Chapter Text
White.
It was blinding white in fact.
Endlessly stretching in what seemed to be an equally as endless void.
She sat up, rubbing her head. The brightness felt like a flashbang.
And the heat…
Felt like the oven.
The place she found herself in wasn’t white. The walls were bronze and slowly glowing brighter and brighter from the pulsating flames. The floor was all stone, except for the metal tray she found herself on.
Beside her were two cookies. But they registered as nothing but green and silver blobs. All the other cookies were an array of different dough colors, ranging from pale sunlight to inky nightshade. They smelled sweet, smoky, floral, salty, savory, spicy, of every scent you could think of.
They were all so beautiful, so unique. So full of hopes, dreams, and life.
The giant metal doors swung open and the cookies screamed.
Because as alive as they all were, they were only snacks.
Ripping her dough off the metal tray, she watched as the cookies around her flailed. Most had the same idea, to use all their strength to tear themselves off their own trays. One cookie lost a limb, their arm stuck to the metal below them while jam poured out of the wound. They were the lucky one. A few cookies a couple rows behind her couldn’t even move, their bodies firmly stuck to an unbuttered tray. Other cookies were simply frozen in terror, confusion, or agony.
Those cookies were gone the fastest, taken by a pale, bony hand.
The first to go was a cookie with a pink and white lollipop. They were taken to the sky before being taken to their demise. They only got the chance to release a guttural scream.
Nothing but crumbs fell to the floor, the only sign that they had ever existed. From flour they came, and to flour they shall return. By some miracle, she didn’t see everything. A manic, desperate part of her thought up excuses for the cookie’s fate. That maybe, just maybe, the cookie with the pink and white lollipop got away. That this was just a cruel joke played by fate itself.
The sensible part screamed at her to run.
And she did.
Past the wrinkly hands, cracked fingernails, and sharp canines. Time and space seemed to blur around her, yet she was acutely aware of everything. The Witch was by the mahogany table, a black cat slept soundly on the top cabinet, a silver cookie running into her and making her drop her lollipop, dough, jam, crumbs, limbs, screams, death -
She spaced out after that, focusing only on one goal: survival. Her body mechanically went through the motions, carrying her while her mind drifted elsewhere.
She weaved and dodged and eventually climbed. Erratically breathing, she held onto a shelf, hoisting herself onto it. Then onto another shelf, and another. The fear fueled her adrenaline and her adrenaline fueled her fear. She went up. And up. And up. And down.
All it took was one slip.
One unfortunate slip led to her fall…
Onto the ledge of the lower wooden shelf. She heard her dough crack but she kept pushing, climbing until she reached the highest shelf.
The cookie came face to face with… a jar.
A jar filled with, to her horror, strawberry jam. The very substance pulsing through her veins and now splattered throughout the hut.
The Witch cackled.
And the cookie hid behind the jar.
Below her the scene could only be described as a massacre.
Crumbling cadavers were scattered near the brick oven, uncooked doughy flesh bubbled near the table, and scarlet jam coated the floor of the hut. Pure shrieks of terror and agony filled the air as the few remaining colorful blurs of cookies dashed in an attempt to escape with their lives.
Most didn’t make it past the oven doors.
…The cookies never stood a chance.
Just as she caught her breath, she saw him.
A small, sleepy cookie reached out towards the shelves, towards her as if she could save him this time.
She stood. She reached then-
He was gone in one gulp.
Again.
And she was alone.
The screams were beginning to subside just as the thoughts in her head began to rise.
She was back in the hut. And this time, she was alone.
She shuddered, falling to her knees and curling into a ball.
She wished it was all just one terrible nightmare, that she would wake up to see her friends, to see any semblance of comfort. Comfort that this part of her life had passed and would never return. That never again would she have to watch dozens of cookies be gruesomely slaughtered.
But it was as if time itself had dropped her back at this very moment.
The moment of her… birth. The moment her reality was irreversibly shattered, her life forever altered.
The moment she saw a cookie die .
But it couldn’t be true. She couldn’t have failed him again, this couldn’t be real .
She wanted nothing more than to sob, cry, scream, anything . Anything to mourn the cookies who had perished only because destiny dictated their purpose as mere treats . Dreamers, lovers, writers, artists…
All cookies who were gone within a matter of minutes for a meal that would be forgotten about all too soon.
She would never know them. She couldn’t save them this time either.
To the world, they would always be cookies lost to the Witch. Poor, helpless souls who drew an unfortunate hand in the game of fate. Not remembered as individuals, but as a batch. Nothing less, nothing more.
The ones she got to shoot brief glances at were undefined: “Cookie without an arm,” or “Cookie with blue hair,” and worst of all, “Cookie who crumbled first.”
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
They were never given a chance, an opportunity.
To not merely survive but to live.
They would never experience joy, excitement, and wonder.
Only despair, anxiety, and fear.
And if she didn’t leave soon, she would join them. She got lucky the first time, but if the Witch caught her now, it was game over. Her friends would never see her again. She was going to make it. For her fellow cookies, for her friends, and for herself.
She was going to escape.
Again.
Hopefully.
She gazed around the moonlit hut, suppressing her nausea at the sea of bits and pieces of…
She felt sick.
The Witch was gone. Somewhere between the slaughter and the laughter, the decrepit figure had slipped through the door and out of the hut.
It looked awfully eerie outside, especially since the window was wide open. Tall, dark pine trees swayed in their own silent rhythm and the wind howled, cooling the hut down to a frigid chill. And yet, it seemed more welcoming than the hut. The place was an inky black, barely lit up by moonlight now that both the oven and candles were unused. It was lifele-
The window was open.
The window was open.
The window was open.
There was a way out.
All she had to do was make it to the wall on her left, she didn’t even have to cross the entire room. For the first time that night, she felt herself smile shakily. She stared into the jam filled jar and her ragged reflection stared right back.
She was exhausted but she needed to move. If she was going to survive outside the hut, she needed protection.
And a green backpack just wasn’t going to cut it.
Now if this was anything like last time…
She froze.
She dropped her lollipop. That silver cookie had bumped into her, disrupting her just enough to forget about it. She silently cursed the Witches… and immediately felt guilty for swearing.
She turned. Next to her was another jar, filled with a singular pink lollipop because the universe decided she hadn’t done enough climbing. Jokes on the universe though because it turns out it was much easier to carefully tip the jar over than to climb up onto the lid. She huffed while taking hold of the pink sucker. It wasn’t heavy but she always felt heavy carrying a weapon. But the familiarity of the object itself did bring her a small sense of comfort. And of determination. She was ready.
…So why was she hesitating?
Because of the glow.
There was a small yet erratic glimmer piercing through the darkness. A natural green pulsating at random intervals. It kind of was hard to tell with only moonlight illuminating the hut but it was there. It seemed to be coming from the opposite side of the room, near the floor cabinets. That glow… wasn’t there last time. Or even more terrifying, wasn’t noticed by her last time. Everything had matched the events of her first escape. Same Witch. Same hut. Same cookies. Same jar. Same lollipop.
Now that she really thought about it, how was she here again? This had to be the same hut or at least-
A growl rumbled above her, shaking her to her core.
The cat.
By the time her mind had registered the feline, it had pounced.
But not onto her, onto the floor. She sucked in a breath, watching the cat prowl towards the source of the glow. The cat slinked, hunting for its prey and stopping once in front of a wooden cabinet. The cabinet’s oak door was slightly ajar which allowed her to peer inside and confirm: The glow was coming from inside the cabinet.
The cat pawed inside, seemingly reaching toward something. Shrieks of panic reverberated throughout the Hut as the cat retrieved something from the cabinet’s insides.
That’s when she saw what the figure was.
They were small, shaking, and visibly horrified.
By all logic, the figure shouldn’t have made it past the Witch.
They were hidden underneath a green cloak, only body language conveyed their emotions.
A cookie.
The cat’s claws dug into the cloaked cookie’s dough, leaving them somehow more dazed than injured.
No…! She felt her breathing become erratic. We didn’t survive the Witch only to die at the hands of her pet!
She steeled herself at the sound of the cloaked cookie’s sobs. Another cookie wouldn’t die on her watch. Bravery may not have been her specialty, but neither was letting innocents die.
“H-Hey! Get away from them!” She trembled, mustering what little courage she had left to raise her voice as loud as possible.
It worked.
The black cat immediately dropped the cloaked cookie and made a mad dash towards her. It predatorily climbed faster than she ever could, making it to the shelf right below her in mere seconds.
That’s when she struck.
Well, when the jar struck.
The glass container was pushed squarely onto the cat’s forehead, instantly knocking the cat out with nothing more than a piercing hiss. She waited for a couple beats for any sign of the cat stirring but besides a slow rise and fall of the chest, nothing. She carefully scaled downwards, reaching the now cool floor, yet the jam stuck to her.
Crunch.
She stepped on something yet she didn’t dare look down. She kept her eyes on only one thing.
Physically, the cloaked cookie was somehow fine. No claw marks, no oozing jam, no stray dough. But besides that…
Curled up into a ball, rocking back and forth lay the cloaked cookie.
It was there, among the carcasses of their brethren that Strawberry picked up the cloaked cookie.
“...I’m sorry.” She whispered.