Sweet Nightmare

The farther that Danielle and Chris descend into the darkness, the more potent the smell becomes, until it is almost too strong to bear. Eventually, the floor levels out and a row of magical torches illuminate themselves, blanketing the room in their ghostly light. The two teens are speechless, staring at what they have just discovered.

The room is not a cellar at all, but an amphitheater of torture. Wooden racks covered in black blood stains contain all manner of evil devices, all themed around candy, of course. From sharpened candy cane spikes, to gummy rope razor wire and anything else a candy-obsessed psycho could dream up to inflict pain on another, it was there. The ground is covered with thousands upon thousands of human bones, to a ridiculous degree, looking like snow drifts following a blizzard. Thankfully, it looks like the torture chamber isn't currently in use, but where did all the bones come from?

Thoroughly disturbed by what they're seeing, Chris turns to leave, but Danielle stops him. "Wait. What is that?"

At the back of the room, positioned on a special stage, is a stalagmite of what appears to be glittering purple rock candy. Drawn to the unnatural sight by some unseen force, Danielle wades headlong into the piles of bones toward it.

"Danielle! What are you doing?" Chris questions, but Danielle doesn't respond, focused on reaching the stalagmite. Chris shakes his head before wading in after her, trying hard not to think about what it is that he is actually walking through. Unfortunately, the occasional bone gets caught underfoot, making a distinct crunching noise when he puts his weight on it.

Danielle reaches the stalagmite first, stopping to stare at the tip of it. When Chris eventually catches up, he sees why. Embedded in the candy pillar is a man, the only visible portion of his body being his head, which protrudes at the stalagmite's tip. He appears to be middle-aged, but it's hard to tell due to the abhorrent condition of his face. His mouth is little more than a blackened pit, rotted so heavily from years and years of eating nothing but candy. Grey hair protrudes from his scalp in patches, and wrinkles cover his sallow skin. The sound of labored breathing can be heard rustling through his ruined mouth, an obvious sign that he is still clinging to life somehow.

The man opens his eyes to regard Danielle and Chris. At first, his blue eyes are filled with hatred, but they quickly change to surprise when he sees the two teens. He makes an attempt at speaking, but the effort must be extremely painful because he gurgles to a stop. Tears stream down his face as he stares at Danielle.

"Who are you?" Danielle asks him, climbing onto the stage in order to get a good look at him. Through the sparkling rock candy, she can see that he wears a leather jacket and blue jeans.

Danielle puts two and two together, producing the stiletto knife that Laura gave her at the beginning of the night and showing it to the man. "Is this your knife?"

The man, upon recognizing the knife, nods once. His tear-stained face is beaming with joy at the sight of his daughter, who he has never laid eyes on before. He starts to struggle against his rock candy prison, to no avail.

Danielle turns to Chris, eyes brimming with tears of her own. "Help me. This man is my father. We need to get him out of here."

Without another word, Chris grabs the first thing he can find that might help break the rock candy, which unfortunately happens to be a femur bone. He tosses it to Danielle and grabs another one, before joining her on the stage. Together, the two teens start beating on the candy, which is incredibly hard. Chunks of it break off under their onslaught, but after a few minutes Danielle and Chris are both completely out of breath and no closer to freeing the man from his prison.

The man starts making noise in earnest in an attempt to get Danielle's attention, but she has been so busy hammering away at the rock candy that she doesn't notice at first.

"MOnstaS!" the man gargles, staring intently at the entrance to the torture chamber, before slumping forward from the exhaustion and pain of actually speaking. 

Finally, Danielle looks back just in time to see the stumpy legs of the toothy tier cakes making their way silently down the ramp.

"Stop!" Danielle hisses at Chris, who has just started to wail away again on the rock candy. She points at the monsters, "Hide!"

Chris clambers off the stage, hiding behind one of the racks of torture equipment. Danielle hides behind the stage, staying close to the ground and near her father in case anything should happen involving the monsters.

The toothy tier cakes lumber into full view, wedding white and funeral black, moving with silent steps as they approach the edge of the bone field. The reason for the thousands of bones soon becomes obvious. Each of the cakes opens their gigantic mouths, which erupts with a spew of bones and acid saliva, adding to the pile. 

Chris soon realizes who the bones belong to--his deceased family. He unintentionally groans with disgust and anger, drawing the attention of the two monsters. After they finish purging themselves of their initial victims, they slowly make their way toward Chris, plodding through the dense layer of bones with ease. At least the hollow sound of the bones rattling against each other allows Chris to track their movement.

Chris looks back at Danielle with wide eyes, mouthing, "Help me!"

Without hesitation, Danielle takes her place at the center of the stage, pointing at the monsters and yelling confidently, "Stop! I command you to go away!"

The toothy tier cakes stop for a moment to look at Danielle, but quickly go back to chasing Chris. He is forced to leave his hiding spot as the cakes surround him, forcing him into the corner of the room.

"HELP!" Chris screams, as he is literally backed into a corner. "Danielle, use the KNIFE."

In one last desperate attempt, Chris charges the wedding cake, sidestepping its biting attack in a miracle of evasion. He swings hard with the femur, but the bone does little more than embed itself in the side of the cake, which has the same consistency as wet cement. The wedding cake prepares for its next attack, lumbering around to look at Chris, who backs away. He bumps into the wall, fear and resignation filling his face.

Danielle hops down from the stage. She presses the button on the knife, causing the magical blade to snap into position. Walking up behind the wedding cake, she slashes at the back of the monster.

Instead of simply slicing through the creature's cement-like skin, a shockwave blasts forth from the trailing edge of the blade, completely obliterating the cake. Frosting, meat, teeth, blood and bone splatter against the wall and on to Chris, just as the funeral cake lumbers forward. Chris screams.

Riding the high of discovering this new power, Danielle swipes at the funeral cake, not even bothering to close the distance. The ensuing shockwave has the same effect as it did on the first, blasting it into paste against the other wall. 

Danielle stares at the blade in her hand for a brief moment, not believing that Laura would give her such a powerful weapon, but she is quickly brought back to reality by Chris crying out in pain. She rushes to his side as he rolls among the bones in agony, covered in gore from the wedding cake.

"What's wrong? Are you okay?" Danielle cries, placing her hand on his shoulder. She recoils immediately in pain, the palm of her hand burning intensely. 

"Help me!" Chris bellows, turning to reveal that his upper body and face are being eaten away. The incredibly potent acid in the toothy tier cake's saliva is dissolving Chris, who can do little more than writhe in pain. Danielle is at least able to wipe the acid off on her skirt, where it begins to eat the fabric, but not her hand. Chris is so thoroughly coated in the stuff that he can't do anything about it.

"I'm so sorry!" Danielle cries, powerless to help Chris, who is already going into shock from the magnitude of his acid burns. He stops moving, curling into the fetal position as the light begins to fade from his eyes.

Danielle rushes to his side grabbing his hand despite the acid. "I'll get help! Please, just hang on!"

Chris looks at Danielle with a surprised look of betrayal. "Why?" is all he can ask before he lets go of his final breath.

"NOOO!" Danielle cries, appalled at the result of her attack. All she can do is stare at the boy she tried so desperately to save, letting the acid burn her hand until she can no longer feel her palm anymore.

Eventually, a singsong voice makes itself known, emanating from just behind Danielle. "Good job, my darling. I knew you could do it!"

Laura smiles encouragingly at her daughter, who refuses to turn around. Her smile fades to a look of concern. "What's wrong dear?"

"You made me kill him." Danielle accuses. "How could you. You gave me that knife, knowing that it would be too powerful."

"Why are you so upset? I know first kills can be troubling, but you shouldn't be so sensitive about humans. Just because they look like us doesn't mean their lives are worth even a fraction of ours."

Laura pats Danielle's back comfortingly. "I know you were lying when you told me you thought of humans as insects, but that is truly how you should feel about them. They are worth less than dirt. You know that with dirt you can at least grow plants! All humans do is destroy. They're little more than murderous cockroaches."

Finally, Laura coaxes the traumatized Danielle away from Chris' body. 

"That's a nasty burn dear." Laura chides as she inspects her daughter's hand. She clicks her tongue, looking at the mess on the walls, the only remains of her cake monsters.

"Well, I'm sure you'll feel better about killing humans next year." Laura looks at the man encased in the rock candy stalagmite. "And I'm assuming you finally met your father, right?"

Danielle looks at her father, who is still out cold from yelling earlier. "How long has he been here? What did he do to you that would make you want to keep him down here?"

"He's been here since you were born. Like I said, he tried to kill me." Laura explains as if she's talking about the weather. "I figured he should suffer for at least a decade or two before I finally put him out of his misery."

"Why don't you let him go mother? Hasn't he suffered enough?" Danielle pleads hopefully.

"You want me to free him from his prison, dear?" Laura asks. "Are you sure?"

"Yes mother!" Danielle begs eagerly, excited at the prospect of learning more about her father or potentially saving at least one more person tonight.

"Be careful what you wish for..." Laura smiles evilly, snapping her fingers.

The rock candy stalagmite shatters and crumbles to pieces, the man's body included. Danielle screams in horror as his head tumbles down to rest on top of the pile.

Laura laughs ecstatically as Danielle cries in despair. "Remember dear, I'm always watching. Don't ever try to cross me again because this is your reward." 

And so ends, or begins, Danielle's sweet nightmare.