By the time it came forth from the earth, it was too late to even scream, and he remembered as the thing lunged at him: "Messing with gravestones is bad luck."
Happy Halloween, boys and ghouls!
A/N: Your Matinee Idol here again with a little Halloween something for you all. It's based in Halloween Town and heavily influenced not just the Nightmare Before Christmas, but by one of my favorite books ever, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. Don't expect too much originality in this one, yeah?
On a side note, I'd like to wish you all a very happy Halloween! It's always been one of my favorite holidays, especially now that I'm cosplaying Tifa Lockhart this year. This is one of the last years I can trick or treat and get away with it. Alas, my Hell Week for my musical is right now, so there's no chance for me. But that's what we have siblings for, right?
So stay safe, keep warm, and have a great time tonight!
Just a warning that this little double-drabble thing, by the by, is a little violent and bloody near the end. I've personally read much worse, but if that's not your cup of tea, then you can go back and find other stuff to read, no problem.
And without any further ado, I hereby present Tearaway Face. Review as you wish
tearaway face.
Sora woke early the day he heard the citizens coming through the square, a calliope high and blazing in the early jack-o'-lantern sunlight. He threw his grey costume on in a rush and brought a pumpkin mask over his eyes, adjusting the crown at his neck and throwing gloves over his hands. He opened the window wide to see the festival rise, like an angel from a grave.
The autumn corpses came marching down the street into the square, orange and black streamers following in their footsteps. Ghost gentlemen, dressed in their Sunday best, were coupled with pumpkin parade girls, and they waltzed in perfect diamond patterns.
Paper ghosts howled like the wind and threw sweet skeleton candies into the cheering crowd. Fire-eaters sent flames high into the air and the smoke settled against the sky.
The guillotine was hoisted up and thrown down over porcelain pumpkins, cracking open to reveal brightly-colored candies. Dying orange leaves swirled all around the town, the wind unusually warm in the last touches of summer.
Even Sora's shadowy mask couldn't hide the bright, happy shine in his eyes. Soon his friends were at his sides, straining to get a closer look, caught up in the orange light and black clouds.
"I can't believe I forgot," he said, turning around to his friends and giving them a fake-fanged smile, "that it's Halloween."
They had generic responses, and phrases like "we've been forgetting everything important" and "kinda hard to keep track" tried to stick in Sora's brain, but the calliope wouldn't let him.
Sora stood on the edge of everything Halloween had never been before. He wanted to taste the light and feel the air, to breathe in autumn leaves and breathe out candy clouds. It was still early, but the night was gathering in the distance like a violent storm.
"We should see the carnival," he said excitedly, already able to taste the cotton candy underneath his tongue. "But—we should do something scary tonight."
His friends perked up at this, the hairs on their necks standing at attention. They tried to protest, have Sora stay in the city.
It would be safe in the brightly lit square, they said. Jack would make sure nothing would scare them. They could expect treats and no tricks. But Sora didn't want to hear any of it.
"I'll go alone, then," he laughed as he shut the door behind him, the thud like a pound of his own heart as he left the scaredy-cats behind.
†
The carnival was dwindling down in the square after the moon rose over Curly Hill. The carousel started taking its circles slowly, the lights turned off, and the calliope died down to nothing more than a memory. Happy Halloweengoers retreated after another successful holiday, off to dream of smiling ghouls and the "who" in "who's there?" Sora was happy for them, but he was more concerned with the gravestone in front of him.
He'd been staring at it for the better part of an hour, waiting for something strange to pop out so he could fight it, send it back to the dead. But instead of the valiant battle he'd been hoping for, he just found a frozen grave, with the same old frozen words:
REQUIESCAT IN PACE
ALESSA JAMESON
1789—1805
Come on, it's Halloween, he thought impatiently, crossing his arms over his costume. Shouldn't you be on your way out?
An idea struck him—he could just wake up the zombie himself, fight it, send it back, go back to Jack's house. It definitely beat waiting there all night and not getting any sleep. But just in case it turned out to be a real, scary zombie, the Keyblade could take care of it. He grasped the hilt tightly, and then began to whack at the gravestone with it, sending sparks high into the air.
"Hey! Hey!" he called loudly, looking for any sign of undead life. "Wake up, c'mon! Wake up!"
Something stirred in the earth, rumbling like faraway thunder. The grave dirt cracked and Sora backed off, his Keyblade held in front of him in a practiced, defensive stance. A veiled zombie came forth, and if his heartbeat wasn't so loud, Sora would have heard her purring.
"Oh, you shouldn't have touched that, darling," she said in a disciplined voice, as if Sora was a bad, bad child. "Can't you read? I warned you on that sign right outside. Messing with gravestones is bad luck."
"But you're a—you're a—" he stuttered, completely frozen in terror. He hadn't expected something like this. He had expected a ghost, a wisp of the wind, something you could deny was there. This thing had a shadow, a voice, a tearaway face. It was more than he had expected, more than he had wanted.
"I'm a corpse, as you can tell," the bride-body said, her veils blowing over her blackened mouth. "Are you really all that new to Halloween Town? Or are you just dim-witted?"
"What did you say?" Sora demanded angrily, his Keyblade flashing in the moonlight, an anger building in his eyes.
"Oh?" Alessa said with an open, wide smirk. Her teeth were all rotted away or completely disappeared, and Sora swallowed over the vomit that threatened to come up.
"The mortal thinks he can play," she continued, holding back laughter as she reached closer. "Such a pity. I'd hate to tear away that handsome face, but you leave me no choice."
With a cry, Sora leapt forward, the Keyblade pointed at where her heart should have been. The thing—corpse—girl—bent out of shape, unnaturally, the key out of her way. In the moonlit ground, Sora had a hard time seeing, and Alessa's arms reached, tore at his skin.
He cried out, wanting the pain to stop. Her not-teeth gnashed at his neck, tore away his skin. Her rotting fingers stabbed his sides, grasped his throat and held it tight—tight—too tight. He was falling into deep space, into the blackness inside himself. He couldn't die—he wouldn't—but maybe, maybe he was.
Focus—focus, he told himself. Remember the spell, make yourself better. Cure—no, it's another word now—help me—someone please help me—Cur—
With a last choking cry, Sora's eyes rolled into his head, his eyes shining white. He fell forward, marks on his neck, blood surrounding what little of his face was left.
"I warned you," she said, a little mournfully, her ornamental shoe digging into his cheek. "And now look at what you've made me do."
Sora said nothing in return, and Alessa's rotting arms stretched, reached out for him. His body was heavy and limp, his heartbeat weakening by the second. His wounds bled openly and stained his gray sleeves a deep ruby red. The corpse-girl dragged him away, searching for her pumpkinhead guard. The thing, which was more scarecrow than human, was waiting for her just outside of the graveyard gate.
Shoving the old, rotted body away, she stripped it of its shirt and head, kicking it into the dust. She crowned Sora with the pumpkinhead, covering up his blood-stained, torn-away face. His arms hung off the pole, blood dripping off of his loose fists. The warning was shoved against his chest until it found a place to stay within the sinew and bone.
She bowed a long time to the boy, smirking as she did so. "All hail this foolish boy, proclaimed this evening king of the pumpkin patch. Hail, hail! Long live the king."
She retreated to the graveyard, her veils rippling behind her, and then she was completely disappeared, a figment of any imagination.
The only thing that remained in the wind was the warning against his cold, cold skin:
"Messing with gravestones is bad luck."
end.
A/N: So, yes. Hastily written to meet my deadline of October 31, and now I actually have homework to do. Happy Halloween again, and I hope you liked it. Review as you will. I'm up for editing this, so tell me if anything's wrong. Thanks!
Matinee Idol.