Dolls

“Hey Al, what did you like to do before you became a sword?”

I asked the morning after Remembrance Day during breakfast.

“What brought this up?”

“Thought you would get bored at night, so I wanted to know if there was anything I can do.”

“You just realized?”

“Alright, never mind then, forget I said anything.”

“Ahaha sorry. There isn’t really much you could do though. I used to just play the loot somewhere off to the sides with my friends to kill time.”

Well damn, it’s not like he can use one now that he’s a sword. 

But wait….

“Huh? I thought you didn't have any friends.”

“Exactly, so I’d play the loot with all zero of my friends.”

“Okay then….”

I guess that works. Technically.

“Well, if I ever get to play one, now it'll be with all one of them. That is, if you'll listen."

“Yeah, of course. As long as you’re not singing.”

“Haha, fair enough.”

Hmmm…

“You know, what if you started practicing singing at night?”

“Won’t that wake you up?”

“I’ll hang you outside the window.”

“Aside from how humiliating it is to be hung like some public execution, walls won’t block my voice.”

“Then I’ll put you somewhere far away.”

“But then I’ll be lonely….”

Seriously?

“I’ll find you a doll or something to keep you company.”

“What am I, five?”

“Take it or leave it.”

I said, somewhat aggressively. It's like I’m his mother or something.

“Hah, fine…. But I want at least ten.”

“Huh? That’s way too much.”

“Hey, you suggested the idea. I don’t need them now, so it’s not like you have to make them all in one day.”

“That’s still way too much for one person.”

“Are you saying you can’t make them?”

“You already know that's not the problem. But fine, I'll do it.”

Bastard

I thought, annoyed.

Well that’s certainly going to be a bit tricky. But I guess he has something planned with them.

Buying them is out of the question. If I had money for that I would have spent it on ingredients.

Hm…

Well, the bell just rang so time to go for class.

Once dinner was over, I headed to the garbage dump.

It’s more or less just a place that holds all the scrapped stuff, like rusted swords, broken bows, ragged clothes and other worn out equipment. Apparently this stuff is collected once every few months, so nothing has been collected yet.

It wouldn’t be surprising to find some useful materials here.

Sure enough, there was a chair with three legs stuck under some crooked swords and stuff.

I headed over and began clearing the way. I can probably carve a few faces out of the legs, shape out a head and body, sort of like a totem. I remember playing with these back then.

“You sure about this?”

"What are you worried about? See, I got what I was going for.”

I took hold of the chair and began raising it.

“What I mean is…”

“Ow!”

A sudden spark of pain came from my thumb, making me drop the chair.

I inspected it to find a small splinter stuck in it.

“... something like that happening.”

It wasn’t that big a piece of wood, maybe just slightly thicker than a piece of hair, but that didn’t mean it didn't sting.

I bit down on the exposed end of the splinter and pulled it out.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ll just have to be more careful.”

“You should get some gloves”

“I’ll be fine.”

I reached over to grab it a second time only to pull away once more.

“Owww!”

A second splinter lodged itself into my pinky.

“You sure you don’t want to head back for gloves?”

He laughed.

“I’m fine. And I don’t want to go all the way back there.”

I tried to lift the chair one last time.

This time three splinters found their way in me, two on the left hand and one on the right.

“Is this thing a hedgehog!?”

“What did I tell you?"

“Shut up.”

He sounds as if he was about to burst out laughing.

But he has a point.

And so I walked all the way to the kitchen to grab some oven mittens. They’re not exactly good for carrying things but this will probably work.

With the newly equipped mittens I took the chair and set it on the ground to break off the legs.

“Hope your ready for this.”

“Ready for what?”

I took Al and lifted him over my head as if he was an ax.

“Wait, can’t you find an axe or something!? You'll dull me if you do that!”

“Too late.”

I swung down as hard as I could on one of the legs, breaking it clean off.

Huh, that was easier than I thought. I remember seeing people take more than just a few chops for this kind of thing.

Maybe it’s because the chair leg is thinner than what I used to see.

I picked up the leg I broke off to find dozens of black bugs crawling out of the side that I broke off

“Ah!”

I dropped it immediately.

“Termites!’

“GAAAAH DID THEY GET ON ME!?”

“H-hold still, let me check.”

I inspected him but he’s too shaky for me to see much.

“How am I supposed to hold still, I can’t even move to begin with!”

Ah… that’s my hand that’s shaking.

In my defense, what happened was something that’s straight out of a horror novel. The protagonist takes an apple and finds it infested with worms.

After calming down, I checked the sword again and didn’t find anything.

“You’re fine.”

“Thank goodness.”

He sighed, relieved.

I looked back at the chair, and sure enough, more termites were crawling out of it.

I shivered. Thank god they didn’t crawl onto me or something.

Wait, if this chair had termites in it, then…..

I grabbed one of the broken bows with my oven mitts and slammed it into a broken shelf lying a few meters away.

The bow snapped in two, revealing more bugs crawling out. I immediately threw it to the ground and wiped the mittens.

Yeah, everything made of wood here’s a home for someone.

Does that mean…..

I took a glance at one of the rusted swords I threw to the ground when taking out the chair.

Was that white stuff always there?

I took a closer look to find thin white worms crawling over it.

“Jeez… even I didn’t know something like this would be here.”

Al said, clearly shaken. I suppose this is a sword thing.

“Well I doubt you needed to sift through the junk for something back then.”

“Fair point.”

“So what are these?”

“Rust eaters, they worm their way into metals but they’re particularly attracted to rust. We had to polish our swords everyday on the battlefield to prevent them from appearing, because if one appeared, they’ll start digging into all the swords.”

“Oh god….”

I shivered and quickly inspected the sword for any holes.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine….”

“I think I should really start polishing you more.”

“You’re being paranoid.”

“Yeah, I am. Doesn’t mean I want to see you covered in white worms one day.”

“It’ll be fiiiiine.”

Maybe? After all, Al still looks like he was forged just yesterday even though I never bothered polishing him, maybe that’s a perk of containing a soul?

Whatever the case, what am I going to do now that everything around me is clearly infested.

As I was about to leave, I noticed the table cloth that Heather burnt back then hanging off a discarded training dummy. I guess it was only a matter of time before someone noticed our little gimmick.

Hmmm… I think I could use this.

As I grabbed it, a little rat hopped off from the shoulder of the dummy, giving the two of us a bit of a fright. Sorry for disturbing you, little guy.

I waved the cloth in the air to shake off anything else that could be on it and left before something else could pop their head out.

It was already seven thirty by the time I headed to the kitchen for some flour. I laid my materials on the table: the tablecloth, some rocks I picked up along the way, a few hairbands I got from Heather, and a sewing kit that was given to me during variety class.

First step was to cut the cloth into ten squares, which was easy enough with Al.

“Just grab the kitchen knife!”

“Those aren’t made for cutting cloth.”

“Nor was I!”

“I mean, a sword’s made to be cut through things, no? How else would you slash your enemy.”

“Gah fine….”

He gave up, resigning to his fate.

Next up, I put a small stone and some flour in the middle of one of the squares and bundled them up to make the head.

After tying it with a hair tie so that the stone won’t fall out, I took a rock about twice as big and wrapped it in the cloth that’s left.

After shoving as much flour as I could into it, I tied up the end with a knot before sewing it together and cutting the knot loose, thus creating a doll… sort of.

“One down!”

“Nine more to go!”

“You just had to bring that up…”

“Yup!”

“Haaaaaah…”

I sighed and started on my second doll.

Now that I think about it… when did I learn to make one of these again?

Oh yeah, it was back when father was still alive…

I wanted a doll really badly but we couldn’t find one I liked anywhere, so mom just gave up and handed me a doll she made and told me to customize it however I want.

Later on she would teach me how to make one of these as well, which resulted in me showing all the other kids who began begging for me to make one for each of them.

Ah…. those were the days. If only I could relive them… if only….

I felt my eyes growing watery thinking about how things were now. If only I can go back in time and feel their warmth again.

Wait, that makes me sound old.

Jeez… this is no time to feel nostalgic.

I snapped back to reality and somehow I already finished another one.

This was a lot faster than I thought.

Before I knew it all of them were done and so, I began drawing faces on them.

They weren’t exactly the best but they’ll have to do. I’m no artist and the surface isn’t exactly flat.

“And done!”

“Nice job.”

I checked the clock: 8:30. It was already dark out.

“Wow…. you actually managed to do it in a day.”

“Wasn’t that hard. Just took a while. Now then, time to leave you here with your new friends.”

“Wait what?” His voice began to panic.

“You made me make 10 of them so I’ll give you some extra time to get to know them.”

I turned all of them towards him sort of like they were fanning out of him.

“Enjoy.”

“Hey! You can still take me with you!!”

“And leave your new friends alone? That would just be cruel.”

I joked and turned off the lights.

“Abigaaaaaaaail! Noooooooooooo!!”

He said all dramatically.

Yeah, he’ll be just fine. 

I left the room.

Next morning, I came to pick and was greeted with him and his horrible singing once more.

I guess that’s to be expected, after all he doesn’t really have any good singing to base his off of or someone to help guide him with it.

“Thank you everyone for listening, but I’m afraid I must go now, gang!”

It seems he’s made an audience out of the dolls.

I started picking them one by one and put them by the window.

“Hey hey, put that one next to Alfonze.”

“Here?”

“No no, that’s Alan. to the right more. Gah now go left.”

He even named them all, huh. And who was the one who acted as if dolls were for five year olds?

“Oh nope, too left, head up. Now down. Turn around, and clap three times.”

Oh, he’s just messing with me.

“So you had fun?”

“Singing? Yeah, sort of. Liked the audience, but my singing definitely wasn’t good though.”

“That I can agree with.”

“That was your cue to reassure me!”

“When was I socially aware enough to pick up on that?”

“Haha, fair enough.”

Author’s notes: This might have felt a bit confusing, so like, how I pictured the totem looking doll is just a lego figure but instead of a body he has a cylinder, while the flour sack doll was just mimikyu but with his head straight and no ears. I actually got some feedback a while back to include more worldbuilding and descriptions, so I tried to add a bit more. I'm not too sure how to do the worldbuilding part though, but this chapter wasn't meant to establish much of the world anyways.