Cave

Richard enters a cave.

Although the cave was not well lit, the warning signs at the entrance were clearly visible, but it would have taken a much smarter man than Richard to know what all those symbols actually meant, and a much less reckless one to restrain himself from entering the site anyway.

Inside of the cave was the perfectly preserved corpse of an elderly woman. At least, he had thought it was a corpse. The eye sockets were empty, the hair and nails had grown to triple and quadruple the lengths typically found, her dress was partially moth-eaten and no movements could be seen.

Those above reasons were why Richard screeched like a little girl when the lady offered him a cookie.

It looked like a perfectly good chocolate chip cookie. But the lighting in the cave was rather poor, and our dear Richard was unable to anticipate the following events.

He somewhat shakily accepted it, trying his hardest to avoid hurting her feelings. After all, she seemed like a very nice, if lonely, old lady. He bit into the cookie...

...but he immediately sensed that something was wrong.

Those weren't chocolate chips.

They weren't even raisins.

They were cacao nibs.

He spit it out and dropped the cookie on the ground. "Ew, ew, ewwww! It's so bitter!"

The woman was aghast. "I... I worked so hard to make those cookies."

Richard froze and began to whimper. "I didn't mean to hurt y-your feelings, ma'am."

"You ungrateful brat! You didn't have to throw it on the ground and ruin it!" Furious, she tripled in height, her features growing darker. The walls of the cave went from brown to a deep, eerie blue as she towered over Richard. Swirling around the cave ghoulishly, she began making hissing sounds.

Richard soaked his pants in piss.

She stopped just in front of his face, almost adding a brown stain to the yellow one on his pants. Almost, but thankfully for him, not quite. "Don't you know, sonny..."

Her nose pressed against his. "...that it's very rude to waste food?"

They stared at each other for a few seconds, Richard doing his best to keep from bursting into tears and having a panic attack. "Y-yes. I... I-I kn-kn-know that. I'm... s-s-s-so sorry, ma'am... so sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Within the blink of an eye, the old lady returned to her chair, back to her original form. "All right then, dear. As long as you keep that in mind. I did have a sign hung up to remind people of that, but we all have off days. You'll visit me again, won't you?"

Richard took a deep breath, then said quietly, "Yes, but... do you have access to a washer?"

"Oh, did you soil your pants? Here, I'll turn away. Just take them off, toss them in that corner and pull a chair out for yourself while I go wash them for you. Can't have you going out with such a stain."

That day, Richard learned two very important things.

1. When offered food by a nice old lady, if you don't like it, politely explain why and give the rest back.

2. When approaching a cave with a sign you can't understand, always go inside.

Number 2 later led to him being mauled by an angry bear.