"We've got a code red number 10! One man down," Cayce's tiny voice rang through the surveillance room, earning a series of gasps from his fellow elves behind the monitors. The closest of them jumped down from their seats and gathered around him. Before long, Chief of Surveillance, Ehner was with them.

"Locate the coordinates. Send a neutralisation team ASAP," came the order.

"Sir," said Cayce, eyes glued to the diagnosis on the screen, "it's the Jones."

Now, Jones is more or less a quite common household name. But 'The Jones' referred to  a family that even Santa himself knew by name, all thanks to the youngest of the family, Aiden Jones, who has made it his sole purpose of life to join Santa's staff of elves. Now, he was 9 years old, and has been the only kid that made Santa question the standards of the naughty list. He had been in and out of it, a countless number of times, for he had best of intentions and seemingly unacceptable ways of achieving them.

Santa was unavailable, obviously, as it was the Christmas Eve. It was up to the elves to take the matter into their hands and not mess up.

"Who was in charge of the Jones?" Ehner inquired.

"Rancy, sir. He alerted us just before succumbing to his wounds."

The elves seemed hit in the gut. Rancy was one of the funniest and silliest of them. He had always insisted on getting assigned to the Jones' household, mostly for training Aiden for his dream job. As they were prohibited to move when children are watching, the elves knew that Aiden and Rancy's training was done through occasional notes and subtle signs once a year.

Code red number 10 meant the worst. It was a creature that thrived on loss of hope and couldn't stand faith. The elves called them Slashers. Slashers had six strong and long bony limbs that look as if they were woven from spider webs. Their heads are skulls with hollow eye sockets with a mouth that covered the lower half of the face. Dingleby, a field elf had accounted a neutralisation mission and had said that they could drop their jaws so low that it dangled while grinning unbelievably wide; Dingleby never entered the field again. On top of that, they multiply in shadows but fortunately, the process is not very fast. That did not deter the fact that, living upto their name, their limbs could literally rip you to shreds pretty swiftly; whether you are elf or human would be irrelevant.

It was clear why this one has chosen the Jones. While other children believed and trusted that Santa would visit them and leave them presents, Aiden knew, as clear as day, that he did come. He knew.

Oliver Jones was not sleepwalking. He needed his regular midnight sip of water and possible secretive snack, be it Christmas or not. His little brother was asleep upstairs. Unlike his younger self, Aiden could fall asleep with no anxiety that kids had regarding Santa's arrival. That marveled him.

The 20-year old climbed down the stairs, yawning and rubbing his eyes. The stairs creeked, but it wasn't enough to wake anyone. Besides, this habit of his had been there for a long time.

As he reached the foot of the stairs, his eyes, well adjusted to the darkness by now, met an unusual sight. . On the floor lying face down was the elf that he himself had put on the shelf several hours ago.

"How did you get here?" he muttered and picked it up. As he turned the elf around, he had the shock of his life.

The elf's eyes were shut, its mouth agape and the body nearly sliced into three. Oliver's mind went blank. He kept staring at the elf in his hand unable to register a thing.

The neutralisation team nearly ran into Oliver as they entered the house. They saw him holding the dead body of their comrade. Their hearts skipped a beat when they saw one of the liveliest elves among them in such a state.

The team had to get past Oliver, if they were to finish the mission. Their detectors could not locate anything yet. That was bad, as it meant the Slasher was hiding in the shadows.

Suddenly, as they took cover behind a wall, their detectors sprang to life. The Slasher has emerged. An elf peeked out from behind the wall, cautious not to be seen and gave a squeak of surprise. Behind Oliver, was the white creature, towering over eight feet. It raised a foot, clearly intending to bring it down on the boy when a yell rang out.

"Stop, beast!"

Oliver's head snapped up, as did the elves'. Aiden stood on the top of the stairs, in his pyjamas, holding something in his fist. The elves knew very well what it was. Mistletoe.

"You are banished from this household," the boy yelled and threw the mistletoe in the Slaher's face. Oliver turned around and gasped in horror as he saw the creature. He jumped back and the Slasher hissed and writhed in agony. The neutralisation team took their catapults and shot mistletoe pellets at the creature. After more hissing and withing, the creature vanished in a puff of smoke.

The team realised that Rancy had done a great job at training the kid.

As soon as Aiden saw the lifeless elf his brother was holding, tears began to fall. He sniffed and wiped the tears away from his sleeve.

"Keep him on the shelf," Aiden told his dumbstruck brother, "his friends will take him back." With that, he ran up the stairs, sobbing, heartbroken.

The neutralisation team retrieved their comrade's body. And as they were just about to get back into their 'windcycles', a detector activated. The elves stood stunned as all their detectors gave back the same signal.

And from within the house, Oliver screamed.