[Gift] Frightful Forage 🎃🍬

The Gloomy Forest lay ahead of two snugzis, shrouded in a thick, purple fog that seemed to swallow the dim light around them. The twisted trees stretched high, their branches curling like bony fingers, casting dark shadows that danced across the ground. Strange, skittering sounds echoed from below, and the occasional flicker of movement in the corner of their vision kept them on edge.

Beau adjusted the shimmering blue streamers that draped down from his blanki, completing his jellyfish costume. The bells along his trim jingled with each cautious step as he glanced nervously at the dark trees surrounding them. Beside him was his dear friend, Maddie, decked out in a makeshift werewolf costume with fluffy ears and a stitched-up tail, gave a playful growl and bared her pretend claws. A plastic pumpkin basket swung from both of their arms.

“Are you sure we need candy from here?” Beau asked, his eyes scanning the eerie purple fog hanging over the path ahead. He tried to sound casual, but his gaze kept darting toward every shadow that moved. “There are plenty of lovely candies being given out around the library instead. If we hurry, we might even be able to catch the parade.”

“Oh, come on! Halloween is happening as soon as the sun sets! Mel is going to want something amazing to be given out to the other trick or treaters, and if we don’t have anything good to make it with, what’s the point of dressing up at all?” Maddie chirped. She walked out ahead of Beau, turning around backwards as if to show him how easy it was. She gives him a mischievous grin, before pulling her blanki over her arm with a swirling motion, as if it was a cape. “Besides, I heard the best treats are found in spooky places. What’s the worst that could happen? A zombie comes out from the ground to gobble up our brains?”

Maddie jumps back at him and shakes his shoulders playfully, making gargling noises from her mouth like she was an undead beast. Beau stiffened before feigning a mock cry of pain, dramatically leaning back. “Oh! The horror! Please, spare me, foul beast!”

“Never! You are simply too delicious! Haha!”

Both of them laughed as they continued to walk, Beau’s nerves easing a bit. It was, after all, only a Pompi’s tale that the gloomy forest contained any real threat to snugzi. Many people he knew had traversed the land and come back with plenty of treasure to exchange as part of the Halloween festivities throughout the month. He would simply have to steele his nerves and continue forward, for the sake of their holiday celebrations. That didn’t make their surroundings any less ominous, though, with twisted, leafless branches stretched above like skeletal fingers, and strange, skittering sounds echoing from underfoot. 

Suddenly, along the path, a rustling came from the bushes. Both of them jumped, their hearts racing, but Beau was the first to act, pulling Maddie back and shielding her with his blanki while bracing himself for a fight. 

 “Wait! Look!” Maddie pointed towards the grass over the trim of Beau. He looked over his shoulder and recognized leafy ears poking out from the under brush, before a head joined them, sniffing the air. The little creature looked up with wide, curious eyes before zipping its long ears closed around its body, frantically kicking up clumps of grass as it attempted to bury itself to look like a simple vegetable in the ground.

Maddie giggled at the sight, holding up a hand so that dirt specks didn’t hit her face  “See? Just a cute little Bunzip. Nothing to be afraid of!”

Beau slumped a bit before letting his blanki fall back to his sides. His friend was already back to excitedly continuing their journey, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that clung to him. It almost felt as if the forest itself was watching them, leering and swallowing up what little daylight was left so that it could soon strike.

Through the swirls of mist, a shadowy outline came into view ahead—a large, rundown cart perched on spindly wheels, leaning slightly to one side as if it might topple over any second. It was just big enough to resemble a small house, with a tattered sign hanging above its door that had long since had its lettering rubbed off. Dark cobwebs draped over the edges of the roof, and its once-bright paint was faded and peeling. If there was anything that could have pulled such a cart, it didn’t seem to be hooked up nearby, leaving it to rot amongst the fungus and lichen that had begun to crawl up the sides of the wood.

“Well, looks like someone forgot to tidy up!” Maddie joked, her eyes twinkling as she took in the abandoned cart. “It must have been some sort of shop, at some point. That sounds mysterious. Surely there’s still some goodies inside?”

Beau hesitated, clutching his blanki a bit tighter. “I don’t know, Maddie… this place doesn’t exactly scream ‘welcome.’”

Before Beau could protest further, Maddie knocked on the cart’s creaky wooden door. It swung open on its own, revealing a dimly lit, dusty interior. They exchanged wide-eyed glances, but after a moment Maddie shrugged. “Guess we’re invited!”

The inside of the cart was cramped but walkable, with narrow aisles lined by shelves filled with jars. Some jars were filled with colorful candies that shimmered in the low light, while others held strange, fluffy substances that swirled under the hard coating of the treats. A strange scent hung in the air, sweet but with an underlying tang that made Beau wrinkle his nose.

“Look at all this candy!” Maddie exclaimed, her eyes lighting up as she grabbed a jar of pink and purple sweets. “Perfect ingredients for an autumn dessert!”

Beau picked up another jar, his brow furrowing as he examined it. “It is definitely plentiful, but…I’ve never seen anything like these before. This isn’t a dewdrop, or a lionseal marshmallow. What are these?”

“Oh, it’s probably just… old! This shop clearly hasn’t been touched for awhile, so these must be treats from years ago. Or maybe they’re even custom made?” Maddie said cheerily, adding a couple of jars to her basket. “Think of all the amazing treats we can make with these!”

She continued filling the pumpkin, all the while ignoring the faint dripping sound that echoed from somewhere above. Beau sighed before running his paws along the labels, attempting to figure out what exactly they were made of. It was written in handwriting that almost felt familiar, cursive and dainty. They were faded, but what he could read didn’t make a lot of sense. They didn’t sound like candy names. They looked like the names you would almost contribute to people, like Lunette, and Bentley. He almost didn’t catch it while he was attempting to decipher, but underneath the sound of Maddie’s humming, a soft, squelching noise came from behind his back.

He whipped around, prepared for something to jump out at him, but his heart fluttered as he instead caught something small and blue. Waddling out from behind a stack of jars, the googly eyes wobbled from the puppet like head of a smitten. It had big pointed blue ears and tiny, flapping wings where its arms should be, a rope trailing behind with a tiny bell tied onto it. It pulled its sock-like body over itself and made an angry sounding beeping noise with its mouth, bonking it's head into Beau’s foot.

Beau let out a sigh of relief for a moment. Smittens were harmless. He didn’t know what one would be doing out here, but at the very least, it wasn’t anything to be majorly concerned about. He reached down to pet the strange thing.

After realizing that the person it had found remained unphased by the merciless headbonking, the smitten blew a raspberry, before darting behind a cabinet beneath the counter. Beau felt amused by the little pet. He knelt for a moment to see where it had gone off to, opening up the cabinet to reveal more jars, which were harder to see in the shadows of the cart. They seemed to be filled with odd, squishy substances. Some jars were sticky with dark residue, and a few seemed to hold mysterious chunks floating in thick liquid. Beau’s fur bristled as he examined one jar in particular, which seemed to have white, fluffy stuffing sealed inside.

“I think I’ve seen enough…” he murmured, clutching his blanki around him tighter. 

Beau noticed something else—a thick, black goop dripping from a crack, pooling on the floor in inky drips. He took a step back, eyeing it warily, before looking up to the wall where the liquid came from.

There was a window to the outside. The glass was fogged over with the evening’s condensation, but through it, he could see his reflection. …Only. It wasn’t him. Where his face should be, there was a white mask, with a simple smile carved into it. It was darker, having horns much larger than Beau’s own, though he could have sworn the hair was the same style and shape as his. The figure’s arms hung at its sides, pulsing and red, almost like folded up muscles that you would find in meat, and it almost seemed like the very same black liquid from the crack was dripping out from its neck onto the apron it wore.

Beau’s heart skipped a beat, and he dashed back towards the front of the cart, tugging at Maddie’s arm, whispering, “Let’s go. Now.”

The clown cat snugzi let out a surprised noise as she began to be pulled away, clumsily attempting to keep the candies in her arms from falling. “Huh? But, wait– I just need to finish grabbing these!” 

“No, you don’t understand. There’s–” Beau glanced back at the glass, heart pounding, before his voice dwindled. There seemed to be nothing there. He couldn’t see any reflection at all, now, just the chill of the night as the last of the sun began to fade. Was it just his paranoia?

“...Nevermind. Just. We need to hurry. Put what’s left in my bag, and let’s get back before we miss out, alright?”

Maddie indignantly puffed out her cheeks before dumping what she had in her hands into the pumpkin Beau held. “Okay, okay.” 

As they left the cart, the door creaked shut behind them with a soft thud. Beau almost began to creep around the corner, just to check to see if what he had seen had any potential bearing on something that was actually there, before he suddenly felt a pat on the back.

“First one to the edge of the forest gets dibs on licking the batter off the spoon!”

Maddie was already six feet ahead of him in a pink fuzz blur, causing Beau’s fur to stick up in surprise. He made a face of disbelief, before dashing forward in an attempt to catch up. “Hey! That’s not fair! Get back here!”

Their paws pounded against the floor of the forest, chasing after the horizon in hopes to get back to the den in time for trick or treaters.

In their hurry, neither of them noticed the faint outline of a snugzi peeking out from behind the cart. The masked figure watched in silence, dark goop slowly oozing down the edges of the mask on its face. The large fork and knife attached to its tag glinted faintly in the moonlight as it began to scrawl down a new recipe onto the pages of a book in its hands, one made with peaches and strawberries.