The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin Princess - Fanfic Story 1

CHAPTER 7

A/N - I want to thank NaLuDragneel17 for voting on this story! Thank you so much!

I fingered with my new necklace, wondering why Dad had suddenly stopped talking about Mom. I was looking at myself in the mirror. I was part Jack Skellington and part Kayla Skellington. But some things about me genetically were bothering me that hadn't bothered me before.

Dad was a skeleton, that was obvious. I was, too...but skeletons don't have hair on their skulls or eyes in their eye sockets. Well, Dad had hair and eyes, but his eyes weren't...human. Mine were. So why? I didn't remember what my mom looked like. What was she? She wasn't a skeleton. Was she a vampire? No, I'd have fangs, if that were the case. Was she a ghost? No, ghosts couldn't have kids. Was she a werewolf? No, I'd have ears and a tail. Was she a zombie? No, because then I'd be zoned out a lot. So what was my mother? What type did my Dad marry?

I went through every single type of monster, but nothing seemed reasonable. She wasn't a skeleton. She couldn't have been. The only thing that she could've been...was human...

I gasped and nearly screamed at that thought. The Pumpkin King? Marrying a human?

"Dad....?!" I called. He didn't answer.

I went downstairs and saw Zero sleeping in his bed with a candy cane beside him. Dad wasn't home.

I flopped on the bottom step and held my aching skull. Maybe I was just getting myself too worked up but I had to know. Dad wouldn't tell me, so...there had to be someplace in his room where he was hiding something about my mother.

I stood up and walked into Dad's room. I looked around and thought for a moment. I loved to write music and play it, but there were some things that I'd created before and hated and didn't want to see again. Where'd I shove those things?

Under the bed...

I rushed to Dad's bed and looked underneath it. I saw a big box in the dusty darkness that I'd never seen before. I pulled it out and blew the dust off the lid. I opened it and saw a bunch of photos.

I searched through them until I found a picture of Dad and someone else. I could tell that someone else was a girl. I was about to look closer...

"Zero! Skelly! I'm home!"

I gasped and hastily stuffed the photo into the inside pocket of my jacket. I put the lid back on the box and shoved it back under the bed, right where it'd been before.

"Hi, Dad," I greeted when I came out, trying to act as normal as possible.

"Hi," he replied.

"What's up with the bag?" I asked, looking at the black duffel bag in Dad's hand.

He put the bag on the table and opened it, pulling out a bunch of experiment tools.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"I'm trying to figure out Christmas," Dad said.

"By experimenting...?" I asked uncertainly.

"Yeah," he said.

"Okay then..." I sighed.

He turned and looked at me. "Are you okay, Skelly?" he asked.

"Yeah, I just have a bit of a headache," I said. "I'm gonna go lie down for a minute."

"Call me if you need anything," Dad said as I went upstiars.

"Got it, dude," I muttered.

I went back to my room, and I flopped on my bed. I pulled the photo out and stared at the girl Dad was with.

She had midnight black hair. Her eyes were emerald green. She had a pale skin tone, and she didn't seem afraid of the Pumpkin King; in fact, she was smiling and standing right next to him. He was smiling too. They both seemed happy. Then something caught my eye. She had a necklace on, with the North Star for a charm.

I gasped and looked at myself in the mirror again. I held up the picture and compared the girl's features to mine. I had midnight black hair, and my hair was white at the ends because Dad's hair was white. I had emerald green eyes, and the North Star necklace she was wearing was the same one I was wearing.

"You wanna know who had that first?"

"Who?"

"Your mother."

I fell back against my bed, panting. My whole skeletal body was shaking. I couldn't breathe. My world was spinning in circles. Dad had married a human...

Then, everything went black.
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I felt a wisp of smoke crossing my face, and my eyes opened. I looked at the door just in time to see Zero flying out of my room.

I sat up and looked around my bedroom. What was I doing on the floor? Then it hit me. I looked at the photograph and sighed shakily, feeling like I had just been struck by a lightning bolt at full force.

I stood up and brushed the dust off my jacket and skirt, then went downstairs to see Dad zoned into his Christmas experiments.

I sat down on the bottom step, trying to collect myself before he noticed I was there. Zero had clearly come upstairs just to check on me because he was asleep in his bed again.

Dad turned around and grabbed a ornament off the tree. He went over to the chemical set and crumbled the ornament up. He proceeded to dump it into some chemicals, and it proceeded to turn a bright green that flashed. It was so bright I had to look down to avoid another headache.

"Interesting reaction," Dad said to himself. He suddenly got frustrated. "But what does it mean???"

"Dad..." I whispered, but he didn't hear me.

I suddenly felt lonely. Dad was too zoned into the stupid Christmas experimentations to care about me. And to think the dog came to check on me, instead of him.

As I watched him move around, my eyes became tired. I was too tired to climb back upstairs so I merely leaned my head against the railing of the steps. The last thing I saw before falling asleep was a basket hitting the window.