Halloween One Shots

THE UNSAID STORY

Contest Profile: ComeAndSitWithUs

What's the unsaid story that goes with your Halloween costume? My story starts a few years ago. When we moved to our new home.

The crash destroyed me. I was the only one who didn't escape unscathed. Maybe because I was the one driving. At first, I was relieved that I was the only one who got hurt. If any of my siblings had, I would have been devastated. But that was at the beginning. Right after the accident. It wasn't long before I started to hate it. To hate being dependent on the others for everything. That hurt worse than my broken body.

It took me years to work through it. Years where I had no agency. No purpose. No will to live. It was agonising and unbearable to just lay there, knowing that there was no way I could end this. When I finally accepted my circumstances, everything changed! I even regained some of my abilities. It wasn't everything I could do before, but it was enough.

"How are you doing that?" my brother once asked, watching me work myself to exhaustion. "You're not supposed to be able to do that."

Yet, here I was, making far more progress than I could have ever thought possible. It was the first time I had a clear goal in mind. The first time I was confident that I wouldn't need to rely on my siblings for everything. That I could finally have a meaningful life. Maybe even a fun life.

Some days were harder than most. On these days I'd feel the pressure of expectation based on previous progress and it would crush me. All the progress I made came at a price. Pain, fear, exhaustion, and the danger of permanent damage should anything go wrong. More than once I felt the shame of letting my family down. We'd moved here so we could save our family's legacy. Realising there was little chance of me doing that, I would sink deeper into a wallowing pit of despair and gloom and stop trying. But I'd soon outworked even that feeling.

And one day, I was ready.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" my sister asked.

"Yes," I replied.

So, she walked me into the costume shop and slipped me onto a shelf, complete with a price tag attached.

When our space craft crash landed on Earth, the accident left me unable to shift fully, like my siblings. For years, I was just a depressed puddle of leathery goo hidden on the floor of a cave, fed rotting corpses. Every attempt to shift was agonizing beyond belief. However, after years of struggle and work, I was able to shift into one shape: a Halloween costume.

Now, I can fend for myself. I don't even have to hunt for my food. The humans voluntarily place themselves inside my stomach. My siblings simply put me back onto the shelves of the costume shop when I'm done, and I get to eagerly await my new victim.