The Septics

Merry Glitchmas

After more than a month of hearing about Christmas, by Christmas eve, Anti was sick of it. He hated the holiday. Good will and cheer? Bleh. Besides, was he invited to anyone's Christmas parties? Did anyone ever get HIM a present? Of course not. Just because he was evil incarnate, didn't mean he didn't need a new knife every now and then.

His body twitched, leaving momentary remnants of past expressions floating in the air as he hissed at all of the Christmas celebration on YouTube. Ignoring it all, he opened yet another 1000 degree knife video, only to hesitate as the ad played. To the side, in the recommended videos, something caught his attention. "How the Grinch... stole Christmas." A devious smirk crossed the glitch's lips. No, he'd never seen the movie, never even heard of the book. Anti had systematically avoided most things Christmas, as much as he could. This video, giving a review or comparing the old movie to the new one, or some such thing, had brought it to his attention for the first time.

He tapped his fingers on the desk as he sat back, pausing the knife video as it had just started. Most people might have been curious to watch the movie, especially to see how it worked out for the Grinch, but Anti wasn't much for learning lessons. Especially from children's movies. No, Anti had to find things out the hard way, though it rarely changed his actual methods in the end. It all boiled down to a simple plan. If no one wanted Anti involved in Christmas, he would steal it from them, and have it all for himself.

The glitch got to his feet and headed out. Jack was in Ireland for the holiday, which meant that his place was left unguarded. It would be easier than usual for Anti to slip in, and get the spare keys to everyone else's apartments. Then it was as simple as waiting for them to fall asleep, and he could go in, completely silent and steal everything he could get his hands on. Getting into Jack's apartment might have seemed a difficult task, but it was rather easy for Anti. The well thought out planner that he was, Anti broke a window and crawled through. One might think he was an expert criminal with his smooth moves.

The creature let out a hiss, glitching around as the glass shards gave him some extra holes in his pants, slicing into his legs. Anti was no stranger to cuts, or blood though and went on his way, finding the box that Jack kept all of the spare keys in. They had all given the youtuber their spare apartment keys in case of emergency. Except, of course, for Anti, who didn't want Jack anywhere near him in an emergency. In fact, Anti much preferred to BE the emergency.

After collecting the keys, Anti headed back to his own apartment and bandaged his glass wounds as he waited for everyone else to fall asleep. Then he made his way into the good doctor's apartment first. The glitch took little time to question how Dr. Schneeplestein had gotten the massive tree he had, up into the apartment building. He simply grabbed and pulled until the tree was at an angle. He pulled and tugged, and dragged the tree out. Tired by this point, he merely rolled it down the hall and into his own apartment. Racing back, he blew out the advent candles, and collected them before grabbing up all the presents and took them too. In a strange gesture, the glitch re-locked the door before hitting the next apartment.

Anti took Chase's tiny tree with beer bottle cap ornaments, and a popcorn string. He even took the paper snowflakes that the man's children had made, before grabbing up all the gifts. He took Marvin's artificial white tree with magical fiber glass lighting, the stockings from the wall, and the mistletoe from the door. He took every last thing from every last ego apartment, even Jackieboy's wreath from his door, and Jameson's nut cracker from his nightstand. And of course, he left no present behind. The last apartment the glitch made his way into, was that of the zombie. He wasn't even sure if the creature had decorated his own place or someone had helped, but a zombie deserved Christmas no more than a monster, so he began to tear down the garland and stockings.