JACK-O-LANTERN (Pt. 3)

When something light touched his face, he'd simply lain a hand over his forehead. A heartbeat later, the touch had dropped to the crook of his neck.

Smirky shifted his shoulder and turned to his side, loosening the embrace of his grey blanket. It was natural fleece, or something – cozy as a spot by a lit fireplace on Christmas Eve.

Something tickled his tummy, and not those pesky metaphoric butterflies.

The illusionist kicked the blanket's wraps into a ball and curled up around it, hugging the folds tight against his chest, guarding his middle fiercely.

"Ngh... go away..."

A lock of black hair fell across his grimacing face. Someone other than himself brushed it back and tucked it behind his ear.

"I said, go away! I'll deal with you in the morning!"

He reluctantly rolled again, this time on his stomach, clamping his indented pillow over his head. To hell with what it was! He just wanted to sleep.

Nothing else happened for a while.

So Smirky wrote it off as a small victory over Devil's Night and started to fall adrift, eyes drooping shut, breathing slow and steady. Being a demon's servant had advantages: you really weren't bothered by the creepy and occult.

However, nothing in the dog-eared '101 Tips For Paranormal Inactivity' handbook that his master had fished out of the bin and begrudgingly handed to him as a Christmas gift, could've prepared him for when a ghostly hand stroked his thigh. Affectionately.

"I knocked and knocked on that door earlier, but it wasn't you who answered..." a female voice murmured, sadly, her tone dipped in unmistakeable sugar-coated insanity.

The illusionist yelped and scrambled to sit like a dazed dachshund, crossing his legs as an afterthought, goosebumps erupting over his flesh.

The fleece blanket flew over half his head. He gingerly lifted it up.

It can't be...!

A blast from the past greeted his eyes.

He didn't see her on the edge of the bed; he saw her in the mirror. She had a hole where her heart should've been; you could see right through her chest cavity.

He never forgot the smell of her floral perfume.

She emitted a wondrous illusion of life, looking exactly as she had been before her untimely death. Behind him, she draped her slender arms over his shoulders.

Velvet voice, chiming bells. "I was vewwy disappointed. Don't you remember me, my darling?'

"Yandree..."

She smiled. Yandree slipped from sight like sand in an hourglass. Smirky changed the angle of his view, and saw her near the doorway, beckoning him to follow her out.

He glanced over his shoulder; the place she stood was empty. But, looking back to the mirror, she was right there. And then she ran.

Without hesitation, the illusionist jumped out of bed and chased her. Common sense said it was impossible for her, the real her, to be there, but he wasn't so sure. Her body was decomposing six feet underground in an unmarked grave, deemed unfit for proper burial.

(no flowers for you)

But, if he didn't find out for sure – the curiosity would chew him up and spit him out for dinner. So he dashed, darting through the surgery's ajar door, relying on passing glimpses of reflection to hunt her down.

Around and around in circles she led him, taking endless delight in watching him dance to her silvery tune.

She laughed like a child at play. The melody rung around the walls, under the floor, behind the window. Even noise that didn't belong to her; the faintest howl of wind, a clink of glass from downstairs, seemed to join her chorus.

"That's right, my darling! Let's be like a fairytale; I'll be your princess if you'll be my prince!"

Was it an illusion? Another sick joke of Devil's Night? Or could it be... somehow, somehow, this lovesick girl had found a way to come back and haunt him?

He cast aside common sense.

And he fell for her enchantment.

Yandree came to a stop, hovering outside, standing out beautifully in the darkness. This time, she wasn't in a reflection. He came closer; she took a step back and held out her hand.

A necklace's fine silk thread billowed against her bare throat as a wind picked it up. Its pendant – a skeleton key, flashed in and out of focus as it caught the golden moonlight.

"I'm waiting," she whispered.

Planting a palm behind the half-open window's cool crystal glass, he climbed onto the sill and reached out to take her hand.

I have to know if she's real...

His hair flew about his face, pulling this way and that. The wind flapped the folds of his nightshirt wildly, filled his ears with harsh static.

Just a little more...

The illusionist's other hand slipped an inch down the glass. Numb vertigo seized his thumping chest; his senses screamed at him to retreat.

But he had already come so far... almost touching her glowing fingertips...

Pushing past the buffeting wind, Smirky leaned out further. Yandree drifted a little away, calling out encouragement drenched in bittersweet, intoxicating poison.

"You're so close, darling! Don't you just love those perfect endings?"

(don't you just love those perfect endings?)

Breaking from her spell left him paralysed.

Yandree's smile faltered. She wiggled her neglected hand, impatiently reminding him that she was still waiting. Smirky's crimson eyes widened, understanding at once what she was trying to make him do.

A sweeping wind shrieked past his face.

(was it caused by a cackling witch on her broomstick, a terrified black cat clinging by its claws to the broom's coarse bristles, soaring past the giant moon?)

His stiff body swayed, and his supporting hand slid further.

One by one, his trembling fingers lost their grip on the polished pane. The tendons in his wrist, burning fiercely as they tried to hold his free-hanging weight, were suddenly relieved.

A three-storey drop spiralled underneath his feet, swathed in indigo shadows.

He hung onto the sill's curved edge with all his might, swinging suspended, scrambling for any kind of foothold to stop himself from plunging down, down, down...

Yandree shook her head in amusement.

She came closer, resting her hand on his tense shoulder, tracing his clenched jaw with an ice-cold finger. "Stubborn, stubborn... I'll see you in the lower realm, darling."

To his surprise, she faded.

Smirky wanted to turn his head to make certain she was gone, but he couldn't let his concentration slip. Instead, he put both hands on the sill and heaved.

His nails scraped the chipped wood. His knuckles were bone-white, rocking to-and-fro as he steadied himself against the wind.

Painstakingly, he folded his legs and pushed forward. The sill dug deep into his midriff, but he stayed unfazed by the sharp pain. Smirky hesitated, then lunged.

For a second that seemed to stretch on forever when his grip left, he found himself under the mercy of wind and gravity.

Then, his shoulder struck the edge of the window itself.

Knocked completely off balance, wind rushing past him, he fell...

... over the windowsill and out onto stable floor. Shoulder aching. Face buried an inch in musty old carpet. He emerged coughing, blood rushing to his cheeks.

Why did the floor smell like greasy fast food and cheese? Ah. Of course; BEN. He'd done his best to erase any memories of the blonde midget from mind's eye.

Especially the naked ones.

A mournful breeze ruffled his windswept hair.

He laughed weakly, voice a meek wheeze. Smirky picked himself off the floor, still reeling from his narrow escape, and turned to shut the window.

Then, the illusionist leant against the windowsill and closed his eyes, letting a long-winded sigh blow past his lips. That was... an experience.

I'll see you in the lower realm. What had she meant by that? She knew by then that he wasn't going to fall. Why disappear right afterwards?

He frowned. She knows something I don't.

Or... was she just dropping bait to keep me guessing? Arugh! She'd be overjoyed if she knew how much she's running through my mind! I need to distract myself...

A cautious peek though his lashes.

No one had snuck up on him. All the shadows were where they should be. A reassuring warmth seemed to caress his skin, soothing the goosebumps.

Smirky laced his hands behind his head, looking this way and the other. Despite the harmless loneliness, he wasn't going to stick around on his own for much longer. As much as it revolted him to stoop down to such a level, he would join his brother in the kitchen.

Reluctantly shuffling his feet along, down the stairs he went.

Would Devil's Night ever come to an end? A grandfather clock (he couldn't fathom who had stuck a great hulking piece of machinery like that on a wall, upside-down, but decided they were most assuredly an idiot for doing so), informed him the time was just a tick shy of half past ten.

The illusionist hesitated on the second floor landing.

That shadow was on the prowl. He hadn't been too pleased to see him come downstairs twice, and third time wasn't a lucky charm. Suspicious, he supposed, and rightfully so.

For six months, Smirky had undertaken dozens of secret missions for his master, cloaked under the vast wings of nighttime. Although he hadn't been asked to kill anyone yet, he had stolen a lot of things.

Dark Link had caught him twice. Once with his hand in the metaphoric cookie jar (this jar being Slenderman's private safe and the cookie, a lockpick).

The other time - sneaking back in, clothes drenched in blood.

It was all his own, as he unsuccessfully tried to explain how it happened if he didn't drink a vial of strange black liquid to deactivate a dangerously strong power booster (that he'd voluntarily allowed a mad demonic scientist to inject into his bloodstream) before it tore apart his entire body, but for some odd reason, the shade... hadn't bought it.

Telling him that he'd almost jumped out of a window while pursuing the ghost of a yandere serial killer whom he'd killed after she'd drugged and kidnapped him on their first date, probably wouldn't be accepted as an excuse for being out of bed either.

For a split second, Smirky pondered on going back upstairs. Then Yandree's face came to mind, and almost falling out of a third storey window. He reconsidered.

An illusion was sent to make a distraction. He could've put much more effort into creating it but refused to waste precious strength.

Controlling a puppet was easy; controlling a thing that spat in the face of reality on multiple occasions was exhausting. The illusion was flimsy and grainy, movements uncoordinated and ungraceful. Efficiency topped appearance.

Smirky's instructions were simple: Walk down stairs. Throw something noisy through window. Wait for this person to come along. Dismiss yourself before he sees you.

And they were followed to the letter.

The ghostly feline known as Cyen gave an earsplitting yowl, followed by glass breaking.

Booted steps thudded past the stairwell.

He felt the illusion's connection break and reattach to his own conscious. It had vanished. Moving swiftly, the illusionist stealthily descended the remaining steps.

Dark Link's footsteps were approaching, gradually getting louder; he could hear the shade muttering about how cats had it in for him – that cat especially.

Thinking fast on his feet, Smirky jumped from the forth step, landed noiselessly on tiptoe, and ran towards the kitchen's ajar door as quick as his legs would carry him.

He ducked inside, pushing the door back to its original position so as not to arouse suspicion. Pah. Idiot. Did he see me?

The kitchen smelt like chocolate. Smirky knelt and spied through the keyhole, covering his nose. Inside, the toasty light made it difficult to look back at the moonlit corridor. He squinted.

Not all of the curtains were drawn. A tall, elvish silhouette stopped in front of the luminescent moon to look outside. Dark Link appeared none the wiser about foul play.

(maybe he thought Cyen had been startled by a stray gust of malicious wind)

The chocolatey stench caused him grief, even when he couldn't catch a whiff of it. Just the knowledge that it was there, and a taste on the tip of his tongue, was enough to make his stomach hack and lurch.

Aside from that, the kitchen was a rather pleasant place to be. But in spite of its inviting, cosy feeling – a chill overtook it by miles ahead. Why hadn't he noticed it before?

Smirky crossed his arms to try and keep himself warm. It only got colder, as if the chill was closing in on him.

Now he wondered why he hadn't heard a peep from Smiley. He hadn't seen him per say – just assumed he was there, and minding his own business with a cup of hot chocolate.

His nose went numb.

The illusionist swung around with the intention to face the worst. What kind of worst, he honestly couldn't say. A ghoul or a phantom menace, perhaps.

But what he saw wasn't what he had prepared for.

Absolute zilch.

The kitchen stood deserted, pots and pans clanking together gently on the rack. Smirky straightened his posture, uneasily scanning every nook and cranny. Nada.

Where was the delic- suffocating cocoa scent coming from?

Where was his brother?

Clink. Clank. Clink. His eyes darted to the swaying utensils, realizing they shouldn't be doing that. A foreboding thought. Someone – something was moving them on purpose.

"Show yourself!"

Before he even knew what hit him; the room turned red.

It looked like he was seeing the place through a rose-saturated looking glass. All around, the air swam and warped, distorting the shapes of the doors and furnishings.

Except for...

Speechless, he inclined his head. The floor was black and white, and a spreading puddle of red that Smiley lay in the midst of, clouded eyes wide and terror-stricken, pale as a sheet.

The blood came from his agape mouth, along with bubbles and dark froth.

Smirky dropped beside his brother and, filled with morbid curiosity, opened it wider, staining his fingers as he dug deeper to find the source of the bleeding.

Dozens of shards stuck out of the back of Smiley's throat, rammed far into the tender flesh.

The remains of a glass mug, speckled with lukewarm droplets of hot chocolate.

Who- OW!

Something sharp seized him from behind and threw him onto his back. His first reaction was to get back up, but the ceiling span and he lost balance again.

(surgeons mark where they're going to cut)

"Strange... the voices were only supposed to come at night," he groan-mumbled.

(don't do that again, or I'll mark wrong and miss)

An involuntary tremor rocked through his body. Smirky clamped his hands over his ears, trying to block out the voice that echoed all around him.

Blood-soaked static saturated his thoughts. Cold. Hopeless. Can't escape.

Just a discarded toy, a stuffed bear torn apart by a child too curious for sanity. Stuffing poking out of a hole in his chest, button eye dead to the world, misshapen stitches binding a silent throat.

The ceiling kept spinning, spinning, spinning.

(london bridge is falling down, falling down)
(london bridge is on the ground, and they all died screaming)

Colour flooded back into the kitchen as the whirl slowed. He lay spread-eagled on the checkered floor, staring unfocused at the overhead lightbulb.

Smirky tentatively sat, massaging the back of his neck. He winced. The illusionist examined his hands, then the floor. Neither had Smiley's blood, or anyone else's blood, on them.

Just a bad... pots-and-pans-induced hallucination? Or was it the chill, which seemed to be absent from the air?

The illusionist swayed as he stood. He barely managed to pull a chair before he collapsed in it, groaning. This is all a little too much for me...

To his disappointment, his brother was sitting across from him, nonchalantly sipping a piping cuppa hot chocolate while an open newspaper wobbled on his knee.

"Hello, Smirky. When did you get here?" he asked cheerfully, showing him the headline: IT'S A GOOD MOON FOR SUMMONING SATAN, HINTS POVERTY-STRICKEN EXORCIST.

All Smirky could focus on was the mug. The postbox-red mug, which had been shattered and stuffed down his brother's throat the last time he'd seen it. Something else seemed different about its appearance, something he couldn't put his finger on.

"When... When did you make that hot chocolate?"

The not-so-good doctor stopped mid-sip.

Slowly, Smiley detached his lips from the ceramic rim and examined the hot chocolate inside. A crease formed on his forehead. "... I don't remember."

(... what did that boy do?)