Wanna hear a joke? This is chapter 70. Guess what that means about the last chapter-

Aha, anyways, we have hit the dark, stormy months, so we know what that means! More espresso for all this depresso- I'm kidding- (about the espresso, like, it's really dark and duuuuuh-pressing-) But so that means.. Angst! The urge for angst has arrived again (it never went away,) so here are some Mini-OneShots with some angst! Also, is it just me or d'y'all turn on just about every light possible when things outside seem gloomy?

Word Count: 1,860
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Jellie let out a scared mewl as she fell off the side of the blanket. She looked around everywhere, pressing a paw to the lump. It was just a lump. Not a leg. And she had fallen because there was no hand on her side to support her. She'd never noticed that until now though, because now, she didn't have it.

Was this what it was like to miss something? To never know it was there until it isn't?

A hand that was on her side, keeping her upright. The light always being left on at night. Having a place to sleep at the same time, every day, with your human. All of these little things were now gone.

All these little things that got taken for granted, all these things that made the road of life that much smoother. All these things her human had done for her. But, he wasn't here now. He wasn't here to do those things anymore.

She moped around the large house, eating the remaining few pieces of the cat food pile- The same pile he put out the last day she ever saw him. Food. A nice, fresh bowl of food, every day. That was another simple thing that she never noticed.. She trekked through the dark hallway, curling up in the middle of the bed.

The whole thing was empty, anyway.

—•—•—•—•—•—•—

Everyone was all hustle and bustle, waiting to get a look. Today was the day a new Hermit was arriving, and everyone was curious to meet them. Who were they? What was their name? Had the Hermits met them before? Nobody knew! And they were all excited about it!

The time seemed to tick slower than ever as agonizing minutes leisurely strolled by, until Xisuma smiled, peeking around the corner before dragging someone out.

At first, nobody saw what he was pulling. But once people started looking down, the newest member became rather obvious. Short, clad in a red sweater, and with blond hair. The man smiled and waved a hand, "Hi, my names Grian and uh, well I'm your issue now."

He smiled innocently, as everyone laughed, rushing to greet him. This new guy,- Grian, seemed awfully nice and sweet. The hermits all had a pretty good feeling about him- I mean, how bad could he be?

—•—•—•—•—•—•—

Xisuma pulled the knife from his chest and smiled. "Was that supposed to hurt?"

Ex tilted his head. "I mean, if it didn't hurt then it shouldn't matter if I got stabbed too." H smiled and held the knife to his chest. "Here goes no-"

"No!" Xisuma ripped the knife back and threw it in a random direction. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Uh.." Ex shrugged, "If being stabbed doesn't hurt it should be fine, right?"

"What?" X replied angrily, "Of course not! Last I checked, your immune to poison, not to stab wounds!!" Ex snickered, giving him a sideways look. "Well, yeah, but I don't brag about it or anything."

Xisuma crossed his arms and huffed. "Sure you don't. I'll just go pick up some thing of poison and drink it because if you don't die from it, I shouldn't. That is, if I follow your logic." He began to march off before his shoulder was grabbed and he was turned back around. His brother laughed. "Relax, alright? I was just joking."

A smile broke out on Xs' face. No matter how many times they cut him open, or had Ex chug lethal chemicals, nothing would've been able to severe their brotherly bond.

—•—•—•—•—•—•—

Scar smiled. He was currently in the woods with Bdubs. Key word: Was.

Bdubs had run off and ahead somewhere, leaving it up to Scar to find him. He knew he hadn't gone far though. But after awhile- About five minutes, because patience wasn't something Scar commonly acquainted himself with- He began to get a bit antsy and bored. Scar thought for a moment, before smiling and trying out one of the oldest tricks in the book that he just knew Bdubs would fall for.

He cupped his hands around his mouth, and called out "Marco!"

It was a joke, of course. And he expected a response. But what he hadn't prepared for was twenty other voices coming from all directions to simultaneously respond with;

"Polo."

—•—•—•—•—•—•—

Jevin was a ghost. He had been for many, many, years. He haunted- Ok, not haunted. He existed in a little plot of land, but nobody really noticed him though. He'd follow people around, but that was it. No scary Beetlejuice faces, no blood-curdling screams, no floating blankets. Just floating around and watching the world go to absolute waste.

Recently, though, he'd started following around this one girl, Cleo. She was interesting. She was also very interested- In death stuff, of course. Dark humor, ghosts, threats. She talked about rather interesting subjects, as the best way to scare a person. She also hung around with cool people, and generally lived what seemed to be a fun life.

But despite all this entertainment, Jevin still found himself bored. He wished he could at least speak to people. He knew he and Cleo would be good friends if they could just communicate!

And that is exactly why it shocked him when one day, with nobody else around, Cleo turned around, faced him, and easily asked; "Why do you keep following me?"

—•—•—•—•—•—•—

One day, on a bright afternoon, Python was going through all of Iskalls' stuff. Why, you may ask. Well, he just wanted to. Or, needed to. Doc was currently mad at him, and he was hoping to buy back a tolerance with some blackmail on Iskall. Was it a bad friend move? Yeah, probably. Did he care? No, not really.

Any-who, the sun was shining through one of the windows, illuminating the dust, when he bumped into something. A black, rectangular box fell.

It was a cassette tape.

Python laughed a bit, 'cuz like, who even used the old things? He gently blew some air across the top, spraying dust everywhere. Momentarily forgetting about his original reason for him coming here, he dropped by Grians' to ask if he had a cassette player.

He did. Grian had just about everything clumped together in a deranged mess of nothings.

Once he was back in the privacy of his living room, he turned it on a listened in. But, it wasn't what he was expecting. All he was doing was poking around a bit! The tape began like this- "If you're watching this, they've killed me."

He sat there for hours, still and pondering the words. He couldn't tell if his brain was shrinking or growing, but he knew it was doing something. Because, here's the catch; Iskall was alive.

—•—•—•—•—•—•—

Being completely enclosed in darkness was not what scared him. It was being under a single light, surrounded by the dark that did. Why? Well, he preferred not seeing what it was holding, then having to stare in the face of what it did. Because, the thing was, the less you see, the better. But until today, he never believed that. So it was making him believe. And now, Xisuma wished he had the lights off. . .

He was paralyzed in fear, staring at three things, all belonging to the same creature. Bright, red eyes, each holding hate and sending chills down his smile. And a white smile that contained razor-sharp teeth-, teeth with small speckles of blood on the,-, all concealed by thin lips, lifted into a smile.

His smile was worrying.

It held unspoken threats and malice.

It had slow, mechanical breathing, with every part of his body except his smile and eyes apart of the darkness. A part of him was thankful that those were the only visible parts he was able to see. Xisuma stared into its eyes, unable to look away. Its lips slowly cracked, revealing the slightest dribble of blood in the corner. Xisumas' eyes widened as the creature drew closer. His breathing picked up, but his lungs seemed to be failing as it got harder and harder to breathe. Yet, he remained in a quiet, panicked, and scared frenzy.

Right when it was in his face, right when he thought for sure he was about to pass out, the eyes blinked as everything went pitch black.

It was just five seconds before he shot up, in his bed and with every single light on- And there was a note. A single note, right in front of Xisumas' face, containing a single word;

"Run."

—•—•—•—•—•—•—

Impulse opened the freezer, just wanting to get some mashed potatoes and orange juice. But lord knows that of course that would be impossible, especially with the fact that Zed and Tango were around.

Curled against a pulled down leaf of lettuce lay a small, scaly dragon. It was about the size of his palm, and it's sleeping body fit perfectly to the leaf. Little puffs of grey smoke flew out of its nostrils every time it exhaled. The little creature was red, with an orange chest and underbelly. Its tail was flicking up and down at a slow and gentle pace, each time rising a bit and hitting the leaf. For a moment, Impulse became fascinated with it, especially the little purplish-black scales towards the tip of the tail, and light grey horns.

But then, his mind went and processed with a 'Hey idiot, there's a dragon in your fridge.' And then a 'Also we're very very hungry.'

And it was then when he screamed, jumping back and slamming the door shut. "Zedaph! Tango! WHY is there a dragon in the fridge?!" He looked to the two, who were sitting on the couch and looking up "What to feed a dragon" on YouTube. Anyone else would've taken that hint, but earlier he found them googling how to make french fries into a tomato soup shake, so Impulse just blocked out stupid searches.

Zed smiled, looking up. "Well, it was hot, duh."

"Yeah. Duh." Tango added before getting up and revealing a lavender-colored dragon with an ivory-colored chest and underside, a black-tipped tail, and the same light grey horns. "Oh, Matilda's getting kinda hot too!" He smiled, walking over to a gaping Impulse, opened the fridge, and placed the little thing next to the other little animal.

Impulse just looked to Tango, gawking. Tango smiled, shrugged, and went back to googling things with Zed. He didn't even want to know why, or even what, "How to take care of dragon triplets" was about.

—•—•—•—•—•—•—