How Festive (Discontinued)

Chapter 3: October 26th

The afternoon sun peeked through the blinds of your living room window, warming the room and casting soft shades of yellow over your body. You awoke groggily and moved your neck up a bit, getting a rather shitty look around the room.
Your eyes felt foggy; you hadn't slept that deeply in ages. You were sure you had some sort of dream but you could barely recall a single detail from it.

As your eyes scanned the room, they finally landed on the object of dread which seemingly sapped all of your energy away the night before. That stupid note, that dumb box.
A sigh and you pushed yourself to sit up. You might as well get this done now, while you still feel like there's cotton in your head. Soften the blow, one might say.

With one final exhale, you outreached your hand toward the box. You felt your arm shaking, you felt yourself trembling; a fear like no other reaching your gut as you reached the box. As if you were holding your own stomach and entrails. Revolting.

You finally held the box in your hand, pulling it back along to see what truly resided inside. It couldn't have been bigger than both your hands together. It was so small, at least a body wouldn't be inside, right?
A deep breath in and you undid the ribbon. You hadn't noticed it before, but there were a bunch of little ink droplets on this as well. Was it even really ink?

You set the ribbon on the table next to the note as your hands readied themselves to open the little box in your lap. It was as if your gut was in a grinder judging by how hard it was twisting and turning. You were sure you could feel bile rise to your throat as you finally lifted the top off.

And oh, how bile did hit the back of your mouth like a train going far too fast. How you stood, knocking the box onto the couch and ran to the kitchen sink, your stomach acid quickly running along with water.
There was blood. There was blood splattered along with that same inky black substance you had seen before. On the letter, on the box itself. That was not ink, it couldn't be. It was so thick and the way it mixed with the blood...you couldn't bear to make out the details.

From the quick look you had gotten, there was something in it, beyond that mess of black and red. Something that shined in the light that slipped through your blinds, silvery and bright.
You had to see what the rest was and yet here you were, ridding yourself of your insides after just one look, just one whiff. How pathetic.

After washing your mouth out, you stood over the sink for a moment. You needed to see what was in that dreaded box. You had to.
With a simple plan of sorts set in mind, you took another breath and checked in a drawer for the tools you would need to do this with. A pair of disposable gloves, a face mask, disinfectant, Febreze. How lucky you were to carry these items.
After putting on the mask and gloves, you carried the disinfectant and Febreze into the living room that was now beginning to stink of...something. You hoped the air freshener would mask the smell.

The box still lay there on the couch, right where you had left it. You glared at it as if it would just pop out of existence if you gave it a harsh enough look. But it didn't, so you put the disinfectant and Febreze on the table as you picked up the box and sat on the couch once more.

A quick look inside and you felt your guts do a little unpleasant spin again. That was definitely blood and the same black gunk all over the letter and outside of the box.
It seemed as if there were bits and pieces of flesh mixed in, torn and seemingly bitten up. Some pieces seemed too...how you say, different to be flesh, however. You figured it wouldn't be much of a reach to assume there were pieces of organs in the little container as well. You could only hope it wasn't human.

You saw the shimmery little object buried under what you would consider far too much gore, sparkling in the afternoon sunlight. A quick glance to the kitchen and you decided maybe using your hands for this, even with gloves, was probably going to make you puke again.
You set the box down on the table and walked into the kitchen, hoping to find something, anything that might relieve you of having to pry around in guts, blood, and black gush with your hands.

How lucky were you, to find a pair of prongs lying in the first drawer you peaked in. You'd miss them, you definitely would, but you could always buy a new pair.

With your newfound tool, you swiftly walked back to the couch. You felt a little more, how one might say, confident now that you didn't have to dig around in that nasty little box with your hands.
That being said, it didn't stop you from nearly gagging again once you looked back into the box. It was so disgusting, what kind of horrible freak would leave you this? Well, obviously one that leaves you ominous messages and possibly, maybe, probably, attempts to kidnap you in a costume store. That sounded about right.

With one last swift, silent pledge of dignity and hope that you weren't digging in another human being's remains, you dug the prongs in. The noises it made as it pushed along the mushy, meaty mess were some of the worst you had ever heard.
In any other context, one might find them lewd, perhaps a little bit of a gross-out like a bug getting squished to another.
But this wasn't either of those situations, right now you were digging around in something's missing flesh and whatever else. And apparently, something else's material belongings as well.

The prongs grasped onto the silvery little object at last and as you pulled it out with relative ease. But when you saw what it was you felt a little bit more than nauseated, with eyes widening. A silver-colored necklace with a little blue gem hanging off of it.