Empires SMP Halloween prompt oneshots

Day 1 - Glowing Eyes

           Joel, the god of the sky and lightning, liked to say he wasn't scared of anything. After all, what could possibly scare an eleven-foot-tall god? But then again, everyone is scared of something. Everyone will inevitably get scared at least once in their life.

           Joel was just heading home to Stratos after dropping Hermes off at Sanctuary because it was Sausage's turn to take care of their child. Nothing weird was supposed to happen. However, it was getting late; the stars were waking up and the moon was full in the sky. Joel just tried to ignore the lengthening shadows and get back to Stratos. He squashed down a feeling that was definitely not fear by telling himself that nothing could harm an eleven-foot-tall god.

          As he walked around in the middle of nowhere, however, he spotted something in his peripherals vision. Two green dots, distinct in the dark. Joel paused and turned to see them better. He crouched down and the dots suddenly moved. They vanished and reappeared again, and then moved away from him.

           What were they? Fireflies? But Joel hadn't seen fireflies move in such synchrony before. And the last time he checked, fireflies definitely weren't green. He went even closer. In the dark, however, he didn't see where he was moving, and he stepped on something warm and furry.

           There was a bloodcurdling yelp that shattered the eerie silence of the night and something started to manically scratch and bite Joel's leg with such ferocity that he screamed like a girl and jumped backward, feeling blood trickle down minute tears in his flesh. A sharp hiss came from somewhere near his feet and the green dots disappeared and didn't come back. But Joel had realized by that point that they weren't just dots. They were a pair of glowing eyes.

           Joel tried to calm his nerves as he made it back to Stratos, his leg still bleeding. He could admit to himself that he was scared now; some strange creepy creature had just attacked him in the middle of the night. But it was gone now. He would never see it or its odd green eyes again. Right?

           Joel found himself waking up early to pick Hermes up the next week. He didn't want to encounter the creature in the dark. He was definitely spooked by it. "Thunder daddy!" Sausage said as the god entered Sanctuary. "How are you?" "I got attacked by some weird creature last night," Joel informed him, showing Sausage his leg.

           Sausage whistled, staring intently at the deep bite and claw marks. "Maybe you got attacked by El Chupacabra," Sausage said eerily. "El what?" Joel asked. "Oh, it's a spooky story we have here in Sanctuary," Sausage said cheerily, like he wasn't talking about some nightmarish creature. "Ooh, let me tell it to you and Hermes at the same time."

           The next thing Joel knew, he and Hermes were in Sausage's living room with his adoptive hareon dad, Eddie, and his sister Maria. Sausage flicked the lights off, closed the curtains, lit a candle, and held the orange light to his face. "El Chupacabra," Sausage started in a low, spooky tone, "Is a predator."

           "That's putting it lightly," Maria snapped. "Let me continue! Anyway, it is a large, furry creature that prowls in the dead of night, looking for prey. It stalks around, an incredible sneaker, and it would be invisible except for its glowing green eyes." Joel felt his blood run cold when Sausage said those words.

            "Red eyes," Eddie corrected crisply. "El Chupacabra has red eyes." "In other stories it has green eyes," Maria told him. "Eh, red fits better," Eddie shrugged. "Why?" Hermes asked them, his eyes wide with curiosity. "Because El Chupacabra drinks blood!" Sausage stretched out his free hand to pretend scratch Hermes in the face, and the demigod giggled.

             "It would find our goats and cows and other livestock and then single one out as its prey. Then El Chupacabra will start slicing away at the poor defenseless animal, but not yet kill it." Maria took up the story with an airy air. "Why not?" Joel asked, trying to disguise the fear he felt.

             "Fear and adrenaline makes he blood taste better foe El Chupacabra, or so the story goes," Maria shrugged, like it was no big deal. Joel did the same, but it was a very big deal for him. "And no matter how many hunters have gone after El Chupacabra, none have succeeded in catching and killing it, so it continues to stalk and attack," Sausage finished the story.

               Joel pretended to laugh it off. "Haha, nice story, but El Chupacabra doesn't exist." "Yes, it does," Maria answered in annoyance. "Well, even if it is, I definitely didn't get attacked by it," Joel said, getting up. Eddie stopped him and examined his wounded leg. "These wounds are too big to be simply a fox or dog," He told the god. "I would warn you to be careful."

            "Hah! I'll be fine," Joel said. "Come on Hermes, time to go." "No!" Hermes pouted. Joel shot a double take. "What?" "I want to stay!" "Why?" "I want to catch El Chupacabra!" Those were the last words Joel wanted to hear. "No, Hermes, it's not real, we're going home." The god tried to leave, but Maria stopped him.

             "Real or not, Hermes is old enough to go on the El Chupacabra hunt." "Wait, the what?" "Oh, it's a thing loads of kids too back at my old kingdom," Sausage said. "We would go out camping and try to find El Chupacabra, it's fun. Kind of a tradition. So Hermes should have a turn!"

           Joel did not want to encounter the green-eyed thing again. "Hermes is too young," He tried to protest, but Maria cut him off. "Nonsense, Sausage was even younger when he went on his first hunt. And Hermes is a demigod, he will be fine." "Family bonding trip!" Sausage shouted. And somehow Joel couldn't find it in himself to say 'no'.

            The next thing he knew, the five of them were deep on the woods where he had gotten attacked and it was nearing midnight. Joel was more than nervous. He was actually scared. He didn't want to do this, but what kind of god would he be if he chickened out? "I can't believe this; an actual sighting of El Chupacabra!" Sausage excitedly whispered. "We might actually catch it!"

            "And then what do we do with it afterward?" Joel asked. Everyone looked at each other, and Maria calmly said, "Kill it, skin it, use the fur as a new rug, behead it, use its head as a hunting trophy, prove to your neighbors that you are no one to mess with." Joel blinked. And here I thought she was just a housewife.

             Suddenly, Joel spotted the green dots again, and he quietly pointed them out to the others. They excitedly looked and spotted them too. And the eyes stared straight back at them. They narrowed and moved away. "Now!" Eddie whispered, and Hermes pulled a lever stuck in the ground.

           There was a loud yelp as the creature fell into a redstone-activated trap that they had set up earlier for El Chupacabra. Joel grinned. "We've got it now!" He shouted, and the rest of them cheered. Maria took a torch and lit it; passing it around so everyone could see El Chupacabra trapped in their hole. Except it wasn't El Chupacabra.

            It was Lizzie. "Lizzie?!" Joel gasped. "What are you doing down there?!" "You trapped me in a hole!" Lizzie bellowed back. "Auntie Lizzie!" Hermes squealed. "We thought you were El Chupacabra," Sausage explained. "And why would you think that?" Lizzie asked huffily. "There were these green eyes," Joel said, slightly embarrassed.

            "Cat eyes look green in the dark, Joel!" Lizzie shouted. "It was just me! And before you asked, I attacked you because you stepped on my tail!" "Oh," Was all Joel could say. "What in the name of Santa Perla were you doing out in the middle of the night twice?" Eddie asked the mayor.

             "Oh, Sausage told me about the El Chupacabra story, so I wanted to go look for it," She said. "Hey, aren't you doing the same thing? Let's join forces!" "Or go home; we wasted half the night on a false lead," Eddie pointed out wearily.

           Joel felt odd. He now had a good excuse to not participate in the El Chupacabra hunt. But something stopped him from backing out. It wasn't that he wanted to prove that he wasn't afraid; it was that Lizzie had just proved to him that there was nothing to be afraid of in the dark. Anything scary could have just turned out to be harmless. And if it wasn't, then he had his friends and family to help him.

           "Come on, what are you waiting for? We still have a chupacabra to catch!"