Gina gritted her teeth as she pushed a little harder, her legs screaming from use as she dodged the flora of the heavy forest. Up ahead, her brother was growing smaller and smaller as he navigated the trees and vines with ease.

"Why can't you go a little slower, Jasper?" Gina called out to him, her voice betraying how tired she was.

Gina heard him laugh and slow down, and within a few seconds, she was by her brother's side again. The two Xweetok's sat next to each other, the smaller one glaring at her brother. "You know I can't go as fast."

"The only way you'll get faster is if you push yourself." Jasper snorted, moving into the bush again. Gina was right behind him. And then crashed into him.

"Hey! What gives?" Gina demanded, looking around her brother's head. There, she saw what caused her brother to come to a dead stop.

"Is... that a gingerbread house?" Jasper broke the silence.

Gina nodded, pulling herself out of the knot and back to her feet. She wiped the dirt and leaves from her jeans, assessing the clearing.

The house was flanked by the thick, dense forest the Xweektok's had just been running through, so it would have been easy to miss. The structure was made of dark gingerbread, topped with a thick, powdery white frosting roof that reminded Gina of a cold winter day. Rainbow colored gum drops and candies littered the ground, paving the way to the front door.

Lost in thought, Gina hadn't noticed that Jasper finally brought himself to his feet and was edging closer to a giant lollipop stuck in the ground.

"And where do you think you're going?" Gina snapped.

Her brother turned back to her, a puzzled look on his face. "If this is the outside," Jasper started, "aren't you curious what more could be in this?" A huge grin broke his face.

Gina shook her head, but felt the pang of hunger in her stomach. "Fine, but only because I'm hungry. We can look for five minutes, but then we leave."

"Deal," Jasper agreed, bolting towards the door.

Before Gina could catch him, she heard something from inside the house.

"Okay," she heard him call, his voice muffled by the dense gingerbread walls.

Well, if he was alright, she thought, surely there wasn't any harm in going inside. Hesitantly, she inched towards the door. She stared at the threshold like it was a cobrall poised to bite her. "Come on sis, where are you?" she heard Jasper tease from somewhere inside. He sounded fine. This would be fine... Gina held her breath, her eyes squeezed tight, and stepped inside.

Nothing happened. Gina let out her breath with a sigh of relief. She'd heard horrible stories of tempting candy houses, where children were lured to their doom by terrible dark faeries, but this didn't seem to be one of them. Actually, it looked pretty abandoned. There was a fine layer of powdered sugar-dust coating every surface, and the furniture was all covered by thin, colorful fruit leather.

Grabbing one of the sticky sheets, Gina pulled it free. Underneath was a beautiful fountain, spun of twisting sugar. As if it had been waiting for someone to remove its cover, the fountain sprung to life. Cascading from its top, a bright, fruity smelling punch flowed down to the lowest basin.

Gina stepped away from the fountain, taking a good look around. This was more than a gingerbread house--this was a gingerbread mansion! Licorice wall sconces, marshmallow crown molding, candy cane spiral staircases... Everywhere Gina turned, there was something spectacular to be found.

Still, that collapse earlier had her worried. No one had been in this place for a while, that was clear. And if it had gone that long without anyone to fix problems as they arose... Gina didn't want to think that through to its logical conclusion. The very structure of the mansion was gingerbread and sugar, neither of which did so well when wet. And it did rain a lot in these woods...

"Hey Jasper? I think we should get out of here," she called. She heard nothing but silence in response. "Come on, it could be dangerous in here, we shouldn't stay too long."

Gina waited and waited for her brother to reappear, but there was nothing. Only the beating of her heart and the rising fear in her throat. Suddenly she realized she hadn't actually seen Jasper since he went in. She'd heard him, but not seen him. This place was a maze, more massive than she'd realized from the outside, and he could be anywhere.

Suddenly, a spun sugar chandelier tore free from the ceiling with a crash, shattering into a thousand tiny shards of sharp crystal. Gina screamed, barely moving out of the way in time. When the sugary dust cleared, she gazed up to where the chandelier had been. The ceiling was all cracked, and she could hear a horrible groaning sound as more formed.

She had to find her brother, and she had to find him fast. This place was crumbling around them, and soon there would be nowhere safe. Gina struggled to think like Jasper. Where would he go?

Gina's eyes darted across the room to the twisting candy cane staircase. It looked fairly sturdy, protected as it was from the elements...she decided that she would just take a quick look upstairs to see if Jasper was there and then come right back down and get outside before the rest of the house collapsed over her head.

Taking a deep breath, Gina rose to her feet and darted over to the staircase, hoping to all the faeries she knew that nothing else would fall. Thankfully, she made it with nothing more than a few crumbs of gingerbread catching in her fur.

Gina grasped the candy cane railing and gave it a little shake to test its strength. It didn't wobble, but she was still nervous. "Jasper? Are you up there?" she called up the stairs, hoping against hope that he would reappear and they could just leave. But alas, there was no response.

With fear and dread growing deep in her stomach, Gina braced herself and started to climb the stairs, taking them very slowly and holding onto the railing. She made it to the landing without incident, but the sight that met her eyes at the top made her gasp so suddenly that she inhaled a lungful of powdered sugar dust.

How will this story end?

She heard the muffled sound of, "sis?" and panic set in. Could the chocolate figure be her brother? Was this abandoned home evilly enchanted to turn Neopets into candy and chocolate? Would she be able to find a practitioner of magic to reverse what was going on?

She lunged at the chocolate Xweetok and threw her arms around its solid neck and shoulders. The embrace wasn't returned. "Oh, Jasper," she lamented, "we'll fix this."

Suddenly they could hear the door opening downstairs. Jasper let out a muffled groan. Gina panicked, trying to slide her brother out of sight and into a room off the landing, but his chocolate form of dead weight wouldn't budge. Footsteps began echoing over the stairs accompanied by the sounds of adult Neopets talking. Her fear and grief overcoming her, Gina burst into tears.

Two uniformed officers appeared at the top of the stairs wearing expressions of mild disappointment. The officer on the left - a blue-haired Kyrii - spoke first. "This sugar shack is clearly abandoned, so we're prohibiting entrance for the meantime, boarding it up, and applying to issuing museum status to fix it up for guided tours."

Gina wanted to ask them to help her brother, but was speechless.

The elderly Techo to his right spoke up, "because clearly young Neopets are interested in touring, even at the risk of their own safety. You two are going to be the last to gain unauthorized access under my watch."

"Two?" Gina asked? "You know about my brother?" she asked, gazing toward Jasper.

The elderly officer let out a chuckle. He approached Jasper, pulled his arm back and punched him in the shoulder.

"Noooo!" cried Gina, hoffied. She was convinced the spell would be irreversible if Jasper became chocolate chips.

Jasper winced softly as his shoulder crumbled apart. The officer picked the pieces of chocolate and gently tossed them to the floor. The younger Kyrii joined him to help. In a moment, a scrawny Xweetok arm was revealed.

Gina stood watching, jaw agape. "He's only chocolate-coated?" she asked the officers.

The Kyrii turned toward Gina, "Yes, there's a chocolate dip fountain in the attic that he must have found. It works swiftly and is amazing on soft serve if I do say so myself. Not so enjoyable on Neopets though!"

The officers continued unburdening Jasper of his chocolate coating until he was finally just a Xweetok with pieces of chocolate stuck in his fur. He thanked them profusely and hugged his sister.

"Let's get out of here before anything else happens," the elderly Techo said, leading the Xweetok siblings toward the stairs.

Once the pair was safely outside in the familiarity of the forest, Gina suggested to Jasper, "Maybe we could sign up as tour guides once the house is fixed up into a proper museum?"

"Yes," Jasper replied, chuckling, "And I could use a break from sweets until about that time!"

"I could too!" Gina replied, "I just can't wait until mom tells us again how too much chocolate can be a bad thing!" They both chuckled, threw an arm around each other, and staggered home consumed by laughter and exhaustion.

The End