Doll of the End

Bile

“Hey, do you have anything for stomach aches?”

Doll, sitting behind the counter, doesn’t glance up from her sketchbook. She’s been doodling in it for hours, painting with the blood that still hasn’t stopped dripping from her gums. She’s having fun!

“Try aisle 3. Uh, the one with the big light-up skull. Don’t listen to it, it’s lying.”

The ostensible customer graces her with a mumbled thanks as they turn and walk away. There’s something wrong with the rhythm of their steps, a squishy irregularity. Doll ignores it.

Read on … ( ~3 Min.)

Doll of the End

Blood

Doll rinses and spits just like she’s always been told to. Not too aggressively, not enough to drain her mouth of the taste of cold mint; just enough for comfort. Comfortingly routine.

But (of course there’s a but) the sink growls at her as she spits.

For a long moment she doesn’t realize that she’s heard it. Her mind is so far away, yet not far enough to catch her eyes and hold them fast; her gaze sinks down as inevitably as any sunset.

Read on … ( ~1 Min.)

Doll of the End

Light A Candle

Doll stumbles as she rushes home, one fine little foot caught in the cracked sidewalk, stone-teeth gnawing at protective leather. Her bag’s too heavy today, rattling and clanking against her bruised hip; each step brings a fresh gasp of pain to her tightly sealed lips. Oh, if only she didn’t have to hurry, if only she could take her time—!

But the sun’s grasping rim is already teasing against the horizon, so far off across the sea that Doll’s eyes can barely see the superheated steam which always veils those nightly indulgences; the sea is reaching up towards it and every clock in the city is about to chime out out the 19th hour’s song and there’s no time held in wait for her belated need.

Read on … ( ~3 Min.)
Prompts for #EmptyOctober 2022

You’re Invited!

When doll slips from the confines of her bed-box and stumbles downstairs, there’s an odd rectangle waiting at the table: a folded sheet of thick, creamy paper. It’s for her, obviously—why else would her miss have put it there, next to her oatmeal and tea?

But doll isn’t sure.

“Miss, what’s this?”

Across the kitchen (a distance which doll’s eyes easily skip over and her body has never managed to cross), her witch doesn’t glance up from the stove’s vast fire. Doll smells the ashy tang of crumbling pine and the rich, rotting musk of burnt deer.

Read on … ( ~4 Min.)

The Dream of Meat

You are dreaming.

The oddity of recognizing this does not impede your progress forward into the dining hall’s elegant vastness. Nor does it permit you to deviate from the path the dreaming part of you—the part that weaves the world—has chosen for you.

“Oh, you’re finally here!”

There is a dining table, a perfectly formed slab of rock stretching impossibly across the hall’s floor, and at its head stands a prism-headed man in a hastily drawn suit. His layered voices sound exactly like him.

Read on … ( ~4 Min.)

That The Seasons May Turn

Her lips press against your skin like sun-warmed feathers, soft and gentle, lingering only long enough for the poison to soak in. Each kiss leaves you shivering against the dead field below you, fingers twitching against soil rendered cold and lifeless by winter’s harsh grip—

You don’t look at her.

The elders made that prohibition quite clear, before they sent you out to offer yourself up. Once they would have scooped out your eyes before leaving you for her to find, but now there are better ways and your vision was bad even before the acid’s touch.

Read on … ( ~4 Min.)