Daisy held up a plastic bucket that looked like a pumpkin to me.
"Have you heard of trick-or-treating?"
I shook my head.
"You basically go to other people's houses and knock on their doors and ask for candy by saying "Trick-or-treat." Simple enough, right?"
"It sounds fun!" Olivia exclaimed.
"Sounds like child's work," Olive said rudely.
"What's wrong, Olive?" Olivia asked. "You've been pretty grumpy ever since we went in the store..."
"Yeah, no kidding!"
"I think we should leave him alone..." Daisy pulled Olivia away from Olive.
Daisy told me that I needed to dress up as "somebody else." I decided to make a yellow overshirt with puffy sleeves and a belt to go around my waist. (I was still wearing my shirt underneath, with the golden collar flipped over the shirt. I had to remove the vest for a fear of overheating.) I had green pants and matching boots.
I rubbed my arm and stared at the ground. "It's nothing fancy...What if people recognize me? What if nobody likes me?"
Olivia held up the Shy Guy mask I had made earlier. "Well then, why don't we bring back that masked confidence?" She held it out to me.
"I don't know..." I pulled my collar up a bit in an attempt to cover my face. "I wasn't originally planning on using that..."
She smiled at me. "Don't worry, Bro bro! I'll be right here next to you! We're twins, Olls! We're inseparable!"
I loosened up a bit and put my collar back down.
"Please?"
"Okay." I accepted the mask from her and disconnected the magnets. I put it on and reconnected the magnets behind my head. "I'm worried over nothing."
"Oh wait!" Peach ran out of the castle holding something. She held out a cape to me that had a hood. "Since you like capes so much, I quickly made this for you when I saw what you were doing."
I accepted it and put it on, flipping the hood over my head.
"Okay, okay! Let's go before Olly gets any more clothes!" Olivia said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me along.
As she pulled me away, I grabbed the bucket from Daisy. Olivia stopped at the first home from the castle. There was a group of children already there, who were just leaving as we arrived. Olivia went up a little further than me and rang the doorbell. We waited as a Toad came over to the door and opened it.
"Oh! A cute little Daisy and a...weird small...child?"
I could feel my hands shaking. I hope he doesn't recognize me...I hope he doesn't recognize me, I really hope he doesn't recognize me...
"What are you supposed to be?"
"He's my brother, and he's a Shy Guy! Literally."
"Oh. Clever!" He grabbed some wrapped things from a bowl and dropped them in our little pails.
"Thank you!" Olivia waved.
"Happy Halloween!"
I heard a small crack, but when I looked around nothing looked out-of-the-ordinary. I looked back at the pail and let go of the hand with one of my hands to find I had been holding it so tightly that I had crushed it.
"Olly? Are you okay?"
"I...I don't know what's wrong with me..."
"Is it because of all the people around? We can wait for later if you want."
"No, no. It's fine." I waved a dismissive hand. I looked at my hand. My fingers seemed a bit more...pointed than usual. I grabbed a pair of gloves out of my pocket and put them on.
Olivia held out her hand. "Come on. We'll walk together, okay?"
I accepted her hand and we resumed heading to the building next door. I noticed Olive was following behind us. We stopped at the next house. There was a Shy Guy and a Koopa Troopa in front of us.
"Aah! Oh, how terrifying! A great costume idea, kiddo!"
The Toad at the door was different than most of them. She was a pink Toad, but the colors were swapped and the end of her mushroom cap was styled like hair. She gave some wrapped items to them and they turned to leave.
The Shy Guy had black dots drawn onto his mask and was holding a rubber chainsaw. The Koopa Troopa was wearing a red mask around his eyes and a blue one-piece suit with a red cape.
"Hello! I'm Supa Troopa!" He motioned a hand to the Shy Guy. "And this is Chainsaw Killer man!"
I held the pail handle tighter. I heard more faint cracking sounds.
"I'm Oliv-"
"No no! Your costume name!" The Koopa Troopa said.
"Oh! Then...HI I'M DAISY! And this is...um-"
"I'm Dimentio. Heeheehee!" Olive interrupted.
"You're not Dimentio! He's dead!"
Olive slowly turned his head in a full circle whilst giggling to himself. "Are you sure? Perhaps you're seeing his spirit!" He wriggled his fingers at the kids.
The Koopa Troopa started sobbing
Olive burst out in laughter as the children ran off.
"What the heck was that, Olive?!"
He turned his head towards Olivia. "I underestimated this holiday! Scaring people is my new passion!" He rubbed his hands together. "I'm off to go give more children nightmares. Don't wait up!" He flew off quickly.
"Well, that was weird," the Toad said. "Nice Shy Guy costume, by the way. Three years back there was this little jerk disguised as a Shy Guy who folded my brother into a tulip."
I started sweating and shaking harder. Olivia gave me a worried look.
"Now that I think about it, he was a yellow Shy Guy too. And you look like his sister. Do you think he could have come back to life?"
"Th-that's crazy! I mean, Dimentio's still dead, right?"
"True...but did King Olly...ever die?"
"We just look similar, is all!" Olivia held up her pail. "Trick-or-treat!"
The Toad shrugged and put some items in our pails. Olivia quickly pulled me away from her house and into a small alleyway.
"Brother...? I think you should try to calm down..."
I shakily looked at my hand again. My pointed fingers had torn through the gloves and my hands were now black. I dropped the pail and examined both of my hands.
"Olivia, wh-what's going on?" I could feel my heart racing and my breathing sped up.
Rqmd azxk ymwqe uf iadeq. Ndqmft pqqbxk mzp exaixk.
"Olly, you should take off the mask. I think it might be cursed or something." Olivia slowly came towards me, speaking calmly.
"Help me, Olivia...please..."
She removed the mask from my face. She gasped and it clattered to the floor. I could see a gaping crack on the top right corner of the mask.
"Olly, don't freak out, okay? I'm going to show you a mirror, alright? Don't freak out."
Ftq sudx ue ymwuzs m yuefmwq!
Olivia brought out a hand mirror from a pocket on Daisy's dress and handed it to me, the reflective side down.
"Only if you want to."
Ftq sudx ue ymwuzs m yuefmwq! Pa zaf xaaw! Pa zaf xaaw!
I turned the mirror around. My hair was messy and slightly longer than before, and my face was light purple and fuzzy. I had two pairs of horns, one of them was on my forehead (hence the broken mask) and the other, shorter, ones where more towards the center of my head. They were black with red tips. (If I remember correctly, I might have also had goat ears...)
"O-Olivia? What's going on? What's happening?"
"Hey, I told you not to freak out!" She came over to me and gently grabbed my hands. "Take deep breaths, okay? You need to calm down if we're going to do anything."
"Okay..."
Author note: I noticed we didn't have much Origami twin interactions, so I made this chapter. Also, in the last chapter I forgot that Vambrace was speaking in a cipher, so Olly wasn't supposed to know about Cappy...(Oops ) Speaking of ciphers, here is a bit of the code to help you solve it:
A=M
E=Q
