Three young skeletons sat by a campfire. Two appeared to be about the same height; their names were Jonathon and Robert. The third was a shorter skeleton, who clutched in his arms a decrepit and putrid teddy bear. His name was Billy.

Billy let out a loud yawn and scraped the inside of his eye socket drowsily. "Wobooooooooooooot! Is it my bed time yet?" He lisped imploringly.

"You feeling tired, Billy?" Robert asked. "Sure. Hey Jon, you think I can take a minute to tuck the kid in? I think he's just about ready to pass out."

"Waitwaitwait!" Jon yelped, hooking his skeletal fingers in Robert's ribs to keep him situated. "I have..." Jon was briefly interrupted by a repressed outburst of his own psychotic giggle. "I have a story I want to tell Billy first!"

"Oooo! A stowee???" Billy asked excitedly.

"Jon, I don't like this. You have that gleam on your cranium you got when you suggested we unravel Mr. Tutenkhamen." Robert said suspiciously.

"No no no, it'll be fine, it'll be fine, trust me. The kid will LOVE it. It's one of those happy kid's stories filled with candy and hugging." Jon reassured.

"Candy!!! Oooo, Woboot pweaaase???" Billy begged, tugging on Robert's Tibia. "I pwomise I'll be good!"

"Billy, he's not REALLY going to give you any cand-"

"Hey now, I'm not a bad guy! Here kid, take it! I have one left over from El Dia de los Muertos." And with that, Jon tossed Billy a Sugar Skull. Robert sighed resignedly as his little brother greedily gnawed on the confection. "Now, can I tell my story?"

"Fine, fine. But if it gets too scary, story time is finished." Robert said authoritatively.

"That's cool, that's cool." Jon said reassuringly. Then, with an evil grin, he turned to Billy. "So... Kid..." He whispered menacingly, his face inches away from the little boy's. "You ever heard about The Living?"

Billy shook his head cautiously, tightening his grip on his ZomBear.

Jon's grin widened. "I expected as much. The Living are the most disgusting and terrifying beings on the planet."

"W-what's so scawy about them?" Billy whispered nervously.

"Oh, nothing much really... They're a lot like you and me, in fact. At least, they would be if we were covered with-" And this next word Jon drew out in a long cross between a hiss and a cackle, seeming to take far too much joy in the sound and the feel of it rattling around in his skull. "Fllllllleeeeeeeeeeesh!"

"AIIIIEEEEEEE!!!" Billy (who didn't even know what Flesh was) yelped, burying his face in his ZomBear.

"Alright Jon, that's more than enough." Robert said, angrily. Then, he grabbed Billy and hugged him tight. "It's okay, kiddo. I'm here, don't worry. There's no such thing as The Living."

"Y-you pwomise???" Billy asked, eyes wide in that adorable expression all children, even those without much more to them than marrow, seem to share.

"I promise. Now, why don't we get you ready for bed?" Robert suggested, while Jon whispered jeers of ‘Nancy Boy' in the background.

"Noooooooo!" Billy whined, stamping his feet petulantly.

"Dag Nabbit Billy! Why not!?" Robert asked, exasperatedly.

Billy Sniff. "I wanna hear the rest of the stowy."

With that, Jon let out an appreciative laugh and slapped his kneecap, making a loud clacking noise that echoed through the trees. "Shall I continue, then?" He asked.

Robert sat down on his log and buried his face in his hands. "I give up. Do your worst."

"So, where was I?" Jon asked as he slipped into his storyteller mode, his voice lowering an octave for effect. "Oh, right. Flesh. So Flesh is this disgusting, slimy spongy stuff that The Living are just covered with. It's draped across their bones when they're born, all wet and disgusting like melty cheese. Then the doctor-"

"What's a doctoo?" Billy asked.

"It's like a mortician in reverse." Robert offered helpfully.

"Did we forget whose story this is?" Jon asked irritably.

"Right, right. Continue, master storyteller." Robert said sarcastically.

"Anyhoo," Jon tried to say as menacingly as possible (which was surprisingly very) "The doctor then takes a long piece of twine, and he uses it to stitch the flaps of Flesh together, until it becomes skin. But they don't stitch it tight, right up against the skeleton, because their job isn't done yet. See, then the doctor opens up a little flap in The Living's ‘skin', and he pours all this red, gooey fluid they call blood, and all these jiggly little squishy things called organs into The Living."

"Ogans?" Billy asked, transfixed with horror.

"Organs. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and colors. Some, are long and thin and purple. They call ‘em... uh... interlopers? Intelligences? Testtakers? Guts! They call ‘em guts! And guts are the most disgusting of all the organs. ‘Cause guts, see, guts are what help the living eat."

"Wait, eat? What the heck does THAT mean?" Robert asked, suddenly curious.

"Eating is what The Living call it when they take this truly nasty stuff they find- sometimes its scraggly, dead plants they pull out of dirt and garbage, sometimes it's the Flesh off of these things they call ‘animals', and sometimes its something they whip up in their laboratories, where madmen stir and gigantic stewpots filled with chemicals and bits of The Living workers that get caught in the machinery and fall in- and they shovel all of it into their disgusting mouths. And they slosh it all about in these wet, flappy things they call tongues, and smother it with mucous, and smash at it with their teeth."

"Oh, so it's kind of like candy?" Robert offered helpfully. Billy suddenly saw his Sugar Skull in a whole new light.

"No, no... We just chew on candy because it smells nice and crunches well. But we're not nearly as wet about it, and I didn't even get to what The Living do with the food next."

"What do they do???" Billy asked, terrified.

"They swallow the nasty eating soup up, and it sloshes about inside their organs and their guts, and it... Well, I guess it just sits there forever, or maybe they sweat it out, I'm not sure. I never asked. But you know what the scariest thing about The Living is?"

"What?" Robert and Billy asked in unison.

"The noise they make. Because see, The Living, they're so full of organs and blood and soup, that the big nasty mess just sloshes about inside their flesh, like pudding in a balloon. Slosh... slosh... slosh... With every step they make. Just-"

Slosh... slosh... slosh...

"Did you guys hear that?" Jon asked, storyteller voice gone, eye sockets wide with fear.

"Very funny, Jon. Don't go pulling that tired-"

Slosh... slosh... slosh...

"Woboooooot?" Billy whined fearfully.

"I... Yeah, Billy. I... I hear it-"

Slosh... slosh... slosh...

"Guys, maybe we should..." Jon began

"Run?" Robert finished.

Slosh... slosh... slosh...

At that noise, the three skeletons lost it, and scampered off for the hills. A few yards down, a small frog sloshed out of a nearby pond.