The cold night air blew overhead, causing the leaves on the corn stalks to sway and rustle. was much shorter than the tall rows of corn surrounding her, preventing her from seeing further than a few feet ahead.
Above her was a dark purple sky with hints of yellow and red on its edges. This helped illuminate the corn field a bit, though Stacey knew it wouldn't last. She needed to get moving.
Reaching out, she parted the stalks erected in front of her, stepping between them. More stalks awaited her. So, she repeated the process, slowly but surely making her way through the corn field.
After a bit, her eyes landed on a break in the corn a few rows ahead of her. Pushing herself forward, she found herself stepping out into a small opening in the field.
In the center of the opening was a scarecrow, posted onto a wooden T. It was wearing a blue flannel shirt, and the straw poking out of the sleeves resembled a three fingered hand. That's not what caught Stacey's attention, though.
What caught her eye was the pumpkin head. It was lopsided and misshapen, as though it had been left out for weeks and rotted. This caused the eye and mouth holes to be equally as deformed and unnaturally shaped. Along with its figure, the pumpkin was also covered in scratch marks. Some were deeper and longer than others, though none seemed to pierce down to the hollow inside.
Standing on the scarecrow's shoulder was a large, black bird. Stacey wasn't able to tell if it was a crow or a raven. The bird was scratching and pecking at the pumpkin with its beak, though somehow Stacey knew the animal wasn't responsible for the marks on the gourd.
The bird stopped pecking as Stacey approached. Instead, it turned and stared down at the girl with deep, blood red eyes. Stacey stopped dead in her tracks, meeting the bird's gaze.
They stood still for several moments, staring at each other, before the bird went back to pecking at the pumpkin. Stacey watched in silence as the bird assaulted it, wondering to herself why the bird was so determined to attack the thing.
As she pondered the bird's motivation, she felt something inside her mouth fall onto her tongue. Without thinking, Stacey spat whatever it was onto the ground below. Curious, she knelt down and gazed at what she had just spit out.
It was a tooth.
Her heart stopped as she raised a hand to her mouth. Using her tongue to feel around, she found that it had been her upper right canine that fell out. Stacey gasped, both out of shock and fear. Teeth didn't grow back, after all.
As Stacey's mind began to race, she felt more of her teeth start to loosen. One by one, her mouth emptied of the bone, until only four or five teeth remained. The rest had fallen to the ground, scattering and leaving Stacey surrounded.
Then, to make matters worse, Stacey felt a clump of her hair fall to the ground. She wasn't sure how she had felt it, but she just knew it had. Clump after clump began falling around her, mixing with the scattered teeth. Reaching up, Stacey caught a wad of hair before it fell and held it in front of her.
As she gazed down at it, she noticed her arm was grayer and dryer than usual. Dropping the hair, Stacey rubbed her fingers in her palm as she observed her skin. It had sunk and aged, appearing more like the arm of an old corpse rather than of a teenage girl.
The deterioration didn't stop at her arm. Stacey felt her face sink as well. The bones in her cheeks and around her eyes seemed to morph and bend in a way Stacey couldn't see, yet somehow knew. The skin on her fingers and hands, drier and hoarier than the rest, began to peal off the bone. White skeletal fingers appeared in the places where skin used to be.
