A Christmas Story for _buttercup

-May you never have that wayward eye-

For the past year, the creature lived in the town; not in the woods to the south, and not near the large lake that spread miles beyond where the eye could see. Most people of the town never saw him, and those who did never spoke of him... or anything at all really. They would just sit and sweat, hugging their knees in a corner of the insane asylum.

By the dark of night, the creature stalked between the houses, keeping to the shadows, and looking for a misdirected eye; that is how his attacks began. A wayward eye, looking out of a window from the seeming safety of its house; the creature could catch it easily with his matte green eyes that saw daylight in dark.

The eyes through the window would see it far off at first; the shape that moved closer and closer as moments, not seconds, passed. The eyes through the window didn’t have the opportunity to be scared, to wonder if it was danger that floated toward them, to blink. He ran up to the window in a hunch, but stood strait up to a full seven feet as he stopped suddenly centimeters from the pain.

And then he stared. With his wolf-like features, he stared strait through the eyes beholding him and into the soul carried behind them. And he took it. He took the happy memories, the happiness, laughter, and smiles, anything jolly that the soul had to offer; and he collected it for someone far worse than him. All he left the eyes behind the window was a body and a brain to let it function with all the bad feelings and despair it left over. A silent, trembling body that would be in a vacant corner of the asylum within a day.

With a big red bag, the creature would head to the far north, where water was frozen into an uninhabitable mass. Uninhabitable, at least, for the humans with optimism and good left in their souls. For someone who had been on the naughty list since soon after birth, however, it was perfect. After Bakar killed the jolly old elf that lived there and spread holiday cheer, he decided to create the creature to go around, town to town, and steal the happiness. Bakar had never been given that gift, the gift of smiles and sugar plums, so he stole it from those wondering and unlucky eyes. Leaving parents to carry the full burden of spreading holiday cheer, and having the stories of one Santa Clause being turned into folk tales found in paperbacks. No one believed in the jolly old elf anymore. No real need to, I guess.