The room was dark.

Well, it wasn't even really a room. More like a cabinet. This cabinet, hanging high above the kitchen floor, was a home to a number of beings. Hundreds of them, in fact, if you counted every individual and not simply the boxes in which they resided.

If you, dear reader, have not figured it out yet, this story is about candy.

It is about candy, and their struggles to survive against a monster more terrifying than all the demons of Earth...

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"Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew?~" Whispered a soft voice from a corner of the cabinet. This lyric was answered by an equally soft voice, from across the cabinet floor.

"Cover it in chocolate and a miracle or two?" This soft voice, however, was considerably more tenor, and despite being almost inaudible to human ears, managed to resonate loudly across the cabinet, to stir from a large group a third reply.

"The candy man!" They sang in unison, their voices so in tune it was almost like a choir. "The candy man can~."

"The candy man can, 'cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good." This time, the choir was joined by the first two voices, and together they finished the song, much to the delight of all those listening. It was a lovely song, one they had always known, and even though it was inherently about them all being eaten, they didn't care.

There was a click, and the outside world was suddenly overcome with bright light, and a whirring buzz subtly vibrated the wood of the cabinet walls.

The light shown through a small crack in the doors of the cabinet, illuminating the singers in a thin, bright beam of light.

A twizzler covered her eyes with her tail. It had been a long time since such brightness had seeped into their home - perhaps a full 24 hours - and it was a light that always worried the denizens of Cabinetown.

"Who is it?" Whispered a gobstopper. Cautiously, a Smartie rolled his way over to the cracks in the doorway and stared out into the room with small, beady candy eyes.

A worried silence came over the candies, just as it always did when the lights were on, and this silence would pervade the area until they received that certain confirmation that all was well.

"The mother." The Smartie breathed, and the onlooking candies heaved a collective sigh of relief.

The sandwich below left the mortal plane in a long series of sickening crunches that made the candies flinch.

"What a monstrous child." Snarled a twizzler as she slithered over to the crack in the door. She glanced downward towards the table. She couldn't see the child - no one ever did, for his face was perpetually obscured - but she did see his half-eaten victim. It was two slices of bread, a slice of cheese, ham, and a leaf of lettuce. Five deaths to sate his hunger.

"Any one of us could be next." But this was obvious. Often, the child would sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night, and the Hand would appear.

The terrifying Hand.

"If I could, I'd strangle him with myself!" The twizzler exclaimed, but then she sighed and slithered away from the door. "But we can't get out until the Hand or the mother opens the cabinet... and if we escape then, we will be caught." Inevitably.

The smartie at the door rolled over to suggest an idea. "Maybe we need a trap."

"There has to be something we can do, or perhaps we need a way to open the door ourselves." The twizzler turned around and poked at the door. "There's something sticking the door to the cabinet."

She gave a hard push; the door refused to budge. "Impossible."

"We need more candy." The twizzler whispered.

"Stronger candy." The smartie corrected.

They'd need as much candy as possible, as strong as they could possibly get. But how? Anytime the cabinet opened, they would be eaten, not added to.

Upon hearing their brand name mentioned, the box of Gobstoppers flopped over, and spewed onto the wood a dozen or so candies balls. They rolled over with an excited fervor.

"Until this day, we've never know what a Gob is." The leader squeaked, his eyes darting to the crack in the door while his mouth twisted upward into a smirk. "Now I know, and we know our destiny."