Those of you following my anniversary fic, I'm still working on chapter three for that, but here's a short Halloween one-shot for everybody anyway :)
Hush Hush, Sweet Citizen
Cotton candy clouds populated Sugar Rush's night sky, their usual pink hue now a purple one against the dark blue backdrop. The moon was barely visible, small trickles of light softly filtering through the thick clouds every time the wind shifted.
A lone candy citizen, one of Gloyd's fans to be precise, made their way along the barren, winding road through the Candy Cane Forest. The sentient piece of candy corn with a tiny yellow bow topping her head tried to peer through the dark shadows that loomed around her. It was as if she wanted to find someone else in the dark forest in order to ease the unbearing sense of loneliness she felt, yet she also prayed that she wouldn't see anyone.
"I heard that a creature with sharp fangs lives in Candy Cane Forest and only comes out at night!" she had overheard Gloyd saying to the others earlier that day. "And he likes to gobble up anyone that dares come near!"
"You're so full of it," Taffyta had scoffed in annoyance while Candlehead had cowered behind her. "Why would the game programmers put monsters here that could kill us?"
"As an unlockable bonus of course," Gloyd had replied surely. "And even if it did kill us, we'd always regenerate anyway."
The brave candy citizen swallowed hard as she pressed forth, her curiosity having gotten the better of her. She knew it was foolish to come here alone, but she had to know if Gloyd was telling the truth or just spinning another one of those scary tales of his. If it was true, she knew she didn't want to endanger any of her friends.
So alone she went.
A whishing sound from behind her startled her and she almost tripped over her legs while spinning around. She saw nothing, but that didn't mean something wasn't there. Paralyzed with fear, she stood there with her hands clawed up to her chest and her legs feeling like they were in cement. After a minute of nothing happening, her body loosened itself and she was able to move on.
"My dear candy citizens, you know I care for each and every one of you," King Candy had said on their first day of being plugged in. "Therefore it saddens me to tell you that if one of you should perish, you will not regenerate. Now hold on, your body will come back, yes, that much is true. But your mind will not. You will be a blank slate. This is because you have the most simple coding in the game, a lesser value of AI than the rest of us here in Sugar Rush.
"So keep in mind, my dear citizens...if you die, your mind is gone forever."
How did the old saying go? "Curiosity killed the kit kat?" She wasn't sure if it was exactly like that, but close enough. She simply had find out if there was any truth to the story. If it was true and she survived, she'd be able to learn how the creature worked and then could better protect herself in the future. What if it decided it wanted to venture out of the forest and into the citizen's homes next?
A twig snapped.
She froze in place, her whole body tensed painfully. She hoped to not see anything like she had last time and told herself not to let her mind play tricks on her. She couldn't afford to let her imagination run wild now.
In the distance, a few yards ahead of her, she caught sight of something yellow and glowing. Two small dots side-by-side that slowly narrowed into thin slits.
At first she thought they might be a couple of fireball flies but then they started flying towards her at an alarming speed; the closer they got, the bigger they got. Much bigger than any fly should be.
Except they weren't flies at all.
They were eyes.
This was a mistake, a terrible mistake. She should have never come here. Panic seized her and she began to run back the way she had come, her eyes glistened with tears. Calling for help would be pointless and a waste of energy. Her tiny triangle-shaped legs carried her until she tripped on the path's edge, skidding painfully across it.
With a tearful gasp, she struggled to push herself up, ignoring the rips and stains on her little dress. One curse of being a candy citizen was having a head much much bigger than the rest of the body, so this mundane act was made more difficult than it needed to be.
She succeeded and without looking back, she ran again, her whole body screaming in pain. After a few minutes, she paused by one of the trees, resting herself against it while she caught her breath. She dared look back and saw no sign of the glowing orbs that had been chasing her. Could she have imagined it? Had she panicked over nothing.
With a thick swallow, she hugged her tiny arms across her chest and backed up away from the tree, only to bump into something. She inhaled loudly, her mind trying to convince her that she had simply bumped into another tree.
Except this tree was soft...and warm...and breathing...
She tilted her head up to look above and behind her; a ghoulish face smiled down at her, the same yellow eyes from before piercing into her own, the pupils black and bottomless like pits with no soul behind them. The smile was an evil one, yellow like the eyes, and two razor sharp fangs could be seen.
"Hello...sweet citizen..."
The gentle yet malicious whisper sliced into her soul like a knife and she flew forward away from it. A cold hand clawed at the back of her head before she got too far, and she fell with a whimper. So it was real, there really was a creature in Sugar Rush that preyed on the citizens at night! She had to escape, she had to-
The much larger being grabbed her to him easily, her tiny frame no match for his own. She cried and fought best she could but it had no effect on him. His arms held her tight enough to smother her, his hot breath making her nauseous.
"Hush now..." came the whisper again and two sharp teeth buried themselves into the side of her.
She screamed and a gray hand shoved itself against her mouth to quiet her. The monster fed himself on her sweet sugar blood, and she slowly felt herself drifting into unconsciousness. When he finished, he callously dropped her to the cold hard ground, cleaning his fangs with his tongue. Two small holes were pierced into her side; they would not be there when she regenerated.
"Thank you," he said. "Sleep now...you will not remember this night when you awaken."
That voice...it sounded so familiar. One she heard every day.
"No," she whimpered weakly as she realized who it was, the word part of her last breath.
No one would ever learn the secret from her for when she awoke at the starting line, she was a blank slate.
"Such a pity," the king said sadly as the other candy corn citizens helped the poor girl that next morning.
"I wonder what keeps happening," Wynnchel, the eclair policeman, wondered out loud. "These guys keep dying overnight and showing up the next morning with no memory!"
"I don't know, Wynnchel." The king suppressed a smile as the little candy girl looked at him for a moment before she went off with her fellow fans, the taste of her blood still fresh in his memory. "And they don't know either."
(A/N: Vampire!Turbo works like a werewolf does, so the sun doesn't effect him, in case anyone wonders how KC can go in the sun.)