The Uneggsplainable Events on the Night Before the First Sunday Following the First Full Moon After the Vernal Equinox.

As the rain drizzled down, a squad of Paradox Rogues huddled around their small campfire in the middle of the dark forest. They had built their fire underneath a particularly dense patch of the forest, so that the leaves of the trees above them protected them from the brunt of the cold, heavy rainfall. Nonetheless, the occasional drop of water would slip through the leafy roof overhead and splash on the fire, dimming it considerably and making a loud hissing sound. The Rogues had already set up their tents around the fire, and they were currently consuming their bland, yet nutritious, rations. To keep their spirits up, the Rogues told each other scary stories, such as the one about the mutant nine-headed sheep bears who had gained sentience and waged war on humanity. After one of the rogues finished telling that story, another shared a few of the many rumors circulating about the mysterious wizard who had once wrecked havoc on the Paradox Rogue forces, but had later disappeared without a trace. Most, if not all, of the rumors were false, of course, but that didn’t make them any less scary. Following that, another Rogue shared the story of the insane ninja who roamed the forest ambushing passersby and stealing their food. He finished his story, and one of the rogues stated “Bert, that story wasn’t scary at all. I mean really, stealing people’s food? How is that supposed to be scary?”

All the other Rogues nodded in agreement.

“Yeah Bert,” another berated. “Maybe if it was a scary story about an insane ninja who slit people’s throats in their sleep, it would be scary. But stealing food? That’s lame.”

“It’s not lame! Not having food is a serious and terrifying prospect!” The Rogue, Bert, who told the lame story retorted. “I’d give anything for some good food right now! All we have are these crappy ration bars to eat.”

“Hey, don’t complain. They might not be delicious, but they sure are nutritious!” The Rogue who said this grinned and took a bite out of his ration bar. His grin died slightly at the terrible taste of the bar.

“Anything would be better than these bars!” Bert moaned, throwing his bar into the forest where is disappeared in the darkness. “I’m going to scavenge for some real food,” he declared.

“Nah man, wait until tomorrow when it’s light. You won’t find anything in the darkness anyway.”

Bert didn’t heed this advice, and went off into the woods.

Bert trudged through the dark, tripping over roots and stumbling over bushes invisible into the darkness. After a while, he looked back and saw the glow of the squad’s campfire some distance away. He mumbled to himself, probably something about showing them once he found a ton of delicious food and they would all be begging him to share with them. Finally (it took him long enough), Bert had the bright idea of turning on the night vision feature of his Paradox Marauder gear so that he could actually see what he was doing. He found a few hard (inedible) nuts, some green and orange mushrooms, a pinecone, and some porcuberries, which, while edible and sweet, are completely covered with sharp prickly spines. Luckily for Bert, he was wearing the gloves that came with his Marauder gear, so he didn’t fill his hand with needles when plucked the berries from the porcubush. Halfway through de-berry-ifying the porcubush, Bert’s night vision helmet began flickering rapidly. A secant later, it went out. Bert cursed, and asked no one in particular “Why the brick does technology always stop working at the worst possible times? Brick this planet and its weird, bricking technology problems.” Yes, Bert had a bit of a swearing problem. Either that, or he just really liked bricks.

Bert looked all around him, trying to spot the glow of his squad’s campfire, but it was nowhere to be seen. There was nothing but darkness, and weathered tree trunks. Had Bert looked closer at those tree trunks, he would have noticed large, deep claw marks gouged in their sides

With absolutely no idea of what direction his camp was in, Bert stumbled around blindly through the forest. Bert had no way of knowing this, of course, but he was actually moving further and further away from his camp, and deeper and deeper toward the center of the forest.

After about an hour of doing this, Bert, tired and hungry, dropped to the ground and leaned back against a tree trunk. It was at this moment that a small bit of color caught his eye. He squinted in the darkness. In a small clearing about twenty feet away from him, moonlight shone down and illuminated some small, colorful object on the ground. Bert got to his feet and walked towards it. The clearing was about ten feet wide, and a covering of straw carpeted the ground of the entire clearing, and in the middle of the clearing was an small egg, about the size of a chicken egg. Bert took a step forward, and the straw crackled under his feet. Upon closer inspection, he could see that the egg was a light sky-blue color, but, strangely enough, two wavy bands of yellow circled around the width of the egg near the top and bottom. Between the two bands was a ring of pink dots, evenly spaced around the egg. It was a colorful little pattern, but Bert didn’t give it much thought. When he saw the egg, he saw food. Bert leaned down toward the egg. He reached for it. His fingers closed around the egg.

Bert stood up and held the egg in the beam of moonlight to get a better look at it. Such a colorful egg should make a tasty meal, he thought to himself. Then, the colors of the egg dimmed. Bert was momentarily confused as to why this happened, until he realized that something must have been blocking the moonlight shining down through the clearing. A low growling came from above. Nervously, Bert looked up. A dark shape silhouetted against the moonlight hung above him. The creature's features were completely hidden by the darkness, except for its two red, gleaming eyes.

The Paradox Rogues had just finished their nutritious (even if not especially delicious) ration bars, and climbed into their tents to go to sleep for the night. One of the Rogues called out

“Hey, does anyone know if Bert has returned yet? He’s been gone for a while.”

“I dunno, he probably got lost. Still, the map on his helmet’s HUD should tell him how to get back to camp. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine.”

Suddenly, a bloodcurdling scream filled woods. Just as suddenly, it ended.

Good thing Bert never got a chance to eat those green and orange mushrooms, because they were poisonous and would have made him really sick and uncomfortable for over a week.

Cue intro music.

https://youtu.be/-RcPZdihrp4

~ ~ ~

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the forest...

“Hiya!”

“Slice!!!”

“You shall not prevail, evil sorcerer!”

“Die, red star monster!”

“Kapow!”

Three figures ran through the forest. They were all wearing average (slightly dirty) clothes, but over those clothes they wore shoddy wooden armor. One of them held a wooden sword, another a staff with a pinecone at the end, and the third a wooden bow with a few sticks for arrows. They were just a few young boys in their preteens, and they ran through the forest smacking trees with their wooden weapons while shouting their ferocious battle cries such as “Punch attack!” and “Woosh! Fireball!”

Now, the kids had been in the forest quite a bit to put the beatdown on the tree trunks, and so there was no fear of them becoming lost. However, this particular night was not one during which one should be out in the woods, let alone out in the woods making a ton of noise by hitting trees and screaming about it.

They were in the middle of abusing some poor birch tree and shouting “Down with the evil space robots!” when they heard a rustling behind them. They all slowly turned around in unison. The bushes shook, and the three boys readied their wooden weapons. Then, the bushes parted, and out stepped a young girl.

“If you’re a Dude, prepare to get destroyed!” One of the boys cried out, brandishing his bow.

“Obviously she’s not a dude!” the boy with the staff said, punching the boy with the wooden bow in the arm. “She’s a girl!”

“No, I mean one of the Dudes that my dad talks about. I’ve heard him talking about the evil Dude soldiers.”

“Well, obviously she’s not a soldier! And she’s not evil either,” The kid with the sword said. “You’re not evil, are, you?” He asked, turning to the girl.

She said nothing.

“See!” The kid with the bow cried out. “She won’t deny being evil!”

“She’s probably just shy!” The kid with the wooden sword retorted. Turning back to the girl, he said “Hi. I’m Matthew. The kid there with the staff is Sean, and the one with the bow is Isaiah. What’s your name?”

She said nothing.

“Well, this is getting boring. Let’s get back to fighting monsters!” Isaiah said, kicking a tree.

“Yeah!” Sean called out, pointing his staff at a tree. “Fireball!”

The tree exploded loudly, sending wood chips flying into the air. The three boys stood there, gaping.

“Did I do that?” Sean asked, looking at his staff.

“No, idiot, she did that,” Isaiah replied, pointing at the girl, whose hand was still outstretched toward the tree.

“Woah!” Matthew exclaimed. “That’s awesome!”

“It’s like I actually shot a fireball at the tree!” Sean cried out. “We should call the girl...Fireball! How about Firegirl? Or, better yet, Flameo!”

Isaiah facepalmed. “That’s a dumb name.”

“Well, do you have a better one?” Sean retorted.

“How about Ember?” Matthew prompted.

Isaiah shrugged. “Yeah, that sounds cool enough. What does Ember mean?”

“Um, I don’t know, I heard my dad use it, and I think it has something to do with fire.”

“Good enough for me,” Sean stated.

“So Ember,” Matthew asked the girl. “What are you doing around here? There aren’t any animals in the woods to hunt, so no one ever goes here.”

Ember said nothing.

“Well, anyway, do you want to help us fight monsters?” Matthew asked.

“What, no!” Isaiah objected. “We can’t just let outsiders into our questing group!”

“Dude! She blew up a tree!” Sean pointed out.

“Then what if she is a monster?” Isaiah challenged.

“What, no! Of course she isn’t a monster!” Matthew cried. “She’s just a girl!”

“But can’t some monsters disguise themselves as people?”

“I don’t know of any monsters that do that!”

“Well if you don’t know of them, then that makes them even more dangerous!”

Due to their heated arguing, they failed to notice that something was blocking out the dim evening glow that was previously shining down. Ember, however, noticed, and looked up, but whatever it was had already passed. The three boys continued arguing until Sean stumbled over something on the ground. He looked down and saw that it was a colorful orange egg with wavy green and red patterns. All three of the boys immediately stopped arguing and leaned over to get a closer look at the egg. Their arguing was forgotten, replaced by curiosity.

“What do you think it is?” Sean asked.

“An egg, obviously,” Isaiah pointed out.

“Yeah, but what type of egg?” Matthew said in reply.

“It’s probably a monster egg!” Isaiah exclaimed.

“Not everything has to be a monster, you know!” Matthew cried out.

“Not everything, but everything in these woods! Nothing good ever came out of these woods.”

“Hey!” Called out Sean, who had wandered some distance away. “There’s another egg over here in the hollow of this tree!”

The two other boys and Ember all ran over there to see what Sean was talking about. There, just as Sean had said, was a bright neon green egg with yellow and purple patterns.

“It’s quite colorful,” Sean observed while reaching out toward the egg. His fingers wrapped around it, and he pulled it out from the tree. At that moment, a shadow loomed over them, blocking out the dim evening light. Sean looked up, and found himself staring directly into a pair of red, gleaming eyes. His mouth dropped open, and he dropped the egg.

“Run!” He screamed. Sean and Matthew, glancing up and seeing the monstrous shape above them, lost no time in following suit. As Matthew ran past Ember, he grabbed her arm and dragged her after him. The large creature, hidden in shadow, bounded after the four kids, rapidly gaining on them. Ember stopped running, turned around, and thrust her hands forward in the direction of the creature. A blast of force obliterated all the trees between Ember and the creature and sent the creature flying backwards, but as soon as it touched the ground the creature regained its footing and continued it pursuit after the children. Matthew, Sean, and Isiah fled toward the edge of the forest, but Ember had other plans. She reached out with her hand toward them, and immediately, involuntarily, they changed direction to follow Ember deeper into the forest.

“What are you doing?” Sean screamed. “We have to get out of the forest to escape!”

“She’s going to kill us all! I knew she couldn’t be trusted!” Isaiah screamed back.

“We have to trust her!” Matthew called out. “Maybe she has a plan!”

They kept running. Multiple times, the creature nearly reached them, but Ember used her powers send shards of wood flying toward the creature, or cause trees to fall on top of it. Each time, however, this only slowed it down slightly before it was right back on their tail, but they slowly and steadily increased the distance between themselves and the creature, until it was eventually out of sight. The four kids reached a very large clearing about a hundred feet wide in the center of the forest. There was straw covering the ground of the clearing, and colorful eggs were littered all across the straw. All of the trees surrounding the clearing were scarred by deep claw marks, and there were tufts of white fur caught on the tree’s branches. In the very center of the clearing was a single tree. It wasn’t especially impressive, but there weren’t any claw marks on its golden-brown bark. Its branches were bare, but at the base of the tree bluish-silver leaves had piled up.

“Why did you take us here?” Matthew asked Ember.

She said nothing, of course.

Ember walked forward toward the tree, and the three boys, not knowing what else to do, followed her. She stopped in front of the tree, and so the boys stopped too. She didn’t do anything for a secant, and so Sean, curious about the tree, reached toward the tree. He taken aback as some sort of invisible field between him and the tree pulsed blue for a moment and pushed his hand to the side. The push on his hand wasn’t especially forceful, yet Sean was unable to resist it.

“It’s some sort of magic tree,” Matthew observed.

Ember continued standing in front of the tree with her arms stretched out toward it and her eyes closed.

In the distance, the kids could hear the crashing of trees as the creature ran through the forest.

“Whatever you’re doing, hurry it up!” Sean cried out to Ember.

At that moment the invisible field surrounding the tree reappeared with a transparent blue color. Ember slowly moved her hands, which were still pointed toward the forcefield, away from each other, and as she did so, a small gap in the field opened up. As she kept moving her hands away from each other, the gap opened wider and wider.

The crashing created by the pursuing creature grew louder.

Ember continued gradually and steadily moving her hands apart to widen the gap in the forcefield until her hands were fully extended to the side, and the gap was wide enough to walk through. Sean dashed through the gap in forcefield, with Isaiah right behind him. Matthew was about to follow suit, until he looked back to see where Ember was. She had fainted. The crashing of the creature was much louder, now, and was rapidly growing louder, but Matthew did not hesitate to run back toward Ember to drag her through the forcefield. He wasn’t making much progress, however, and Sean and Isiah, seeing this, ran back out from within the forcefield to help Matthew drag the Ember into the forcefield.

Sean, looking back toward the gap in the forcefield, cried out “The gap is shrinking! It’s growing smaller now that Ember isn’t awake to keep it open.”

“We have to hurry up!”

If they needed any more incentive to hurry out, they were about to get it. At that moment, the creature bounded in the clearing. In the open clearing, the creature was no longer hidden by shadow, and the boys got a good look at the monstrous beast. It was large, about the size of a horse, and was completely covered with white fur. It had disproportionate features; its head, fixed atop a thin neck, was absurdly large, nearly the same size as its body, and its legs were long and spindly, but despite its irregular proportions and immense size, it was clearly a rabbit. Long, thin ears jutted out from atop the rabbit's head, and whiskers splayed out from its nose. A round tail was affixed above its two hind legs. At the front of both its upper and lower jaw were two large, flat buck teeth; however, all every other tooth besides these thinned to a razor sharp point. Saliva dripped between the creature’s teeth and to the ground. It raised it head up and its nose twitched as it sniffed the air. Smelling its prey, its beady red eyes snapped around to affix themselves on the three terrified boys trying to drag the unconscious ember through the forcefield gap. The monstrous rabbit pounced at the children, but they managed to scramble through the forcefield just in time, and the rabbit was repulsed by the magical field which sent it flying to the edge of the clearing where it crashed into a tree. In seconds, the creature was back on its feet and rushing toward them. It thrust its muzzle through the gap in the forcefield, snapped at the kids, and managed to grab Sean’s leg in its mouth. It shook Sean back and forth by its leg before dragging him halfway out of the forcefield, but Isaiah lept forward and grabbed Sean’s hand. The creature was too powerful, however, and simply continued dragging both of them out from the forcefield. Seeing this, Matthew lept forward and grabbed Isaiah’s leg, and with his other hand he grabbed the strange tree surrounded by the force field. As the gap in the forcefield continued shirking, it slowly closed around Sean, threatening to crush him. Staring into the large red eyes of the bloodthirsty rabbit only a few feet away from his own, Sean began screaming

“Pull harder! I’m not ready to die, whether it be ripped apart by a monster or crushed by a forcefield!”

Normally, three young kids would have been no match for the strength of the powerful beast, but as Matthew gripped the strange tree a surge of power entered his veins. He dug his feet into the ground, and with a surge of strength pulled Sean free from the rabbit’s jaws. They all fell backward  into the forcefield only seconds before it closed around them.

Protected from the beast by the field, the three kids inspected the strange tree closely for the first time. Its golden-brown bark wasn’t shiny like actual gold, but it definitely had a golden hue. The silver-blue leaves that had fallen around the tree, on the other hand, did shine with a soft glow.

“Look!” Sean called out, pointing at Matthew’s wooden sword, which was strapped to his back.

The sword had transformed! It had changed from a plain wooden sword into...a less plain wooden sword. The dull brown wood that had previously composed the sword had transformed into a golden brown wood of the same color as the bark of the nearby tree. Across the flat of the blade were intricate swirly designs made out of the same blue-silver color of the fallen leaves. Matthew drew the blade and swung it around. Still made out of wood, the sword was quite light.

“I think the tree must have done this,” Matthew contemplated.

“Alrighty then!” Sean exclaimed, reaching for the tree with one hand and grasping his staff in the other. As his fingers brushed the tree, he felt a surge of power, and the staff’s hue shifted from plain brown to the epic golden-brown of the tree. All along the staff materialized runes of the silver-blue color, and the pinecone atop the staff changed to silver-blue as well.

Isaiah reached for the tree as well. His bow changed to the golden-brown with silver blue designs on it, and the sticks he used as arrows also changed to the silver-blue color.

“Hey, I’m sorry about earlier,” Isaiah said to Matthew. “I didn’t really mean it when I said Ember was a monster. I guess I just got caught up in the argument.”

“Don’t worry about it” Matthew replied, smiling.

“Welp, now that everyone's on good terms again, how about we figure out what on earth we’re going to do about that?” Sean asked, gesturing to the rabbit which was clawing at the forcefield from the outside, trying to get at the kids.

“We fight!” Matthew stated. “We have to protect Ember.”

“Let’s kick some monster brick!” Isaiah cried out.

Sean reached toward where the forcefield, now invisible, previously was. His handed wasn’t pushed to the side like before.

“I guess the forcefield is one way,” he commented.

“In that case,” Matthew called out, ‘CHAAAAAAAARGE!!!!!!!”

The three kids stormed out of the force field toward the monster rabbit. It swiveled its head toward them, opened its mouth, and roared, but the kids, filled with bravery and stupidity, were not daunted by the terrifying roar. As they charged, Sean pointed his staff at the monster and shouted “Fireball!” Given all the crazy stuff that had happened up to that point, he wasn’t all that surprised when a surge of energy coursed through his arm, the silver runes on his staff began glowing bright blue, and he felt the heat of a blue fireball shooting from his staff at the rabbit. The blue fire licked at the rabbit’s white fur, and the creature roar in pain. Angry, the rabbit leapt at Sean and swiped at him with its claws, but Isaiah drew back his bow and fired multiple shots at the rabbit’s eyes. The arrows exploded into blue fragments as they hit its eyes, blinding it and causing it to miss its swipes at Sean. While the creature was blinded, Matthew ran forward and leapt into the air. In mid air, he shifted his grip on his wooden sword so that it was pointed straight down, and blue flames appeared along the sword’s blade. He plunged the blade into the fel creature’s head, and the creature reared back back, screeching wildly. Then it fell, lifeless. The creature's white hair burned away revealing its pink skin. Then its skin withered away, and once the skin had completely disappeared, it’s body exploded into a bunch of small chocolate candies, which rained down around the clearing. The three kids didn’t eat any of the candies, of course, because only a idiot would eat candy made out of the carcass of a dead rabbit monster.

“We did it!” Sean exclaimed.

Matthew turned around back toward the magic tree where the unconscious form of Ember had been lying. She was gone. Matthew sighed.

“Hey, cheer up Matt,” Isaiah said. “We just killed our first real monster!”

The three boys shouted exuberantly at the same time.

~~~

All across the forest, small, colorful eggs began wobbling back and forth. A small tapping noise came from within each one. Something was trying to get out. Then, the egg shells cracked, and out of each egg crawled a tiny baby rabbit. :O :O :O :O :O

~~~

“And THAT is why you don’t take candy that you find lying around the forest. Also, don’t take candy from strangers. Or from Paradox Rogues. In fact, don’t take candy period. It’s bad for your teeth. THE END!” The woman finished her narration.

The children looked at her awestruck. It had never occurred to them that events like the Easter Egg Hunt would have such a history behind them.

“Will you tell us about the 4th of July, too?” asked one of them.

The woman laughed “Perhaps another day! It’s too late now! You need to go home now!”

And while the children walked away disappointed, the storyteller watched the sunset. And Lady Jonna sighed in remembrance of better times…