He walked into the dark and dingy lab. Just the sight of the place sent shivers down his spine. He ran over to the desk and slammed his fists angrily on it. Though his smashing was interrupted by a knock at the door. He rampaged on towards the door and ripped it off of the hinges. It was Ginger, his boss’s intern, and his niece.


“Uncle Wilson, Mister Churchill would like a-OH MY WORD, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!!!?”
“It is nothing that concerns you. What were you saying before the screaming part?”
“Oh, yes”, she regained her usual calm and laid back mood,” Mr. Churchill would like to have a word with you about your research. He seems fairly angry, so tread carefully.”
She slipped away slowly while looking at her IPhone. Wilson gazed at his demolished research intently. He stormed out of his lab and headed over to Mr. Churchill’s office.
As he carefully slipped into the office, he was appalled that his supervisor wasn’t admiring his reflection. He was also fearful that he was looking at a previous record of one of Wilson’s previous experiments. “Mr. Wilson, please have a seat. As you know your previous tests on preventing our houses going stale and crumbling have all been a failure.”
“Why have you called me in here, Hank?”
“Budget cuts, Wilson, budget cuts. You have failed to find anything out about “The Stale” since we hired you here at Ginger industries. I think it is the best for all of us gingerbread men and women if you were eliminated from your line of work.”
“You can’t do this to me”, he replied with a surprised look in my eye. “I have been here since this was just a corporation run in your mom’s garage-YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME!!”
“But I just did, come back tomorrow to clean your lab. Now leave me be. You’re no longer welcome here.”
He crashed out of the office and ran home. He went to bed almost immediately so he could get out of the world of reality. Next thing he knew, his alarm clock was alerting him to go clean out his office.
It didn’t take long for him to clear the dispelled junk that littered his workspace. It also didn’t take long for Ginger to run into his former office and deliver the awful news. “The stale has mutated, it is progressing faster than we can combat it”, but I could tell in me niece’s eyes that she wasn’t telling me everything. “More bad news, it effected your house.”
“WHAT?!!! Your Aunt Lisa, your cousin Candace, are they alright?”
“Sh-she was running late for work”, her eyes began to glimmer and produce tears. “They did not make it out in time. Lisa was leaning over Candace trying to block her from the falling rubble, but it did not work.”
I slammed my fists on top of the desk of my lab. “NOOOO!!!!!!”
He stormed out of the building and went straight to his humble abode, only to find that it wasn’t an abode any more. It was a ruin of what was once a Ginger bread man’s fortress from the melancholy of the outside world. Now he had nothing.
He fell to his knees while he sobbed till he had no hydration in his body. He scooped the rubble into his hands only to have it slip away before his very eyes and reveal something even more shocking.
His right hand grew stiff and was cracked around the tip of his flanges. He was growing stale.
He came to the conclusion that in twenty one days he would have no use of his right arm. In ten more days he would have no right side. Three more days and he would have no left side. Five hours from then he would be reduced to the same rubble that was found at the location of his previous house. That was the best case scenario.
No doctors that he went to could help him. Even his old boss refused to take him as a test subject.
Five days passed. Then a month passed. Finally he realized the cure, but by then, he was just a head, enable to take it. The cure was lost with him.