Quote:
As Halloween draws near, a good number of the shops at the local mall have decided to take part in the festivities by handing out candy bars and bite-sized goodies to all of the customers who stop by. You score a fair amount of sweets while you're out and about.

After you consume a handful of them, though, you discover you don't feel.. quite right. You can't put your finger on why you don't feel right but soon the side effects from your candy munching come to light. When you sweat, your perspiration is noticeably brown and smells sickeningly sweet... almost like chocolate. In fact, your natural scent has seemed to take on a more sweet approach, as if you were a walking candy bar yourself. You've got no clue which shop handed out the cursed candy but the saccharine effect on you lasts for an entire day, until the candy has made it out of your system.


There was no avoiding the Edgewood Mall at Halloween - not when the attached Target had all those cheap garbage items in the dollar-pit for broke-a** college students like him to take advantage of.

And if Felix also managed to snag some free samples and other assorted hand-outs from other shops, so much the better - no college student turned down free food, no matter how sketch the establishment it came from, as long as it came in a sealed package (even that was negotiable for some).

That afternoon at practice, despite feeling a bit off, he worked up a sweat in his windbreaker while doing a lateral slide and eggbeaters as usual; his black of his practice flag snapping in the chilly October breeze with each precision movement. He didn't have time to be sick - there were competitions in the fall, plus the Home and Away games. It was important to make certain everything was flawless - the weird dropping sensation in his guts, the strange tickling at the back of his throat...none of that mattered comparatively.

Band life as normal.

The fact that he - and several other members of the band who had also gone to the Edgewood Mall with him - seemed to be sweating chocolate, however, was definitively not normal.

At first, he had simply passed the whiffs of processed chocolate with hints of vanilla as all in his head, but the longer he worked the forms under the direction of the drum majors, the stronger the scent became and the more he stained the white inner liner of his windbreaker. It was impossible to deny the reality of the situation then, so at second break, Felix and his friends got back together to discuss their new personal hygiene issues.

Eau de Cacao wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but sweating sticky chocolate definitely couldn't be classified as good.

Despite a relatively large pool to pull from, they were unable to figure out which of the freebies ingested had caused the strange condition, but beyond the weird body horror problems it didn't seem to be having any additional affects. Felix was pretty sure it was a Negaverse Thing, even if he couldn't say it, and figured that he ought to just...monitor the situation and keep notes. He could call Colin or Cordy later, see if they knew what the hell was going on - if it were a problem.

No point in bothering them if it just...went away. Right? Right.

Besides, it wasn't like he could leave in the middle of marching band practice. His director would have his a**, the drum majors would shank him, and his entire band would probably do worse if by some miracle he managed to survive all of that. His friends had come to the same conclusion: they'd all stay through the practice and then maybe head to one of those clinics that kept popping up all over Destiny City. Or maybe just live in their shower or bath tub for a few hours until whatever was wrong stopped.

Because they were all absolutely certain that whatever was going on would come to an end.

This is gonna be a long-a** practice... It was a blessing to discover that he was not pissing marzipan when he went to use the head; so at least there was that.

Felix hadn't had the heart to tell his friends and bandmates that there was always a chance that this could just be their new lives now; they didn't need to know about all that Negaverse crap. Evil alien Nazis with monsters for pets. Evil talking cats, evil twisted magical cannons with five hundred feet of hair and gaping holes in their faces and chests...yeah sure. Turning people into candy seemed totally plausible.

He popped another piece of free swag into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. A fun-size Snickers bar seemed safe-enough...and hell, he was probably already screwed if it had been the Snickers that were tainted, since he'd eaten like...ten of those.

WC: 681