Yukon Cornelius looked out upon the misty arctic sea despondently, and whipped a fleck of Reindeer blood from his beard. Yukon was a powerfully built man of the north, standing nearly 7 feet high and almost half that broad. His warm blue snowsuit and curly scarlet beard were all that lay between his flesh and the biting wind of the North Pole. With a grunt, he turned to his companion.

“Eat your reindeer, Hermey. There are starving children in Ethi…” Yukon stopped short, pity washing through his heart at the sight before him. Herman was a grotesquely deformed creature; standing only 3 feet tall and with a twisted bone structure that gave him a hump on his back and resulted in his head being perpetually cocked about 10 degrees to the right. His eyes were tiny, black, and beady. His dramatically curled blonde hair, and his flamboyant blue outfit unsettlingly contrasted his hideous appearance. The sight of him bent over, face buried in a still-bloody Reindeer pelt, sobbing quietly was bizarre to say the least.

“There, there, Hermey. Don’t cry. Ol’ Red would have wanted it this way.”

Herman looked up, his face red and streaked with tears. He sniffed mightily, and nodded. “I know Yukon,” he began. His voice was high and reedy, and it seemed strangely breathy. “But he… he was more than a steed to me. He was a friend.” The dwarf sniffed again and looked up at his lumbering companion. “Do you think we’ll find land soon?”

“I hope.” He replied, grimly. The Reindeer was unfortunately tiny, and the meat on his bones wouldn’t last them long. Yukon cursed at himself silently, bemoaning the situation. He didn’t mind as much for his own sake—he had come to the far North in search of riches, and he was fully aware of the perils involved. Herman, however, was naïve. Yukon found him in the last northern village he stopped at, and convinced him to serve as his guide with embellished tales of fortune. If the tiny man died, it would be his fault.

They drifted for several more days, their rations of Reindeer meat growing thinner and thinner, before Herman leapt up excitedly, his voice’s pitch reaching a painful zenith. “The land! The land!” he exclaimed. And true to his claim, Yukon saw a large, icy chunk of land appear through the fog before them.

As their frozen raft finally crashed into the island, Yukon took his first full strides in what must have been two months. Relishing a chance of survival, he took in his surroundings.

The island was cold and frozen, and the fog was as thick as peanut butter. Yukon mumbled something as he took his lantern out of his pack. As he did, he heard a blood curdling scream behind him.

Yukon whirled around, his hand on his pistol. The scream was clearly Herman’s, and he looked at his comrade lying prostrate on the ground, clutching his bleeding leg and whimpering in pain. Yukon knelt down beside him and began to dress the wound. Herman was gibbering madly.

“Hermey! HERMEY! What did this?” He pleaded, quickly tending to the wound.

“It… It was a- a…” Is all the little person stammered, before he lost himself once more. Over the ruckus, Yukon heard a scuttling. He grabbed the lantern, and peered about.

“What’s there? Show yourself!” He cried desperately. He caught only a brief glimpse of a scurrying shadow, and what sounded like a few notes of a muted trumpet. Scooping up his friend, he ran off towards where the noise seemed to come from, but he found nothing. Just as he was setting Herman down, something drifted into his field of vision, causing him to jump with surprise.

It was a toy train.

Yukon breathed a sigh of relief, and looked at the toy, perplexed. If there were a toy here, surely there must be a child nearby who was playing…

Just then, the train moved towards Yukon, dragging the square wheels of its caboose along behind it.

“Jesus, Mary! A possessed locomotive!” He yelped, firing his pistol. A fragment of the train’s front blew off, revealing two gleaming eyes and a row of needle sharp teeth. The train pounced, going right for the throat.

Yukon wrenched the bizarre creature off of him, but as he did he noticed more shapes moving into the lantern’s glow. Desperately he turned about as they moved in, the otherworldly faces of hundreds of toys leering and, oddly enough, singing.

A sack full of toys means a sack full of joys, for millions of girls and for millions of boys…

“Back! Get back you playthings of the damned!” Yukon shouted. He tried to fire his pistol, but what appeared to be a large, toy cowboy riding a cruel looking bird fired first, coating his weapon with a sort of jelly that quickly dissolved through it.

Shouting with fury, Yukon wrenched out his pickaxe and began to run for the shore, swinging desperately through the crowd. The toys clung to his limbs and chased after him. He cried out in pain as a spotted elephant he was wrenching off dug into his palm with its wicked incisors.

“Yukon… are we going to die?” Herman questioned feebly. The raft was only a short while away…

Yukon could only let out a final cry, as he felt the mob clamp onto his leg, and overtake him. He looked up in horror as they moved in, their teeth gnashing, as they sang the last words he would ever hear.

We’re on the island of misfit toys, here we don’t want to stay…