It’s the middle of the night and you have to pee. Again. This may sound like the beginning screen to the most awkward text-based RPG ever developed, but this is real life, and the guy from Zork never carried around 12 gallons of Mountain Dew in his groin, or he would have taken a lot longer to move North and come across a locked gate every two turns.

Third time this week you’ve woken up in the dead morning with a full tank. You check your phone and immediately regret your decision to do so, noting two more hours of real sleep time, and 45 minutes of the preamble to being awake.

Sunshine in through the windows. Your dog scratching at the bedroom door. That Godless alarm clock you set to play the fucking Sugarhill Gang because you saw it in an episode of Scrubs, like, eight years ago.

Two hours, 43 minutes.

You pry yourself out of bed, sliding your feet, first, into the slippers your mom gave you, then your whole body into the chill winter air. You pad downstairs, mumbling “Up jump the boogie, to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat,” and hating yourself for still loving that song.

It’s snowing outside. You stop at the foot of the stairs and stare out through the living room window into the inside of a snowglobe. Outside, eight stories up outside of your apartment, the world outside is a swirling dust of white crystals. You blink sleepily for a moment, staring off into the white static outside, transfixed. It’s like God, shaking out icy dandruff for the whole world to see. Giant, flakey deity dandruff.

Then you see him.

Not God, stupid. Someone rappelling down the side of your building. Your heart stops, and time slows down, as the man comes rapidly into view. He’s just boots, and a red and white body suit, two bandoleers filled with what look like candy canes and reindeer treats slung over both of his shoulders. His feet swing in from the floor above you, down onto your window. His eyes are glowing red, terrifying, and a long, empty brown bag dangles from his belt.

“St Nick?”

You barely have any time to react, as he kicks out and shatters your gorgeous floor to ceiling glass, showering you with a blast of Shatterproof glass bits and cold snow from the outside. You drop down into a terrified huddle, balling yourself up on instinct, as the living room becomes a swirling ice palace of tinsel, ice shavings, and the rugged smell of Old Spice and cinnamon cookies.

“Are you Little Stevie McNairwallah?” The voice comes in colder and more steely than the inclement weather now rushing through your living room. Something about it fills you with dread. You look up. There, standing above you, his hand pointed out at you with the palm up, as if to help you up, is what looks like an emaciated ninja, covered in stony scales, wearing a red santa hat.

“Are you…is this…did I do something wrong?” He pulls you up, not saying anything, but breathing a metallic, raspy wheeze through his face mask. As you dust yourself off, you look, first into his dead, red eyes, then over the rest of him.

This guy looks freaking awful. Gangly, thin arms with bulbous joints hang stiff off of sloping shoulders. His clothes, black and red sackcloth, fitted to his emaciated frame, emit a slight burning smell, and just under his collarbone, a small trail of burning fabric glows bitterly in the cold dark air. He glances over your shoulder into the hallway, as you straighten up and try to soak this all in.

“Who are you?”

“I am the one they call Klaus. Son of Nik, carrier of the sword of tamsyl, and protector of the Christmas ones. You are in grave peril.”

“Danger? Listen dude, you just wrecked a three hundred dollar window on Christmas eve, so you’d better know a fitter who works holidays, or there’s going to be a pr-“

At that exact moment, the door to the hallway behind you explodes in a shower of wooden splinters. You barely have time to turn around before the masked man who just destroyed your window grabs your wrist and throws you, harder than you’ve been tossed around since you were a child on a jumping castle.

There is no time to react. No time to fight. Faster than you know, you’re sailing through the crisp morning air, spinning around to see your apartment window running away behind you. The last thing you see, in the split second before it fades out of sight, must be a dream or some kind of trick of the eye. The terror must be playing tricks on you.

You could swear you see the masked man jumping towards someone huge, muscular, and pink.

With bunny ears.

There is no time to wonder. As you tumble down towards the ground below, your heart races as your feet carry themselves over your head and your body pinwheels through the snow and the wind. Buildings, windows, traffic lights, all rush by. This is it, and you’ll never even know why.

Then you’re grabbed by something warm. Your screaming stops. Pulled out of your freefall, you feel the heavy, thick hair of some kind of animal, suddenly wrapped around you, carrying you off, mere moments before you were scheduled to meet your maker, human smoothie style, all over the pavement.

You’re screaming the entire time this happens.

You open your eyes, and look up. What you see is something you’re not supposed to see, but you do anyway.

What you see, with eyes that were asleep and dreaming 20 minutes ago, is the unmistakable face of a reindeer. Antlers. Brown doe eyes. Snout. And what’s worse is, he’s flying through the air. You can feel it, you’re not touching the ground, but racing through mid air. There’s no galloping, just the woosh of snow and freezing cold air. You’d try to look around, but he’s holding onto you tighter than what you’ve got in you to move your head, so all you do is look up

What’s worse than that, what’s the absolute worst of all of this, is the reindeer is looking back at you. And he’s smiling. As you let out another scream, you can almost swear he speaks. Like his voice comes to you. Like it’s in your head, along with that goofy smile of his. You swear to God, you can hear him say:

“You’d better watch out.”



As a special added bonus, check out this awesome illustration for my story, done by my friend, Do Kim. Do’s drawings and colouring are some next level shit, and you should keep an eye out for him in the near future.