she was afraid of getting pregnant, and more so if she was ready to bring a child into this kind of world.
Though, she seemed to think she was doing a good job with Joy.
Next was Joy. She looked across the table at the others for help, before eventually squealing out a random: “Malgam.”
Then, it was Res’ turn.
“One time, I was drawing a picture of the coast. I was 135 hours into the project. My canvas was about thirteen meters by twenty six meters. It was supposed to be an artwork where you can’t differentiate it from the real coast until you get close enough to make out the finer details… But then… Then…”
Res begrudningly hissed, adding:
“I came back to find that someone had ran across it. My beautiful painting; smeared like it had been spat on. I told myself that the ugly and the beautiful made up the colors in the world. Tch…”
“… Sis, I’m sorry that happened. Or I’m happy for you?” Cer tilted her head, wondering where the horror part of the story was.
“Mn. Real horror… comes from what I see in the Blessed. Mn. It’s horrific.”
Ignis stared into the air and recited in a hollow voice:
“Fibrodysplasia (muscle that turns to bone). Curable, but requires intermittent intervention for prognosis. Harlequin-type Ichthrosis (newborns born with plate-like skin, appearing like ‘dolls’). Near incurable without invasive intervention. Mn. Shape of their soul. Born the way they are. But it can be managed, thanks to my progress in cellular control. Noma (cancrum oris, a disease that devours the face). Very curable. Seen a lot. Poor oral hygiene. Mn. The Head needs better health initiatives, because Blessed rely on Healing potions for oral care. Doesn’t break their habits. Then, I have seen Progaria (children who age 10x fast). Treated using an Isolation Sphere at 10x speed to offer a normal life. My symbiotic cells are in a trial phase.”
Only Frost and Anna knew the gravitas of those diseases. The first and second in particular caused Frost to shudder. She had seen a few cases back on Earth. The latter of which had caused many restless nights. Even now, the image of a child being born with plated armor to resemble a doll, from a human mother no less, terrified her.
Next up was Cer.
“I don’t have a story per say, but I can tell you about the tricks I gave out to Healers an hour ago. Heh. Where do I start? Aside from the mayonnaise, I managed to jump scare a few a Healers along that one path in the forest? You know, that section lovers walk through, since it has a nice lake and all? Heh. I also gave out chocolate rocks, with one rock out of the bunch containing liquorish.”
“… Is the last one supposed to be a prank?” Frost asked.
“Oi, I’m talking right now. Wait, you like that shit?”
Frost didn’t answer that, leaving Cer to grumble and continue.
“Then I got pranked by a few Healers. A Black Wing came asking if I wanted to be tricked or treated. I asked for a treat, and she kissed me. Hell, a White Dove also came around and gave me a kiss when I asked for a trick! Then there was a Sanguine Dove that gave me a ticket to heaven, plus her home address. More popular than I thought~ She also gave me this weirdly elongated device–”
Cer reached into her [Dimensional Storage]. Frost, having the ability of foresight, saw precisely what it was and instantly flushed red. She threw a hand up and cried:
“Hey, heeeey! Don’t pull that out here!”
“Why not? Never seen it before. Though you or Jury would know.”
Frost’s feathers rustled.
The real horror, in the end, was that Cer did not recognize a sex toy when she saw one.
“… Ber, is your sister…?”
“She’s just never seen one so pink before. I’m more surprised you know about it.”
Jury waved again, as if to say, once more, that she’s the reason for this.
“… I see~” Ber hummed, right before clearing her throat. “Ahem! As for my story… There once was this cat. A red furred cat.”
Ignis’ head slowly turned to Ber.
“She – I mean, it was deathly afraid of a particular vegetable.”
Ignis raised a brow.
“The dreaded… Lettuce!”
She threw the lettuce onto the table. It landed beside Ignis, and Ber watched expectantly. That soon turned to disappointment when Ignis didn’t react to it at all. But then, in the span of the same second that hope died, her smile returned.
“She’s so terrified that she can’t even move~” Ber entered a fit of laughter.
It was a throwback to a Ber who once foolishly believed that feline Demi-Humans feared lettuce. She had matured since then.
“Sorry, sorry. I know you’re not afraid of lettuce. It’s…”
Ignis slowly nodded, a small smile forming. She was close to Ber as a friend. The bond they shared was ill-known to most, especially outsiders. If one were to walk into the room and look at the way Ignis was staring at Ber, then they would believe they were mortal enemies.
“Mn. What I’m really afraid of is–” Before she could finish speaking, Ber interjected with:
“–Cucumbers!”
A scornful look took over Ignis’ face and she looked away, uttering: “Idiot Ber.”
Anna offered to skip. She received the most flack since no one could comprehend how the Archivist herself did not have a single horror story to share. In truth, Anna had quite a few under her belt, but she felt that they needed to be set up extensively before they could land.
She muttered in an aside: “My love life,” and hugged the mantle that was draped around her shoulders.
Nav was next, and she went on for fifteen minutes talking about how empty she felt. So bleak was her monologue that Frost had to intervene by feeding her emergency cupcakes. She only let her go on that long because they were waiting for a punchline, as per Nav.
But it never came.
The somber Nav suddenly wore a vibrant expression as she munched on her strawberry-flavored cupcake. Pink residue clung to her face as she extended her hand.
“Another.”
“I’ll get Kissaria to deliver another batch.” Frost granted her another.
Another few rounds of stories went by until the Witching Hour ended. Once the clock hit 4:00 AM, the group disbanded and disappeared into the hallways. They lived in the manor, after all. Aside from Anna who took residence within the Eternal Library.
However, the moment she opened the front door, her legs suddenly froze.
“Frost… You… Have a spare room?”
“A hundred free rooms, yeah. You’re free to stay wherever you want. Some Healers like to crash here too. Don’t see why you can’t. You don’t even have to ask.” Frost smiled.
“… Mhm. Thank you.”
* * *
The cucumber sat miserably on the table.
Surrounding it were the half-eaten cakes, and half-drank cups of coffteas. It was a stain in a pile of delicacies. No normal human would choose a cucumber over a cake. Moreover, it had heard how it was feared by the red-haired girl.
It shuddered, and it lamented that it was unwanted.
It yearned to be eaten.
But if it could not be eaten…
“Tell me, what do want the most?”
… Cu… Cumber…
“Do you remember the pastures you came from?”
Cumber… Cu…
It did. The cucumber remembered the vines it had grown from, and the tiny hands that plucked it from their home. It boasted to the other vegetables in the basket that it was yearned, and that the white-haired angel would devour it.
However, it watched as the basket was waterboarded, scrubbed, and then sliced into ribbons. It wanted this. It wanted to join the boiling broth that they were dumped into.
But then, a black-haired woman with wolf ears stopped a white-haired angel from cutting it. She said that cucumbers were not meant for soup.
Then, surely it could be used for a salad.
“We have enough salad stored. See if it can be used for that… what did Frost call it? It’s that food you see near the coastlines. Where Aquatids like to eat out? The Aqua Roll. But Frost calls it sushi.”
But when it was about to be used for sushi, the same voice stated:
“Too much cucumber. We’re watering the starch too much. Makes it too gummy.”
It couldn’t be used for soup, nor a salad. Not even this ‘sushi’. And even when it was deliegated to compost, it was forgotten on the bench. By some miracle, the wolfwoman brought it along. It believed that she would snack on it.
However, it was instead used as a prop to instill terror.
And for that reason…
“Why does it hurt?”
Cu… Cu… Cumber…
“A vegetable comprised of so much water. Is not different from humans who are composed primarily of the same fluids?”
Cumber…
“Tell me, what do you see yourself as?”
… umber… Cucumb… er…
“Then it shall be as you wish.”
The cucumber began to violently shake. Tiny hair follicles punctured through its flesh, resembling tiny hands. The cucumber’s shape gradually morphed into a parody of a sea cucumber. A long slit ran from each end of its length, and it opened to reveal rows of tongues in the place of teeth.
If it could not be eaten, then it would have to eat the others itself. Such was the cycle of life. Such was the truth of the living. If it was born from a plant, which was alive, then why wasn’t it truly alive?
Why was it born to be eaten?
Thus, it would devour everyone in this house, starting with that wolfwoman…
… No, with that strange golden-eyed woman who was staring down at her.
Its mouth opened, ready to consume the hand that reached for it.
However, as it snapped shut, the hand swiftly dodged and seized it.
“Not in my house.”
A voice spoke within its mind. Suddenly, it found itself hovering over the maw of this person. It unhinged to twice its normal size, and before it could protest, it was devoured whole. Not even the juices of its body were spilled.
It disappeared unceremoniously.
In its final thoughts, it hoped that it could at least become one with this person.
However…
“Unique Ability Gained… Ah, it got rejected. Fair enough. Not sure what I’d gain from a cucumber.”
She shrugged and yawned, stretching before patting her stomach.
“Didn’t taste that bad. I wonder if it was a good idea to put Light into the cucumber.”
She didn’t think much of it and snacked on the leftovers. At some point, she crouched by the table and took a bite from its edge. A gooey, dark brown interior oozed out.
“Completely forgot this was chocolate! I should keep the rest for Ber, in case she wants to make something with it.”
Another day, another Corrupted slain.
All in a day’s work for The Head.