[ That voice… it had sounded so foreign and so familiar all at once. Wanda recalled being that small, that lost, that trapped — so close to death after losing her parents — and she had reached out blindly, desperately, toward the sound of that despairing child. Or she thought she had…

…but her limbs felt distant from her body and pulled her somewhere else, into a distinct, poignant darkness, and she fell. She kept falling — deeper, deeper, sightless and heavy and sinking, and she wondered distantly if this was how all things ended, silent and blind and dull.

Until she opened… opens… her eyes.

Wanda finds herself in a warm bed beneath warm daylight and there are warm cries of joy and life outside a cookie cutter window above her head. She can move, and so she does, startled —

— and falls directly out of that bed onto the floor. ]

…oophfh!

[ It’s certainly noise that would have been heard downstairs, and more to that point, she hears rustling below her, on what must be the first floor of a two story house. Wanda pulls herself to her feet, slits her gaze through the curtain to the street outside, and gauges her surroundings. Children playing; parental figures watching. Neatly manicured lawns, all matching. Housing units divvied out on the street like they were distributed from a hole punch tool. Everything is very bright. Shin length skirts.

She snaps her head back down to her own attire. Is this a baby pink nightgown and matching terrycloth slippers? Ohhhh, no we don’t.

Wanda marks her exits and chooses the door for expediency, taking in the surrounding noises growing louder from the first floor. It’s strange to her that she can’t hear any mental clutter, no intentions, no side-talk, as she advances down the staircase. If the people here are her captors and they have mental defenses, no matter — she has other means to incapacitate them and escape.

Just as she rounds the lower corner of the stairwell, she hears footsteps approaching, and talk she can’t quite make out. Something about a plan, possibly?

It’s just a simple immobilization hex, really, nothing harmful (they could be, albeit unlikely, innocent) — and she steps out, throws her arms elegantly forward, expression poised and confident because her opponents are about to FREEZE IN PLACE!

…They do nothing of the sort and she is so stunned by the blunt absent force of her magic absolutely abandoning her in the moment that Wanda trips and tumbles down the last two stairs. ]

Don’t move,

[ she groans. ]

State your business.

[ Yes. Elegant. ]

[ “Hi, my name is _____.”

She stares at the name badge in quietly simmering fury with her newfangled black Sharpie (‘Aren’t they just SWELL, Wanda? What won’t they come up with next!’), sorely tempted to out herself as the Scarlet Witch for all and sundry. But simply because her neighbors, especially the Smiley Ones, don’t seem to believe what she or anyone else seems to remember about their origins, doesn’t mean she should automatically trust everyone who thinks they are trapped here.

Wanda scratches out one badge with excessive vigor. Rips up the badge, letting the pieces flutter, forlorn and impotent, to the ground. Begins again.

Once she turns around, her badge reads, “Hi, my name is wandamaximoffandiamnotawife!”

She smiles brilliantly at you, waiting for your turn, just as one of the neighbors approaches her with—

—oh. Mmm. Another delightful mold of gelatin.
Wanda takes the plate, her smile never faltering, and lets the gelatin slide directly to the grass below. ]

Oops! Silly me! [ her gasp is pleasant, billowy. ] I would probably lose my head if it weren’t attached to my shoulders! [ Her laugh rings out like a bell, and as if signaled, the neighbor chimes in, politely amused — not at all dismayed by the gelatin in a bulbous heap at their feet.

Wanda’s eyes fix on you, reading gently through her trill. Mildly probing. Still polite. Easily dismissed if you are not who she is hoping for. ]

Follow me, however, if you are sick of Jell-o.

[ She trails off to a grove of trees in her swishing pinafores and carefully pinned curls, waiting cautiously to see if you follow her coded message. ]

[ An entire bus of children in costume is missing, with one well-known principal already found dead, and still the town is thronging with youth and adults alike dressed up and hunting for candy tonight as if nothing is wrong. As if life is as sweet and sultry and comforting as the apples and cinnamon she can smell wafting from nearly every open window as she roams down the streets, surveying, investigating, curious.

Wanda has always had a certain slanted regard for Halloween. She enjoys the mysticism, the freedom of spirit (so to speak) that it gives people — especially children — who are usually shuttered and unseen, unheard. One could argue that, being a witch (more or less), she ought to love this holiday.

But she considers all the abuses, the excuses, the looks of fear from those who never understood, and how blisteringly naked she feels without her powers right now, and she decides that tonight, at least, she hates it.

The people of this town already wear horrible masks; an extra layer only confuses things further. Wanda feels a chill crawl up her bare forearms and for a desperate moment she looks down, half-hoping to find crimson tendrils curling and smoking up along her skin in tandem with the warning in her gut as they’re wont to do, but nothing—

—nothing, and then a happy child presses a candy bar into her outstretched hand as he runs by laughing, just as her stomach rumbles. ]

Treat for ya, lady! Happy Halloween!

[ And then he’s gone, and she’s hungry, and she takes a bite and suddenly there’s razor hot pain shooting through the roof of her gums and blood is pouring from her mouth and she’s screaming, screaming at no one in particular…

…and other people are screaming, up ahead, their screams are so shrill and surprised Wanda thinks she can hear them in her mind and for a moment she’s confused, terrified…

…confused and terrified because small children are attacking townspeople right in front of her, biting and scratching and kicking and their strength is wrong and too great and their skin is melting off their bones— ]

Stop—!

[ She’s still screaming, but her terror is combusting with rage now, and she doesn’t know who is whom immediately in the dark but she won’t see dead things try to make more dead things, she won’t let that happen. Wanda pulls a moldy tin man off a teenager with as much brute force as she can manage; it snarls and moans and hisses Trick or treeeeat! as she launches the child into the air and onto the ground.

It gets back up.
They all get back up.

Wanda spits blood down at her feet, making sure there are no more sharp blades left in her mouth, then scans the street, flits her eyes around the small group huddling and shifting around the area, scraping themselves free of corpse children. ]

Stay back. We need to find shelter. One of these houses.

[ She keeps her feet spread apart and mobile, arms out (habit). Glances back one more time. ]

What set them off?

( throw anything at me, i’m so flexible!! Shoot me a PM or just tag a thing!! ♥ )