Chapter Text
You knew something was wrong when you found mud prints tracking around your linoleum floor in the morning, but no signs of entry or struggle. You searched every other corner to see if anything was gone, only to forget about it for a few days.
Later, when the cramps kicked in, you scrambled for your stash of chocolate, discovering the truth.
*~*~*~*
This figure liked sweets, but you wanted to test this for yourself. The tracks were evenly spaced out, circling from every other drawer to your stash, and then out the back door. You tried to suppress the lump in your throat when you found the beginning of the tracks...at the front of your bedroom door.
An offering was in order.
Chocolate was the one thing you could rely on. The cashier at the gas station down the street didn’t bat an eye at your armfuls of glossy bars and bags of glucose, nor the way your wringed your hands. The crinkling of the wrappers made you feel like it was Halloween already, but with the fear of the day seeping into your thoughts with each hurried step.
That night, you placed the chocolate on your counter, along with a small sample of your hoard.
Just as you were slipping into dreams, slow, careful steps rang in your ears and faded just as suddenly as they had come.
*~*~*~*
You were alive.
All of the chocolate was gone, with the rest of the small piles mussed up, as though mixed around by a gust of wind. The tracks led under your back door, beginning at your own bedroom again, doing nothing to alleviate your nerves.
You wished you counted how much it had taken from the original hoard. Based on your receipt and the windswept counter, it favored chocolate, honey, and wafers.
You had an idea.
An idea that led you to the lockbox under your bed, sealing away what your parents taught you to use in the forest many moons ago.
*~*~*~*
Night fell, and the air was humid, a blanket of mist spreading out into the deep dark. You were in shorts and a T-shirt that fell around your shoulders, billowing in the wind.
Your gun had the safety on, and you had a plate of honey and sliced bread sitting next to you. It felt heavy sitting against the small of your back, collecting the sweat beading down your spine.
Another pile of chocolate sat at your side, for good measure. You’d be lying if you said you gave the rest of your hoard to your friends.
An hour after the sun went down rolled into a few minutes past the witching hour. And then, a prickling on the back of your neck.
One, two, stop. Your heart was pounding. It knew that you were packing heat, it knew the whole game from the start. It’s a trap.
Your head whips back with a gasp. Pale and plastic, dark holes, and navy work clothes that drew close to square, broad shoulders. It was human, somehow.
You swallow hard. Your gaze flickers to the plate and back at him.
Slow steps, dark eyes boring into your own as it kept a foot away from you. He sits on the concrete and grabs a piece of bread, squeezes far too much honey onto it. Thick, pale hands tip the mask up to reveal chapped lips and blonde fuzz on his chin, maybe a few strands of hair past his neck. A well-defined jaw that makes you stare for far too long, but he doesn’t seem to notice as he wolfs down the offering desperately.
You slide the chocolate closer to him, waiting for him to notice. He catches a glimpse and steals a bar like it was his all along, bites into the squares and hums in the back of his throat.
You don’t realize you’re enraptured until he turns towards you, putting down the bar.
You fidget and look away. “Take it, take—it’s fine.” Moments pass as time freezes. Your trigger finger twitches.
The bars disappear into a navy pocket, and the mask is back on.
He stands, and looms over you. You swear you can see some sort of glint peering straight through you, like it knows. His head tilts to the side, and he walks off into the night.
You sleep soundly for the first time in days, lingering visions of blonde clouding your dreams.