The Night the Unicorns Came

 So, I know what you're thinking: Unicorns? Really? Like sparkles and rainbows and fairy dust?

Yeah, I used to think that too. Until they came to my school. The dark ones. The ones with hollow eyes and poison-tipped horns.

It started last Thursday. I live in a boring neighborhood on the edge of Brookwood—suburb stuff, you know? Kids ride scooters, moms talk about gluten, and everyone acts like nothing weird ever happens.

Except last week, weird did happen.

I woke up to the sound of hooves. At first, I thought it was horses or maybe a parade. But when I looked out my window, the street was empty. No horses. No floats. Just this purple mist rolling along the sidewalks like it had a mind of its own. I didn’t think much of it. Probably fog from the marsh again, I told myself.

But at school, it got stranger.

Everyone kept glancing around like they could feel something. The hallways buzzed with this weird electricity, like the moment right before a lightning strike. Then, during lunch, it happened.

Mason dared Sarah to go behind the old music building, the one they closed last year after a raccoon got stuck in the ceiling and caused a mold outbreak. She came back five minutes later, not talking, not blinking. Her eyes were… off. Gray, cloudy. Like she was seeing something else. And her hair? Totally white.

I know. That sounds like something out of a video game. But she wasn’t cosplaying. Something had changed her.

That night, more fog rolled in. This time it smelled like wet metal and lilacs. I barely slept.

The next morning, my street was silent. No dogs barking. No cars leaving for work. I walked to school alone. Not even Mason was outside—and he always skateboards past my house. When I turned the corner to my school, I stopped in my tracks.

There were hoofprints. Not horse hoofprints. These were deep, glowing, and smoking slightly. And they led through the school gates like someone—or something—had marched straight in.

When I entered the courtyard, I saw them.

Unicorns.

But not the ones from storybooks. These weren’t pearly white with golden manes. These were tall, black as shadows, with swirling smoke around their legs and jagged, spiraling horns. Their eyes glowed faintly purple. One of them looked right at me and hissed. Not neighed—hissed.

A teacher ran out of the front office, shouting for everyone to get inside. But before he could say another word, one of the unicorns charged. I swear on my gaming chair, I watched the horn stretch mid-charge and stab him right through the chest.

He didn’t bleed.

He froze, like a statue. Then he crumbled into salt. Just like that.

I turned and ran.

Inside, chaos. Half the students were hiding under desks. The other half—like Sarah—were standing still, their eyes that same creepy gray. I saw the school nurse trying to drag one of the kids away from the hallway, but he was too strong. He walked like he was being pulled by puppet strings. And behind him, another unicorn trotted in—its horn pulsing with sickly green light.

I ducked into the janitor’s closet. And that’s when I met Juno.

Juno’s in 8th grade, one year older than me. She had goggles on her head and a backpack full of snacks and wires. “You saw them too?” she asked.

I nodded.

“They’re called Hollowcorns,” she said, like it was normal. “They come from this rift in reality that opens every 73 years. They’re attracted to order and routine. Schools are basically buffet tables for them.”

I just stared at her like she was crazy.

But then she opened her backpack and pulled out a drawing. It looked ancient, like from a scroll. There were unicorns with dripping horns, stabbing people and turning them to stone, salt, ash.

“So what do we do?” I asked.

Juno grinned. “We break the routine. That’s how you fight them.”

Together, we ran through the school, flipping chairs, knocking over bulletin boards, blasting music from the library speakers. We yelled out the wrong answers in math class, rearranged the trophies in the display case, and erased every line of the daily schedule on the whiteboards.

The Hollowcorns hated it.

Their horns dimmed. Their movements got slower. Two of them backed away completely and disappeared into the mist.

But it wasn’t enough.

The biggest unicorn, twice the size of the others, stepped out from the gym. Its horn was pure obsidian, and it had long black tendrils waving behind it like a cloak. It stared right at me.

“Final boss,” Juno said.

I reached into her backpack and pulled out the weirdest thing I could find: a rubber chicken, a banana sticker, and a recorder. I started playing the recorder—badly—while stomping my feet out of sync and yelling “PINEAPPLE!” every few seconds.

The unicorn screamed. Not a neigh. A full-on mind-shattering banshee screech. It charged.

At the last second, Juno threw a glow stick right at its horn.

It exploded.

Like, literally. It shattered into glass and smoke, and the mist started to clear. The other Hollowcorns turned to vapor. The gray-eyed kids blinked and collapsed. And outside the window, the purple fog started to lift.

We saved the school.

The principal doesn’t remember a thing. Neither do the teachers. They said there was a “gas leak” and “mass hallucinations.” But I know the truth. Juno does too.

We’ve been patrolling the school every day now, just in case. The schedule still hasn’t returned to normal. We make sure of that. The janitor lets us stash emergency chaos gear in the closet.

And sometimes… just sometimes… I hear hooves late at night again.

But I’m ready now.

Because when the Hollowcorns come back, I’ll be there. With a banana sticker and a recorder.

And chaos in my heart.

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Want more weird stories from the suburbs? Check out my other posts. Or don’t. Honestly, it’s safer if you don’t.