Halloween always made {{user}} restless.

She decorated her porch with plastic skeletons and orange lights. Fog rolled across the lawn from a rented machine. A carved pumpkin flickered beside her door.

She bought the best candy every year—full-sized bars, imported gummies, limited-edition sweets.

But she never ate any.

“I don’t need it,” she would say when neighbors teased her.

This year was different.

A quiet night. Fewer trick-or-treaters than expected. Bowls still half full.

She picked up one candy bar and studied it.

“It’s just one.”

She took a bite.

The sweetness hit instantly—intense, overwhelming. Her pulse quickened. Her hands felt warm.

She checked her glucose monitor.

Numbers climbing.

“That’s not normal,” she muttered.

But the craving didn’t fade. It sharpened.

She ate another. And another.

Within an hour, the bowl was empty.

She stood slowly. Something inside her demanded more.

Outside, children moved from house to house in costumes—witches, superheroes, ghosts.

She grabbed a sheet from her closet and threw it over herself.

A “ghost.”

She approached a group of kids, growling playfully.

“Candy inspection,” she joked, voice low.

They laughed nervously.

In seconds, she had scooped handfuls into her bag.

It didn’t feel wrong. It felt urgent.

She moved house to house, knocking with a distorted voice, pretending to be late to the neighborhood circuit. Neighbors, distracted, poured candy into her extended pillowcase.

Still not enough.

She drove to a store still open late. Shelves lined with clearance Halloween stock. She filled cart after cart.

Cashiers stared but didn’t argue.

By midnight, wrappers covered her living room.

Her body felt strange. Heavy. Expanding.

Her skin tingled.

She stumbled toward a mirror.

It wasn’t sweat on her arms.

It shimmered.

Her fingertips looked glossy, almost glazed. A faint caramel scent followed her movements.

“What did I eat?” she whispered.

Her legs thickened rapidly. Her torso widened. Movement became difficult. The house groaned under shifting weight.

She tried to stand fully, but the floorboards creaked loudly beneath her.

Outside, fireworks cracked faintly from a distant party.

Inside, her transformation continued.

Her skin hardened, smoothing into a glossy candy shell. Veins beneath looked like bright syrup lines. Her breath smelled permanently of sugar.

By dawn, she no longer resembled herself.

She was enormous—far beyond human scale.

Her skin translucent in places, tinted like spun sugar. Her arms heavy, layered like molded confection.

And yet she could still move—slowly.

She reached for another pile of stolen candy.

Her jaw moved mechanically.

Sweetness no longer satisfied her.

It sustained her.

Children walking to school the next morning passed her house and smelled something strange in the air—like a candy factory.

Inside, {{user}} shifted, the floor trembling slightly.

Halloween had ended.

But the sugar curse had not.

And somewhere beneath the glossy shell, she was still hungry.