Tracy
Just as Tracy swung from the tree limb to the roof, a plume of yellow smoke puffed up the chimney. Knowing she only had a few seconds, she scrambled to reach the sleigh, paying no attention to the smoke slithering down to the roof and the eight tiny creatures materializing from it.
She didn't see them grab hold of her shoelaces and yank, sending her sprawling onto her back. She looked up, and there, two inches from her nose, was one of Santa's elves with a sprout-like ponytail on the top of her head.
“This isn't gonna hurt,” the elf said as she reached into one of several pouches dangling from her belt. She pulled out a fist full of something which she then held over Tracy's face. A shimmery yellow sparkle dropped from it. Elf dust.
Tracy knew the sugar plum vision would come next, a distraction just long enough for Santa and his crew to get away. But she had come too far to give up this early, and she was ready for it. She jumped to her feet and ran for the sleigh. When Santa reappeared, she would explain her situation. He would see how important this was to her and invite her to join them.
She was only two feet from the sleigh when a six foot tall, green muscular creature jumped in front of her. Based on her multiple readings of Harry Potter, she assumed it was a troll, although she had no idea where he'd come from.
His body was draped in an assortment of leather scraps and covered with warts of various sizes. His head was a small bump on his massive shoulders. His expression looked exactly like that kid in the back of her math class who shrugged and picked his nose every time the teacher asked him a question.
He took a step forward, but she held her ground. She wasn't afraid of the neighbor's pit bull, and she wasn't afraid of this thing. He was a temporary glitch in her plan, one she could probably distract with the sparkles on her cell phone case until Santa arrived. But when she looked in his eyes, she realized he wasn't the dumb creature she had read about in books. His narrow, blue glare made her skin crawl. This guy was smart, and with a slow wink, he let her know it.
Her hands trembled as she repeated in her mind that she wasn't scared. She scurried to the other side of the sleigh, putting it between the two of them. Surely, he wasn't strong enough to crush Santa's sleigh, was he?
The massive creature cocked one side of his mouth into a knowing grin. Three rotten teeth showed between his lips, and the smell of sewer water and Limburger cheese wafted in Tracy's direction. It burned her nose, which she pinched shut.
“I'm not afraid of you.” Though she took a step backward as she said it.
She glanced at the chimney. What was taking Santa so long? Wasn't he supposed to protect kids? No wait, that was Batman. But in a world with Santa, elves, and trolls, she took a chance and willed the bat signal to appear in the sky.
While she was looking up, the troll lunged over the sleigh.
Tracy ducked and jumped backwards, tripping over several more elves and landing hard on her back. The fall jarred something loose in her brain, and she couldn't tell if the stars overhead were real or the result of a head injury. She did know her head hurt. Her vision blurred for a second before snapping back into focus. Then she guessed what she should have known the moment that speck of dust fell in her eye. The troll wasn't real. He was a hallucination just like the sugar plums. She felt stupid for not realizing this before.
One of the elves jumped onto her stomach. She tried to brush him off so she could sit up, but his body multiplied in size until he was slightly bigger than her. At that size, he looked less like a cute puppet and more like a haunted tree come to life. She blinked, not trusting anything she saw. It wasn't real. Magic needs a helping hand.
The giant elf grabbed her shoulders, pinning her to the roof. The troll lumbered around the sleigh and knelt down beside Tracy. His rock-like fist hovered over her face while another sparkle drifted toward her eye.
“Stop it!”
Tracy turned her head to avoid the dust. Her brain throbbed with the motion, and she didn't know if she could trust her eyes anymore. She trusted her instincts though, and they said to get away.
Before any more dust escaped the troll's fist, Tracy grabbed the elf's arms, twisted them and shifted her weight, propelling him off of her and into the troll. Both went tumbling across the roof in a tangle of rapidly shrinking arms and legs. She rolled in the opposite direction, barely stopping herself from plunging over the roof's edge.
She pushed herself to her feet and watched in awe as both the large elf and the troll assumed the shape of Santa's elves. And there were more of them, eight total. She rubbed her fists in her eyes trying the remove the dust. When she looked again, the semi circle of creatures was still there, advancing toward her as they shifted into a pack of wolves. Several of them snarled, revealing razor sharp teeth. Finally, she admitted to herself that she was afraid.
She peeked over her shoulder at the concrete driveway. It seemed so far away. Even worse, she had no idea where she was. She could be in Orlando, or Tampa, or Miami, with nowhere to run and no way to get home. Still, that was a better option than the growling pack of wolves that was one leap away from tearing her to shreds. Hallucination or not, all she could think about was getting home and away from these nightmare creatures.
She took a deep breath and jumped.