Okay, okay. So I screwed up. Everyone disappears off the face of the earth for a year, sometimes :) But I'm back, in a college I love, with people I love, doing what I love, which is ignore the teachers and write every single minute of the day, between using my brand-spanking new sex-god of a phone. Yes, I have changed a bit, but Phrixos and Kim are still the same old love-birds they've always been. With a little dash of scarlet hair thrown in for good mesure. ;)

With the utmost apologies,

-Sam the Shapeshifter

"Well, well, Jack."

Phrixos clenched his fingers on the paper covering on the nurse's bed and closed his eyes. Not her.

Laura sat down opposite him, clipboard balanced on one knee as she watched the boy from behind a pair of rim-less glasses.
"I didn't think I'd be seeing you so soon."

"Likewise." He murmured. Over the course of the past month or so, he had changed. Not just physically, going from a fragile boy with a look of constant terror hidden in his eyes to a young man with broad shoulders and a lithe but fairly costaud frame from the sports he participated in; but in his aura, he was different. He no longer stood the same, his head held slightly higher than everybody else, looking down at them constantly, regardless of his attitude and his desired impression. Phrixos looked down and pitied the world around him for being so-... so-... Pitiful.

"So, what're these?" She gestured to the Caber boy's arms with the end of the pencil and raised her preened eyebrows pensively, with all the authority she could muster. It wasn't nearly enough, since the jade in Phrixos' eyes to burst into irritated flame.

"It's called self-harming. You call yourself a social worker, Laura?"

Laura blinked, taken-aback.

"Self-... harming?"

Jack's son folded his arms over his black t-shirt and looked away, the gauze pads covering the various patches on his arms stood almost cream against his pale skin.

Self-harming.

Kim was the first thing he saw once he stepped out of the office. He blinked and shook his head, walked straight past her, despite her best objections.

"Phrix!" She called after him as he rounded the corner to the staircase, then ran after him, bag slapping against her thigh. A few people turned to look, mostly at the wonder that was Phrixos Caber than the short red-head running after him.

Phrixos slammed the door to the roof behind him with difficulty. He felt a rush of adrenalin, pounding in his ears, for being on the roof, out in the air, breaking a rule or four, not to mention the melodrama of the situation.

Then again, he just wanted the air.

The dark-haired young man walked slowly over to the edge, hands on the handrail nowhere near as tightly as he should have held on. The wind whipped at his clothes and his hair, stung his eyes and blurred his vision. Down below, it was empty. The wind churned his hair into a mess, as always, but this time it meant it. There was something pulling there, in the cold October air, puling at the very edges of his bones, down into the abyss. Phrixos stepped up onto the ledge and looked out at what he could see. Miles and miles of various coloured roofs jumped at him, shades of grey and black and slate. Just slate. The sky, dyed a faded blue tinged with grey, barely seemed to be able to sustain the weak grey light from the autumn sun. Down below, a girl from his art class looked up momentarily, to see the Caber boy perched on the edge, looking out at the horizon.

She didn't move for a moment, until Phrixos' gaze lowered, his lips parted, tongue dry and painfully from the sprint up the stairs and the harsh air. She nudged her friend, who looked up. Phrixos ignored their gaping stares, watching the slow crowd gather like wasps, like ants, like moths. Insects, they were nothing but insects. The wind blew ebony locks into his face, eyes fixed on the dwindling urban horizon again. Insects. Insects meant to be crushed.

Jack lifted the last of the ropes from the mirror, entwined with ornate snakes that hissed and slithered silently along the frame. The mirror was just about as old as he was, and put up in the Town Hall every Halloween since he could remember. When people passed in front of it, their features in it became distorted, bestial, wretched. Everyone roared with joy at the prospect of being transformed by this mirror, the tradition went on that every year, the new-comers of Halloween Town stood in front of the mirror as it twisted and ruined their reflections, then watched as it returned to normal. It was tradition, nothing in it, just superstition and cobwebs.

This year, only one would stand there in front of it, shoulders wrapped with various Halloween Towner hands, holding them there, eager grins on their faces, observing, waiting. Red stood up from the pews, urged on by various Towners, shook hair from his face. Red didn't have his name for nothing. Dark crimson strands framed his features, skin blanched grey and dotted with stitch marks, around his mouths, across one eye, down the prominent lines of his neck. His eyes were a violent indigo-black, reflecting the light like beetles from the candles suspended from the ceiling beams by chains, held in copper basins drowned with wax. The young Towner stepped up to the creaking floorboards and looked at himself in the mirror. All he saw for the moment was the crowd around him, and himself, as normal as... well, as normal as he could imagine himself. Then, it changed. The features turned elongated, first downwards like a serpent, eyes a blood crimson like his hair, locks long and swept back from his forehead. Gashes sprouted at the corners of his mouth, turning his parted lips into a maniacal grin. The monsters and ghouls around him roared with mirth, jaws wide open, howling with laughter. Red smirked slightly, stomach empty, watching his features flicker and shimmer in the reflected glass, serpentine and menacing.

Then it morphed, once again, this time back to a humanoid form, but his skin turned milk-white, eyes returning to ebony, but so did his hair. It grew out, into a long mane like before, into his eyes, cheekbones pushing through the skin, gashes and stitches disappearing into his mouth and eye-sockets, leaving his complexion flawless and smooth, gleaming like bone in the candle-light. It wasn't him. The Towners around him looked at each other, no longer laughing. Their eyes had grown wide, disconcerted by this metamorphose, stricken by the strangeness of this new image. It was so different from what they were used to, clear, alien, human. It was unsettling. Jack narrowed his sockets at the image, then focused them on the young Towner once more. Stood still, fists by his sides, fixed on the image before him. A sound rose in the Hall, like a low growl, resonating deep in the rib-cages - of those that still had one - of the party members, then growing into a scream. The mirror was screaming, the snakes' gaping mouths wide and exposing the ivory fangs, glittering in steel candlelight. The wailing continued, a few Towners scattering, Red took a step back into the Wolfman's hairy chest, eyes wide. It died away again, disappearing all together before the mirror faded into blackness, stray leaves swirling around in the hall like autumn butterflies.

The crowd was silent, save for the muted whispering, murmuring, consulting each other in disbelief. The doors lay open, and many departed long before Jack stepped down from his perch in the balconies and went over to the solitary figure that was Red, still stood where he backed away. He folded his arms, eyes on the mirror, skull layered with nonchalance, trained nonchalance. Red looked up to him, like a small child looks up to a teacher or a grandparent. The Pumpkin King's gaze didn't move, expression not wavering, then he spoke.

"I think it's time to go finish getting ready."

Two children screamed into the darkness. Phrixos kicked his feet against the pavement, sat on the curb, watching his laces. Hands shoved into his pockets, curled up on himself, he listened to the laughter and joyful cries of the young children in the block, watching the light creep across the tarmac as each door opened and closed as the young took their fill of sugar and crept back into the shadows of the evening. He looked up, neck exposing itself to the night, long and pale and flawless in the moonlight. Full, it shone down at him like a grin, leaving shadows behind the bollard beside him, by the cars, on the walls; night shadows. He rose to his feet, head suddenly filled with restlessness and languor, ringing with lamplight and darkness inebriation.

The park was deserted, except for a young couple on the swings, entwined in a moonlit embrace. He passed them with little interest, hands curled into his pockets, hair in his eyes, a slight frown the only flaw in his features. He watched his own shadow walk alongside him from the moon, frightfully tall, sharp angled, slightly stooped and crawling across the grass like a spider. He shuddered, wind biting at his cheeks, night creeping its tendrils into his chest. Phrixos could feel the paving pounding beneath his sneakers with every step he took, pounding into his heart-beat like the rhythm of a ritual drum. It was Halloween, after all.

Across rooftops, Towners scattered, pattering along the tiling much to the inhabitants displeasure. Anyone could become jumpy on Halloween, after all.

Jack followed in quick pursuit, but soon headed off down an alley, dropping to the floor like a silent ghost, his stride long and as balanced as a trained figure-skater. A solitary moth-eaten grey kitten peered fearfully at the looming king from behind a dump-ster, offering a quiet meow as some sort of greeting before making itself scarce with a half-hearted hiss. He ignored it, concentrating on keeping his memory going, like clock-work, well-oiled clockwork.

"Jack." Katia smiled, taking his hands. They were cold, maybe from working in the abattoir all day, maybe from the cold October wind. The tall man smiled, black hair blown into his face, scarf hanging languidly from his pale neck. The couple stood in the whirling leaves, watching each other as the trees slowly lost their greenery around them, waiting for something to break the thick silence.

Katia looked down, smile fading slightly now; Jack frowned.

"What's wrong?" he asked, almost worriedly.

"I came here to tell you something important, Jack."

The silence hung between them froze suddenly, into the pit of Jack's stomach, into his expression and his eyes. Green, like summer grass, like clover, like old pennies. The young woman looked back up at him, her own copper hair pulled back into a loose bunch at the base of her neck, eyes bright and caramel-brown, cheeks flushed red with the cold and dotted with faded freckles. She smiled again, a smile that made the ice in his stomach only worsen, the kind of smile that comes just before the thing you don't want to hear.

"You're going to be a father."

Jack rounded the corner, heading towards that park, of course that park. Of all nights, Jack Skellington's son would have to be drawn there. The place of his conception, the place that his father had passed onto him by genetics, and -of course- this night. It was in his blood.

The king of October 31st carried on down the road, practically invisible - who would want to see a full-grown possessed skeleton at night, after all?He rounded the street towards the park, a street-light snuffed out as he passed – out of servility – then flickered back into life as he passed out of sight, buzzing softly with an amber glow.

Phrixos shuddered, glancing around him. The wind was picking up, tearing at his cheeks and drawing tears in his eyes. The cold encircled him like a vulture, jabbing at the unprotected skin and leaving goosebumps. He was cold and tired and hungry. And yet, still stood there, as if transfixed by the moon and quiet and the seemingly distant sounds of the city.

Every now and again, something moved in the bushes near him, but the sound of the howling trees drowned it out. Phrixos' eyes were wide, silent, voice trapped in his throat. His heart pounded like a manic butterfly in his ears, lips vibrating with his heart-beat and stomach empty that taunted at his quasi-panic like baying dogs. The darkness tugged at his heart and his lungs, stirring them into a maniacal terror like thunder clouds.

Finally, white surrounded him, hushing the fear into quiet controlled nonchalance, a state of mind that Phrixos found himself in more and more often.

"Hello?" he shouted, his voice sounding terribly small in his own ears. The darkness seemed to grin but stayed silent.

Kim called the mobile number registered under the small name "Phrix " on her phone once again, pressing the receiver to her ear and sighing. Ignoring the crowrd around her firmly, she took a few strides away and leant back against the wall. The tone in her ear finally cut off to the answer phone, Phrixos' voice rang out in her head.

"Hey, this is Phrixos Caber. Can't get to the phone at the mo', leave me a message and I'll get back to ya."

"Phrixos, s'me again. Where the hell are you, kid?" She smiled slightly despite herself and the cold. "Call me when you get this. Bye."

She slid the phone back down into its compact form and looked at the blue glare of the screen in the night. Time for trick-or-treating.