Halloween One Shots

MAGIC POTIONS SHOP (Winner)

Contest Profile: Magic

I stared at the dilapidated building on the corner across the street. For most of the year it was boarded up and a bit of an eye sore, but no one dared take offense. It was Halloween and the building would soon transform. No one in town talked about this. Maybe the magic wasn't restricted to the shop. Maybe it also affected our minds and tongues.

I thought about why I was here. I hate my parents. No, it's not just some teenage phase. I really do hate them. And I want to show them how much. I'm sure there's something in that potions shop that'll help me commit the perfect murder.

There's just one problem. I was to never go into the potion shop. Never! My mum almost went catatonic warning me about it on my thirteenth birthday, two years ago, when I wanted to shop there for a gift.

So, here I was, staring at the ugly, boarded up building, waiting to break my parents' stupid rule while also looking forward to finding something to make them pay for their senseless ignorance. Two birds, one stone.

My eyes were transfixed to the building as the last of the sun's rays disappeared and it began to transform into the sparkly, modern, well-lit, and gorgeously decorated store of magical potions and artifacts. This store belonged to the fancy streets of a massive metropolitan city, not a small town in the middle of nowhere.

It was much larger on the inside than it should have been. I walked to the counter to ask for assistance. The retail shop owner looked up, bored. He must have been only a little older than me.

His eyes suddenly went wide.

"Hi," I started, my brows furrowed.

"You're here!" he gasped.

"I'm sorry?"

"Your parents. They went back on their word," he said, walking to where I was, in front of the counter. "And yet, here you are."

"You must be confusing me with..."

I hadn't noticed the knife in his hand until he nicked me in the neck. I yelled, but all the shoppers were unnaturally focused on their shopping!

Grabbing my neck, I watched in paralysed horror as he added drops of my blood to a small clay bowl, combining it with other weird things.

I felt my insides twist. It was an unreal, nauseating feeling. I looked up at the shop attendant and gasped. He was now this ancient man, shaped like an old prune, with wrinkles that had wrinkles.

"It's your shop now, the price for your mother's request to commit the perfect murder, to kill her parents, inherit all they had and never get caught," he said. He walked towards the door and sighed contentedly. "It's about time I went on vacation."

I followed him out of the door but hit an invisible barrier. I was stuck in here! As knowledge that I shouldn't have about the shop began to trickle into my mind, I knew.

This was for eternity.