Part 32: Fright Fest

Cherry passed through the dark doorway which led her into a strange place. She was clearly inside of an abandoned fantastical candy cafe store that looked like it came from the 80s. The pink-striped wallpaper had decorated imagery of gifts, lollipops, and even silhouettes of Princess Candiere. Classical upbeat music kicked in with glitches emanating from it. It felt foreign yet familiar to her at the same time. She couldn’t quite grasp the understanding of where she even was.

While gazing around the room at all of the delectables organized around her on large countertops, she noticed a crayon drawing on the ground. The drawing showed what looked to be a young girl dripping some sort of pink goo from her entire body. On the bottom of the paper, there was also a disturbing symbol of two red hearts that were tied together while being vertically opposite of one another.

With the doorway having been left open to a subtle darkness, she heard a humming noise coming from behind the door she had entered. Her instincts led her to hide into one of the three lower cabinets which was facing on the left side. As she hid inside and covered her mouth to prevent any sort of sound from being heard, she thought she heard footsteps creeping slowly on the floor.

A crooked female voice announcer started to sing a creepy nursery rhyme of its own that tingled into her ears:

Cherry, Cherry, quite contrary

How does your garden grow?

With vanilla flowers and rain showers

And pretty maids all in a row

The words started to frighten Cherry. Something about them made her feel a sense of unease. She had a feeling that this monster was hinting at its knowledge of her past. It must have had to deal with why her parents left her.

Garden? Vanilla flowers? Rain shower? Maids? These all had one thing in common…

The Halbert Mansion.

She remembered the vanilla flower garden outside her window. How she would always stare whenever the rain clouds came. The maids in her household were her only friends before she met Star. Although the scary part about this to her was when she had to go to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she always woke up laying down on a bright stage in a dark auditorium with no one inside. It was as if she had always been there.

Alone.

Upon peeking through the small doors, she started to see a box television set in the center of the room with a VHS player. The screen was empty until the lights shut off.

A giggle of the same girl caught Cherry’s attention. Cautiously aware of how unusual everything was becoming, she saw a pixelated version of Princess Candiere from the games. She was hopping happily towards the screen before pausing moments later. Cries of help from the children in the background could also be heard.

Mere seconds later, Princess Candiere’s form turned into a more dark and sinister version of herself. Her eyes came up close as she muttered a few words that shook Cherry to her core.

I’m right behind you.

The screen turned off before Cherry was frantically shaking. The smell of sweets and tingling of a metal spoon being spun around in a teacup steadily drove her insane. The lights proceeded to flicker on and off to the point where she could see the cardboard cutouts moving around in random spots. They acted in an animated fashion while making horrifying faces.

Even the wallpaper decor was acting out of place. The walls distorted around her in different ways.

The madness had only just begun.