Tricked Out | Nightmare Before Christmas

Chapter 37: The Biggest Mistake

All credits to the author. I own nothing.

Enjoy!

...

February 16th

Inside the Halloween Tree

Moonrise

Bezata's scream echoed around the tree, stinging her throat even as it was snatched away by the wind. She desperately tried to reach for the root, but even the vague outline of it had vanished, and her fingers were only met with cold winter air.

Her glasses nearly slipped from her face with the force of the wind, and she reflexively grabbed the frames, clutching them in her hand. There wasn't much use in them, anyway- the inside of the tree was darker than any place Bezata had ever been.

She flung her free hand out, her hand brushing against the side of the- Wall? Tree? - which was covered in something sticky and damp, clinging to her fingers. She leaned away and found herself caught in an endless backflip, with no sense of where up was.

Her screams died out as she frantically pressed her free hand against her mouth, trying to force herself to keep the Kartoffelsalat she'd had earlier in her stomach. She kicked her legs frantically, trying to orient herself, unsure if the nausea in her stomach was from the turns or the god-awful stench that kept triggering her gag reflex anytime she thought about it. What if she landed on her head? What if she threw up before she hit bottom? What if she never hit bottom?

The temperature seemed to be rising, the air in Stuttgart that had made her tears freeze giving way to a warmth that left only the faintest hints of goosebumps under her jacket. A horrible image of falling straight to the heated center of the earth flitted through her mind, and she spared a moment to shudder. Bezata did another flip that made her stomach writhe, then felt something cool, thin, and sticky press against her face, the gossamer threads snapping as she fell. Temporarily distracted from her acrobatics, Bezata spat and tried to push the spider webs from her face, hoping they weren't just nesting further into her hair. She noticed with alarm that her hat had been pushed off her head, leaving her ears and frizzy hair exposed to the wind. She kept hitting spider webs, her skin crawling each time the dry, wispy strands dragging against her skin.

Bezata was so focused on not upturning her stomach that it took her a few more flips to realize she was actually slowing down. The webs, she realized after a moment, were getting thicker, to the point where she'd pause and bounce for a few moments before falling down to the next one.

At least I won't have a broken neck, she allowed herself to think hopefully. The next web didn't break at once and Bezata lay on her back, taking a few steadying breaths of air that seemed to burn her tongue with its stench, waving her hand in front of her face and feeling the panic rise even further up her throat when she couldn't even see the outline of her hand. The motion was too much for the web, though, and she fell backwards once more.

The next web dipped but held, and when Bezata accidentally rolled over the edge in an effort to get to her knees, she fell face-first six feet down and landed with a whoomph on something that was definitely solid.

Blinking the stars out of her eyes (and double-checking that her glasses hadn't broken), Bezata slowly stared up at the trees that surrounded her, a gap in the forestry showing the exact same waning crescent that was in Stuttgart- except, no, because the moon back home did not have a face that flitted across, teeth filling in the pores of the moon, before slinking off to the dark side and vanishing.

Bezata's fingers tightened on the ground, and despite her pounding heart and mounting fear she recognized the feeling of dead leaves, crinkling under her gloves, and yellow grass that tickled her face.