My greatest fear. *shivershiver*

Well, here goes:

Flowered underpants. *shivershivershiver* Don't make me say it again! *shiver*

Ominously flowered underpaaaaaants,
Daily storms and nightly raaaaants,
I shudder to make
a staaaaaaaAAAAAAnce!

I come there and they are waiting
For my bottom to surrender...

Noooooooooooooo...

There. That's my greatest fear. *shiver!*

It was a dark and stormy night.

Actually, to be truthful, it wasn't. It was still a grey and gloomy morning when we drove to "Little Flowers", the town's haunted preschool, for some obfuscated business. My mom went in. I stayed out.

It didn't look like it was haunted at all. There was nothing much to be seen around the place; a wet, old playhouse was out in front of the building, a can of white paint was sitting to the left of the preschool, and an empty clothesline spanned one side of the property. It looked truly harmless.

But... I stiffened. Had the clothesline just... ...twitched? I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Yes. Same twitching. And...

My throat tightened, I stiffened a great deal more, and my legs began to buckle. The clothesline was inhabited after all! The fog must have cleared up a good deal, and I soon realized it was from evil emanations coming from the clothing that lived on the old, haunted piece of thread.

Underwear.

And not just any underwear.

Flowered underpants.

I was paralyzed with shock! These infamous underclothes appeared only once every century, and their victims had never lived to tell the tale.

The feared bit of fabric lifted off of the line, sending its own clothespins crashing to the ground. The area I was standing in seemed to grow smaller, and much darker as well. The sun was apparently frightened, as it abruptly went behind one of the huge, black clouds that filled the sky.

An ominous tear was made in the underpants, like a mouth. It spoke.

"State. Your. Purpose."

"I-I dunno!" I squeaked, like a mouse.

"You must have a good reason for trespassing on the property of the lord of the underwear."

I squeaked again, this time mistakable for a tiny laugh. There is only one thing to be said about this.

I shouldn't have.

The underwear seemed to grow, to expand and fill the sky. The space around me got even smaller, warped and distorted by the evil powers coming from the flowered fabric. Black clouds enveloped the sky completely, entirely silencing the sun and covering the world in shadow. The underpants leaped up to the sky and came soaring back down to the earth at lightening speed, I, its victim, jumping out of the way just in time.

"You run futilely, human. You will be obliterated unless you surrender to me."

The piece of cloth soared to the sky and back, crashing to the earth again, deadening the grass that got the full blow of its strike. On the next soar upwards, it hit me. My right leg was thrown completely off-balance, and, at the same time, a strange transformation began. The skin on the leg that it hit was warping, turning extremely pale. At first, I couldn't be sure, but to my horror, I found it to be true. Images of little red and pink flowers, barely visible but rapidly becoming clearer, were imprinted on my leg.

I was becoming a pair of flowered underpants. I was becoming one of them.

It was probably futile, but I ran anyway. I needed to get away, to rid myself of the flower-virus. But the underwear blocked me on every turn. And what were those faint spots around the area? They were more underclothes! Appearing everywhere, they covered all sides of the place, shielding every escape route possible. They were closing in on me...

"Welcome, new worker!" The voices of all the clothes boomed at the same time.

At this point, I had almost totally given in to despair. My deepest fears were closing in around me, abduction by these creatures in my imminent future. But, as the underpants slowly but steadily drew in nearer to me, I realized something:

The pot of white paint to the side of the building!

A legend from the previous century came back to me in a blur:

On a gloomy April day of 1909, a young painter was painting a large, elaborate house, with (duh) a clothesline next to it, holding a pair of flowered underwear prisoner. The underwear was quite angry, and soon broke free of its prison, threatening the painter that he should either surrender or be destroyed. The painter, however, was fearless, and he had a piece of knowledge that would soon save his life; to kill flowered underwear, you must destroy its central flower; by cutting it out, scribbling over it, or by covering it with white paint. Just as the deadly underclothes were about to strike him, he grabbed his jar of paint, very luckily happening to be white, and splattered it across his attacker's front. The underwear fell to the ground, defeated.


After the story had been processed in my head, I attempted to put it into motion. I lunged for the only remaining gap between the clothes. I got through, but barely. The phantom underpants quickly adapted to my plan, dashing in my direction, trying to stop me from reaching the bucket.

However, I reached it! I reared back, ready to hurl it at the lead underwear when - SLAM! The paint bucket was sent flying out of my hands as one of the drone underpants rammed into my arm, all of the white paint in the pot splattered across the grass! All of them, the leader and the drones, prepared for one final finishing blow.

And they made it.

I was sent flying off my feet into the picket fence, yelling. I was turning pale, unnatural...

Flowered.

The leader came forth slowly, savoring the moment. I was sitting against the fence, a look of horror on my face. But suddenly, the horror changed to a strange smirk. I had just realized: the paint isn't gone; it's out of the can! All I need to do...

In a split second, I stood up, smiled at the lead underwear, and with all my might, kicked over one of the clothesline stands.

The leader, now quite confused, fell under the force of the falling stand into the white paint. For a moment, it looked as though nothing had happened. Then it started shaking. Then warping. Then tearing. And then a monstrous noise filled the air, a scream to end all screams, roaring through the night. The leader exploded in a rain of flowers, showering everything around it with bits of fabric and petals. The minions, stunned, did the same as the lead.

I sighed, hard, and rolled around in the white paint, reversing the transformation. I sat against the fence a long while.

My mother came out. She saw the paint on the ground. She saw me. She saw the bits of fabric surrounding me.

"What happened?"

"This is the UP, mom. Weird things happen here. No one should ask that, or the answer will make their brains implode."

...