[Paralogos] The Halloween Scrooge

    With an array of unhappy cries echoing out from within the library, one might think that some sort of medieval torture session was being held, however upon closer review, the sight was anything but. A group of paralogos were carving pumpkins for the upcoming holiday of Halloween and one particular paralogos was having anything but fun. Warrior, as he was called, was anything but a fan of Halloween, finding the idea of dressing up and going door to door demanding free candy to be pointless and without any good future use. While this was the paralogos claim as to why he hated Halloween, a more accurate reason behind his hatred would be that everyone always assumes that his shield and armor is just some sort of costume and that he isn't a real warrior. Because of this bad incident, Warrior developed a hatred for the Holiday, and the month encompassing it, finding that October was no more than 31 days of Halloween movies and costume stores. 

    With this sort of an attitude towards the holiday it was rather odd to find the paralogos helping out with set up and decorating. No para knew who had convinced Warrior to help out, or why he would listen and oblige, but for some reason that was what he was doing. It wasn't surprising however that the para would be put on Jack-O-Lantern duty, carving was a skill he believed to be valid and quite useful, so if the para had to help out with anything regarding Halloween, this would be the activity least hated. Though from the mournful cries he made as he stabbed through the hard orange flesh of a pumpkin, one would believe the activity called for him to be the one carved. Despite this, Warrior was actually not doing too bad of a job, carving an image of a vampire para into his pumpkin with the skill of one who knows how to wield a blade. 

    The other Jack-O-Lanterns looked good too, a variety of spooky faces making their homes on the pumpkins, however only Warrior's seemed to capture the scary side of Halloween, a side that seemed to fit with the para's usually rather dark personality. As the paralogos finished carving out their pumpkins, they carried them out of the library, setting them up all around the outside. Warrior placed his Jack-O-Lantern in the corner of the front window, proceeding to place a candle inside through the top. Once lit the candlelight caused the carved in vampire to take an eerie glow, giving Warrior a sense of pride as he looked as his creation, however the pride was short lived as the para accidentally walked into a cobweb that turned out to be a bit more realistic that he had anticipated. After an array of screams and shaking, the spider believed to have been thrown off, Warrior's pride was long gone, and replaced with his usual scrooge-esque view of the holiday.

    As Warrior sulked away from the rest of the paras, having completed his task and just wanting the whole holiday to be done with already, a memory popped into his head. It was a memory from when he was younger, back on his first Halloween. Warrior was quite small as a young para, having taken a while to grow, so as a youngling he looked rather silly walking around with an oversized shield. In fact, it served a means of teasing him, the other paras making fun of how he would never be a good warrior because he was too small. Despite this Warrior tried not to let it get to him, especially since Halloween, a holiday he had heard so much about was coming up. Young Warrior was so excited to dress up, his costume of choice being that of a mighty spartan warrior, and the young para found trick or treating to be tons of fun. Least up until he ran into some of his bully paras. They taunted him for a while, proceeding to then move to action and attack him, saying that he was never going to be good enough to be a warrior. 

    That was the night Warrior's hatred for Halloween started, a hatred that would never go away nor would the para ever dare explain it. The memory served as a reminder to him of why he hated the holiday, and with recurring nightmares about not being good enough, there didn't seem to be much that could change his mind.