//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Story Time 
// Story: Shadowbolts Adventures: The Shadows of Nightmare Night 
// by DragonShadow 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 1: Story Time




"Once, a long time ago, there was a girl who thought that going out tonight, Nightmare Night, was no big deal. She thought that all of the stories about what happened to girls who went out alone were all made up to keep her in line... boy was she wrong."

"She snuck out of her parents' house at a quarter to ten. At first, nothing happened. She walked around the neighborhood, taking in all of the scary decorations, and hitting up the few houses that still had their porch lights on for some extra candy. It's no big deal, she kept saying to herself. All of those superstitions are stupid nonsense."

"Then, at ten o'clock, she heard the whispering. It was soft at first, so soft she couldn't make out what it was saying, even though it sounded like it was coming from right behind her. She looked back, but there was nothing there... and no matter how fast she tried to walk, it kept getting louder. She walked faster, and faster, and faster, but the whispers wouldn't stop. She began to jog, and then to run with all of her might, but still the whispers got louder."

"She ran as hard as she could towards her house, and some say she very nearly made it. But she wasn't quite at the door before she felt the shadows take her by the shoulders, halting her in her tracks... and suddenly the voice rose above a whisper..."

"YOU'RE MINE FOREVER!" Indigo Zap thrust her arms into the air with the loudest scream she could muster. Sour Sweet yelped and tumbled over backwards from her pillow on the floor, while Lemon Zest began coughing and pounding a fist on her chest over her tub of buttery popcorn. Sunny Flare's eyes widened, but she quickly composed herself with a hand over her lips, while Sugarcoat's eyes widened only slightly before returning to their normal, bored expression.

Indigo almost fell over laughing with her hands on her stomach. "Hahaha! I got you girls so hard! I told you I'm the master of Nightmare Night stories!"

"Oh yes you are the master, Indigo, the master of screaming like a freak!" Sour Sweet huffed and folded her arms over her chest.

The group of them were in pajamas and nightgowns in the middle of Lemon Zest's living room. The Friendship Games had come and gone, but in its wake the group of them had decided that, in the end, they had quite a bit of fun together on their CHS excursion aside from demonic students having an epic ultimate clash of good and evil. So they began spending more time together, a couple of months now, leading up to tonight. Indigo's favorite night.

Sugarcoat reached up to adjust her slightly skewed glasses. "I'm going to have to agree with Sour Sweet. Your juvenile jumpscare tactics are the kind of thing children use to scare each other."

"Oh yeah?" Indigo snickered. "Then why is Lemon Zest still freaking out?"

"She's choking to death on a popcorn kernel," Sugarcoat pointed out flatly.

There was a moment of silence, aside from Lemon's gasping and wheezing, before Sunny leapt from the carpet to the couch behind her and wrapped her arms around her stomach, giving her the Heimlich maneuver until a single popcorn came shooting out of her throat to land right in the middle of the group.

"Gaaahhh...!" Lemon Zest gasped for air. "Oh man that is so much better. Thanks Sunny!"

"Don't mention it." Sunny jumped from the couch back to her pillow in the girl-circle.

The crisis averted, Indigo Zap crossed her arms over her chest. "Anyway, if any of you think you've got better stories than me, this is the night to tell them. I want to be scared."

Sour Sweet clasped her hands in front of her. "Oh, how could we possibly come up with a better story than that?"

"That's a great question." Indigo stuck out her chest proudly.

Sour Sweet stuck one finger up in the air. "Oh wait, I think I've got one! Roses are red, violets are blue, your story was stupid, and so are you!"

Indigo rolled her eyes. "No need to get all defensive about getting scared, it happens to everybody."

Sugarcoat interjected again. "I think I have a scary story you all might enjoy."

Indigo laughed. "You? Seriously?" When Sugarcoat raised her eyebrow she raised her hands calmingly. "Hey, no offense, Sugarcoat, but you don't exactly seem like a storyteller to me."

"Aw, don't listen to her, I wanna hear your story." Lemon Zest popped a couple more popcorn kernels into her mouth. "The more the merrier."

"Yeah, go on. I wanna hear it too." Sunny Flare settled onto her stomach on the floor with her arms resting on her pillow, looking at Sugarcoat.

"I didn't say she couldn't tell it." Zap turned to Sugarcoat with a challenging smile. "Go ahead and scare me. I want it."

"Very well." Sugarcoat cleared her throat into one hand and made herself more comfortable on the carpet. "This is a story that took place a long time ago..."

"Once, before the modern age, before technology, before electricity, a girl was out for a night on the town with her friends. Times were very different back then. Danger lurked around every corner, without police monitoring or security cameras. She had no idea that among her friends, an unassuming boy named Vlad Impaler was hiding a secret. If she had known, she probably wouldn't have had her massive crush on him."

"It was because of this crush that, one Nightmare Night while they were out partying with their friends, she agreed to let him take her aside for a private talk. She expected a makeout, what she got instead was a savage attack. You see, Vlad Impaler craved blood, and once he got her alone, the hunger took him over and he pounced. She had no hope of escape, his strength was too great... he bit her, right then and there... but to her surprise she didn't die."

"Vlad vanished from town the next day, but she was still there. She started having strange thoughts and cravings... and sometimes she even dreamed of stalking her friends. Hunting them through the darkness. Cornering them. Conquering them. Drinking their blood. The thirst never overtook her enough for her to hurt anybody... until the next Nightmare Night."

"So it has been for the last three hundred years. She makes her friends, chooses which ones she will get alone on Nightmare Night... and feasts on them before moving onto the next group. You know, it kind of feels good finally telling this story to somebody. You see, the name of the girl in this story? Her name is Sugarcoat."

The room was deathly silent as Sugarcoat's eyes flitted between the rest of the group, as if sizing up a selection of juicy stakes.

It must have been ten seconds before Indigo Zap felt her heart slow and her breath even out enough to speak. "H-heh, hehe, wow, dang Sugarcoat. Okay, you really got me going there. Geeze, I didn't know you had that in you." Lemon Zest, Sunny Flare, and Sour Sweet finally released their own tension in quick, nervous giggles.

Lemon Zest rubbed her head with one hand. "Yeah, dude, that was a heck of story. With the way you always tell the truth, I didn't think you'd be so good at stories."

A wry smirk tugged at the corner of Sugarcoat's lips. "I simply see no reason to ever lie, Lemon Zest. Especially to people who'll never be able to tell anybody else the truth... after all..." Without warning the lights in the living room went black, plunging the whole room into pitch blackness. Sugarcoat's next words floated out of the darkness in a sharp hiss.

"I always tell the truth."