Preview of Estelle: The Candycorn Experiment

All she saw was candy and corn; everywhere she looked, it reminded her of herself. Once upon a happy time, Estelle could be the sweetest girl in northern France, anyone's ultimate cheerleader. But after that fateful night, her disposition turned sour, and the only thing that brought her joy was blood. And certainly not hers.

She walked through the candy corn maze, picking at her dagger, affectionately named Smilodon after her school's mascot, a sabertooth tiger. Well, that and she liked to imagine that Smilodon was taking a bite out of its victims, like a tooth, and it reminded her of a saber. Estelle hated anything on it other than blood and sinew, and it just so happened to be snowing pop rocks. Plus, a little while ago, she had been forced to use Smilodon to cut corn stalks for food, for the thousandth time this month. If she wasn't already a murderer, she would resort to killing, just for a taste of green vegetables. There were plenty back in Epernay.

She would've sucked on her candy necklace, but most of it was now rotten from not being properly preserved, and she had already thrown up yesterday. So while eating was an option, it wasn't her top priority.

As Estelle tirelessly picked out corn and pop rocks from her trusty dagger, she heard an odd noise. She looked down to see that her foot was now submerged in a caramel/marshmallow puddle. She slowly pulled her foot out of the puddle and continued walking. Normally, the rivers were caramel and the lakes were marshmallow, but something had caused a fusion between the two substances. She had to report this. If there was any kind of malfunction in this world's architecture, it would have to be shut down, but she needed to make sure this wasn't a fluke.

French government authorities had learned that both candy and corn happened to contain a special substance that would essentially suck evil tendencies out of anyone. So they consulted all of the sweetmakers and paranormal experts and created this corn and candy world as a test location. They figured a ghost would be the perfect first experimental candidate because since Estelle was transparent, it would be the easiest feat to destroy the evil inside of her. If this experiment failed, then they would know that either their theory was incorrect, or they needed to improve the experiment.

Of course, Estelle had no idea. All she knew was that she had been placed in this "Candycornland" and she was to report back if anything seemed off to her. On their end, this would ensure her getting closer to the substance and they could see whether the experiment was going smoothly by analyzing her good/evil body ratio. On her end, she only complied because she wanted to find more people to kill. So far, however, she had had no luck.

The other issue was, Estelle had been walking for the entire day and she hadn't found one speck of essentials. After years of terrorizing Epernay, she had used up all of her toilet paper to clean up the blood from all of her victims, and now that she urgently needed TP, it wasn't available in this strange world.

She adjusted her eye patch (earned from when Larry's mother retaliated against her after Estelle had killed him) and rubbed her black leather jacket-clad arms. Although the patch was quite useful, she did wish for a less obvious method of protecting her eye wound. But alas, she was ahead of her time with fashionable ideas, and the world hadn't caught up yet. For being a "sweet" world, the temperature was less than pleasant, especially so early in the morning for Estelle. She wasn't accustomed to getting up at ten in the morning, but she wanted to get a head start in heading to headquarters to report the caramel-marshmallow puddle.

It took another hour, but Estelle managed to find headquarters by following the gumdrop-laced path. She was greeted by the candy world's main operator and creator, Monsieur Briand (his alias), who led her into his office for the discussion about to take place.

"Ah, Estelle! What can we do for you, cherie?"

"Cut the crap, maudit homme de bonbons. I found a problem. The caramel and marshmallow have fused and they seem to be leaking out of their normal places in the earth. What now?"

Monsieur Briand rubbed his forehead in frustration. "Non, this is not right! Each chemical is supposed to be separated, as to correctly react with the cobaye-" His eyes widened as he realized his mistake.

Estelle squinted at the small man. "Cobaye, huh? This was all a set-up? I've been used yet again?!"

Monsieur Briand held his hands up. "Now, mademoiselle, I assure you this was meant to benefit you as well! You see, some other French officials and I thought you would enjoy being at peace, and that ton doux moi would return with the help of the chemicals in these candies and cornstalks..."

He was silenced with Estelle's hands on his throat as she pushed him against the wall. "Faire taire, connard. And as for 'my sweet self' returning, she died a long time ago and will never return. Now, how can I destroy this damned world of yours?" Once, Estelle would've cared about correcting her intense negativity, but this was gone away with her beloved old self.

Monsieur Briand was barely able to raise his hand to point to his right. Estelle nodded, but rather than let him go, she raised Smilodon and smiled. "I sincerely hope you had fun with your cobaye in this candy-corn world. Now you can be Death's cobaye." Estelle plunged the dagger into the man's skull and let him drop to the floor, blood already pouring out.