“Candy Cane Forest”

Author’s Note: This is a Take Ten to Write story and has not been proofread for errors. If I feel inspired or if there’s interest in the story, I’ll post a revised, edited, and extended version at a later date. Happy reading!

Prompt: “Write about someone who explores a candy cane forest.” — suggested by Mary

A yawn escapes as I sit up. I blearily rub my eyes and stretch.

Suddenly, a sickeningly sweet scent hits my nose. Immediately, I’m awake. I sit upright and whack my head on something hard.

“Ow,” I mutter, rubbing the top of my head. I wrinkle my nose as my fingers come away sticky.

I slowly look up to see a very odd-looking branch looming right over my head. It’s striped with red and white sections and it doesn’t look very barky. Instead, it’s smooth and shiny.

Judging from the familiar scent that’s all around me, this tree is made out of a candy cane.

Somehow, this makes sense to me. Of course it’s made out of a candy cane. I mean, what else could it possibly be?

I slowly stand up, making sure not to hit my head again, and look around.

I’m standing in the middle of a candy cane forest.

I literally can’t see anything else other than a stretch of candy canes. Honestly, it’s a bit terrifying to see candy canes that are so tall, but on the other hand, I don’t really mind. Candy canes are actually my favourite candy in the world. Not that there’s any candy I don’t like…

My brain is still trying to figure out how to navigate through this red-and-white-striped world when something jumps out in front of me. I let out a high-pitched scream and stumble back into the tree I’d just been sitting under.

This time I knock the back of my head.

It a few moments for the world to stop spinning around me–the stripes definitely don’t help either–before I look down to see an odd-looking creature standing in front of me.

“Hello there,” it says.

“Hello,” I reply. “If I may ask, what exactly are you?”

It grins up at me, showing sharp, pointed teeth.

“Why, I’m a gummy bear, of course!”

Final Comments: This one was pretty fun to imagine. I just wish I’d included more imagery.

Overall Rating: 🙂