Imagination Be Broken

The only question on my mind was how to get out of this fake reality. Everything about this place was an imaginary play set up by the giant. He put all the players together. He created the setting.

I looked back at Velvet, who was becoming less and less human-like with every moment I paid attention to her. The skin upon her empty face receded, until the distinct texture of woven yarn replaced it. Her pink hair lost its silkiness and distinction, turning into the same material as the rest.

The giant’s magic wasn’t infallible. I was able to break out of its spell with the help of Lacey. When one string came undone, it was inevitable that the rest begin to go. I would be the one causing the unraveling this time, not him.

But how?

Then, it hit me.

“The song.”

I walked over to Velvet, who still cowered from her face reveal.

“There were ten in a row, let the little one know. Unravel… Unravel…,” I started to sing, gentle like the voice I remembered Mother use while cutting my hair.

Velvet’s body tensed up in fear. I could tell. All the dolls in that room knew the song by heart. They dreaded the day when it would be their turn. They prayed and hoped that the giant wouldn’t notice them, wouldn’t notice the imperfections that each one carried.

That’s it!

I recalled the giant placing the dolls all in a row around me, setting up this scenario. There were only nine dolls in total, but the song called for ten.

Who was the tenth one? It was the giant. He was watching everything unfold, a member of the cast.

I looked again at Velvet. She was definitely a victim in all this. The giant wasn’t her.

My feet took off as I ran to the stairwell and zipped through the hallways, passing by all the students who stared at me strangely. None of them were him either. They were simply spectators watching from the shelves, helpless to act because they could not move independently. A mob that followed along.

I tore open the door to the teacher’s lounge. Inside, I spotted my homeroom teacher. Only, she didn’t look quite so human anymore. Perhaps, recognizing that this world was fake had pulled the wool from my eyes. Before me, a female yarn doll looked surprised like the script had been lost. Strangely, her button eyes were so sunken into her face. It looked like someone had messed up sewing them on, pushing them deep into the yarn by accident.

“What’s wrong?!” she shouted walking forward but instantly smacked into the desk next to her. She yelled out again. This time, flailing her arms before running right into a wall. I was like she was programmed to react but unable to see what to do before her.

The giant wasn’t her either, so I left the room, continuing my search.

Not long afterward, a pair of voices called out to me. The giant couldn’t have been them either, as they came as a set. But as I turned to respond, I let out shriek instead. My legs buckled, and I hit the floor, looking at the twin faces like they were a freak show of conjoined bodies.

I glared at the space between them, which had been stitched up grotesquely by untrained hands. Michael and Joann still retained their human bodies, but reality had warped just enough to see that they were effectively joined at the hip. It looked worse this way.

“What’s wrong? Did you have a fight with Velvet? You can tell your best friends anything you know.”

They spoke in sync, not even knowing that they did the same motions, mirrored. They didn’t realize that anything was off, still practicing the roles that they were given.

Perhaps, somewhere in my mind I hoped that they were still human, and not the dolls that we all were. After all, we were best friends. But it was all a lie made to please me.

“This isn’t right… what are you two really?”

I bit my lip and stood up. I walked toward them with a different resolve, singing the nursery rhyme low.

The skin on their faces peeled back, turning into yarn. Scruffy green strands bobbled as they turned to look at each other, and then, down at where they were joined. In the next moment, their stubby arms tried to push each other away. They flailed at each other, clawed at the stitches that brought them together, and shrieked in terror.

It was like they had awoken from the spell cast on them.

I remembered. They were separate dolls initially. The giant had plucked the two of them together, decided that they were close enough in likeness, and then, decided that they would be a set of twins that would always be by my side.

Unfortunately, the giant’s decision also caused him to sew the two of them together, to better convince himself that would be the case.

I felt bad for them, having to exist like that. There wasn’t anything I could do to help them besides finding the hiding giant.

I ran out of the school and down the road where I commuted every day. Strangely, the trip was much shorter than I expected. But since this was a world of make-believe, the distance was made artificially.

I passed by Mr. Dodger, who was still stuck outside, sweeping the same patch of sidewalk as this morning. Now, it wasn’t just tiger ears on his hoodie. He had morphed into a stuffed tiger with arms so stubby that the broom merely rested against his paws. Regardless of his lack of grip on the broom, he was trapped, making the same motions over and over.

I ran right past him and into my house, literally crashing through the front door.

“Welcooome hooome, Broooother!”

I jumped in fear as a huge baby doll pounced from the entryway, tackling me to the ground. Despite the doll being utterly unrecognizable from its imaginary form, the tackle was as familiar as could be.

“Janome? That’s you, isn’t it?”

The face of a bald baby stared up at me, its voice distorted. Every syllable she spoke had a long draw, like she was unfamiliar with words. Maybe that was why she was given the role of little sister. Tackling was her form of communication.

I pushed her to the side, hearing her shout “Meanie!” in a deep voice.

The kitchen was where I checked next. And sure enough like the others, Mother and Father were there, scripted like everyone else who was only there to play with me.

Mother turned around, still in her apron. She held plates of food meant for dinner, despite it being not long after lunch. Father was still sitting at the table, his business suit unchanged from this morning. Only now, I could see their yarn-woven bodies where the clothing didn’t hide.

It was one big happy family, forced to go through a limited set of motions, forming some resemblance to everyday life. Everyone was caught in the giant’s imagination. No one could see how we were just pretending. It was all the damn spell’s fault.

I backed away from the kitchen, looking for the last member of the family. Ever since I broke free and started unraveling this reality, I had a feeling that he was the one. Mother had mentioned it. He had been left playing with dolls.

Those dolls were us.

I raced up the stairs, past my room and opened each door until I found a child sitting alone in the middle of the room. Yarn dolls were gripped in his short, stubby hands. They whizzed in the air as he tossed them around.

I watched as he walked over to pick them up, trampling the others. He smeared one into a pile of dust, dirtying it. He pulled on another doll repeatedly until the seams started to rip. Spit soaked into another as he chewed on it.

Such was the nature of a child playing with dolls. They got messed up, damaged, and caked in filth. And with no one left to care for him, he would continue to do that over and over, until the dolls become unrecognizable.

Unravel… Unravel… That was how the song went.

It was a nursery rhyme that told a child that their things would break if they didn’t take care of them. But this child ignored those words, he enjoyed hurting the dolls until they unraveled. And then, he would find new ones.

Who had left this child alone? Who let him roam free, causing terror to everything he touched?

I didn’t have the answer to that. After all, I was merely given the memories he wanted to give. But it was enough.

Enough for me to hate myself, and to hate this world and how cruel everything was made to be. And to hate the child for creating it.

I walked up to him, determined to do something, but as soon as I got close, I hit some kind of invisible barrier. I pounded on it for a while, but I knew it would be futile. Of course, I couldn’t harm him. He created this entire space after all.

The child continued his rampage, breaking in the dolls one after the other. Did I have no choice but to watch until it was time for them to unravel? Was ending this cycle of torment hopeless?

A doll landed by my feet. I reached down to pick it up. Ironically, it was the one that looked like me.

Long messy hair. A plain face with nothing particularly unique. The yarn on it was especially frayed and dirty, feeling much older than the others. There were also ugly stitches everywhere, a half-baked attempt at trying to hold everything together.

It made me wonder. Why was I used again? Why did the giant set me up on more than one make-believe session, putting me at the center of everything? If it weren’t for Lacey, I wouldn’t have realized that it had happened over and over, without any memory transferred in between except for this current one.

I squeezed the doll in my hand angrily.

Suddenly, my body felt that same pressure bearing down upon it. I gripped one arm of the doll with my other hand, twisting it. Likewise, the same arm of my body distorted in a sick angle that made me glad I didn’t have bones.

A laugh escaped my lips. If I wanted to end it, then I would have to do it myself.

“Unravel… Unravel…”

They were magic words of sweet release. As I sang them, I reached into my pocket and mysteriously found a pair of scissors in them. They were the kiddie scissors I had before, in another time and place, somehow making an appearance when I needed them.

They were dull, meant for children, but they would be enough for a bunch of yarn.

But as I brandished them before my doll to end my own existence, I heard a shrill cry of panic from the child.

He stared in terror at me before looking like he wanted to steal them. But as I threatened back, his attempt faltered. It caused the environment to tremble and crack, like his imagination had been that fragile.

I stared down at the scissors and then at the child. I marched forward with them, making him back away in fear. Another wail caused the imaginary world to shatter, and when I opened my eyes, we were back in the room full of dolls everywhere.