pumpkin head [ticci toby x reader]

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Have you ever thought about being a worm?

No, not in the way that girls tend to ask their boyfriends if they'd still love them if they were a worm. Like, actually just being a worm. Being a cute, weird, squiggly little thing inching its way forward on the ground.

Because Y/N was doing so right now.

Y/N was staring at the ground, eyes beholding the sight of precisely three worms wiggling their way around the freshly rained-upon earth. It was odd, but she felt compelled to keep her eyes on the worms, watching them intently, not wanting to look up and away.

She was sitting on a swing, old and rackety and looking as if it was on the verge of collapse. Her beat-up shoes dug into the softness of the mud as she propelled herself forward, cringing at the creaking noise each movement made. The wooden seat was still damp from the humidity that lingered in the air, and the same moisture soaked through her clothes, causing them to cling uncomfortably to her body.

But what drew attention was the plastic pumpkin that covered her head, the only dry part of her right now. The pumpkin fully encased her head, leaving her eyes as the only thing visible, shining through the darkness inside. They were her most striking feature, being her only feature that was visible to others. Other than that, her head was just that of the pumpkin's cheap plastic orange shell, merging seamlessly with the rest of her body almost as if it were natural.

The hollow inside of the pumpkin was nonetheless a bit stuffy, especially with the humid weather, but it also shielded her from the cold and gave her a certain pressure that kept her grounded to the earth. Without it, she would feel as if she was adrift at sea or perhaps like a ghost suspended in the air rather than a human being with corporal mass and weight. In some ways, she found the pumpkin to be an anchor, keeping her at bay and preventing her from drowning in the stresses of life. Granted, the pumpkin head was by no means physically comfortable, often causing her to sweat or feel like she was breathing her own breath over and over, but she wouldn't want it any other way.

But that wasn't her problem right now because, despite the general unpleasantness of being rained upon and the slight condensation building up inside the hollow pumpkin, she found peace in the moment.

What truly bothered her, though, more than the moistened seat of the swing, more than the dirt caking up on her shoes, more than the stuffiness of the pumpkin head, was that as much as she wanted to, she couldn't stare at the soil forever. So she forcefully tore her gaze away from the worms, lifting her head back up, the scenery changing to one of the forest that started at the ends of her backyard.

Staring out into the vastness of the woods, her eyes examined the various tones of reds, oranges, yellows, and browns that had fallen off the trees, carried through the air by the September winds.

It's beautiful, she thought, watching the animals scurry about on the ground, the birds chirping joyfully and singing in tune. It was a calming atmosphere, with the earthy scent that comes after rain filling the air, inhaled along with each breath of oxygen.

But that wasn't what her eyes searched for.

No, they were looking for something else, something different. She didn't know what exactly she was looking for; all she knew was that what she was searching for was not something harmonious with the ever-so-fascinating ecosystem before her eyes.

What she looked for was something far more sinister. Something insidious, shadowing over her life with every step she took, its mere presence strong enough to throw everything out of balance.

Its gaze, empty and hollow and cast upon her entire being. She shivered, feeling a chill run down each individual section of her spine.

Even if that thing wasn't even there to begin with, even if it was all in her head, the thought of it staring at her at this moment, analyzing and scrutinizing her for all she was worth, was enough for her to want to bury herself underneath the ground, lying there forever and hidden from its gaze.