October 31st, 2006.
Brianna Berenson skips along the street, only saved from tripping over the long, ripped skirt of her costume by her sensible blue trainers with grips. Fake bloodstains mark the area around her heart and upper arms.
"Trick or Treat!" She yells along with the other kids. The weight of her jack-o-lantern bucket increases exponentially as she makes her way around the wealthier neighbourhoods.
"Oh, what are you, dear?" An older, blonde woman asks, and ten-year-old Brianna smiles and replies with the same thing that freaked out her entire family when she announced it.
"I'm a zombie marathon runner! See my trainers?"
She twirls around to show her sash, also, proclaiming her as "B100dY!" in lieu of a real runner's number.
Unlike her family, the woman's smile seems to widen.
"Wow! Yes, you are! Extra candy for creativity," she winks, dropping the sweets in Brianna's bucket.
One of her reddish pigtails strikes her cheek like a whip as she bounces away, but the thin strands don't cause her any pain.
And despite her younger brother's shocked reaction, the fake blood around her heart won't either.
Her brother.
Little Benjamin - he'll be six in a couple days. It's not that big of an age difference, but she feels older as she thinks of him.
She skips as she walks - anyone else would call it running, but Brianna moves quick - and smiles when she thinks of the toffee chews in her bucket.
Brianna doesn't like toffee. Benji does, however.
Little sick Benjamin - immunocompromised - can't go trick-or-treating tonight.
So his big sister will do it for him.
Brianna skips on down the street. Three blocks away, a little boy waits for his sister.
Two doors down from where she now stands, another girl - older, she's twelve, but Brianna doesn't know that - with cornrows and a pattern of painted scars and green zombie face paint rings a doorbell.
"Trick-or-treat!"
Happy Halloween, Brianna, the redhead thinks to herself.
Happy Halloween, Dekka, the zombie queen thinks to herself.
They don't know yet how lucky they are for the candy.
But for now, they smile to themselves, bite into soft caramel, and trick-or-treat.
