3The white void seemed to bend under her steps or something like that. She couldn't really explain it, there just seemed to be nothing here. And yet there seemed to be something. Something that was staring at her and was hungry. Hungry, but not for her.
"Coraline?" Her daughter, they were hungry for her daughter. "Where are you?"
"Mom?" The voice echoed around her, it filled the room. Getting louder and louder, until you can't even tell it was saying something. Mel looked around, hair blowing around her face such as it would in the wind. Mel opened her mouth to say something, but then she choked. Something seemed to be trying to crawl out of her mouth.
Her hands clawed at her throat, grasping for the fastly leaving air. Fingers shaking towards her mouth as she tried to pry whatever was in her throat, eyes widening as she started pulling out bloody blue hair. She continued to choke as the hair just seemed to get longer and longer. Breathing in relief as she finally gave one last pull and it dislodges from her throat. Out of breath, bending over as looking at the end of the hair.
The end of the hair has something tied to it, something familiar. Pushing away the hair and blood covering it, she realized what it was. The key, the button key. The strange key that Coraline seemed to be obsessed with before she disappeared. The thing that started this all.
The world, or whatever you could call this place, seemed to unravel. The whiteness wrapping around Mel until it became something, something that was the mixture of the living room and outdoors. Feeling a burning sensation in her hand, she looked down to see the hair gone and only being left with a bloody key that seemed to be glowing red.
It was quiet, quite quaint actually. The living room, or what was being shown of the living room seemed older. With different wallpaper falling off the walls and all the electric lights being replaced with candlelight. The couch was cut in half where the living room turned into the cold dampness of outside.
The little door that the key belonged to glowed the same, angry red. Something about that door always made her feel uncomfortable. She didn't feel safe around it and she definitely didn't feel safe with Coraline around it. Even before Coraline started sharing stories about there being a whole different world behind that door with copies of the people living in the Pink Palace. People she claimed who wanted her to stay, so she can be their own daughter.
She lifted her feet to walk towards the door, with her feet barely able to get out of the grasp of the mud. Her feet felt disgusting as she stepped on the plush carpet of the room, as her feet suctioned onto the floor, seeming to want to sink it. She stopped walking and stared at the door as whispers behind her began.
"We are small,
But we are many.
We are many
We are small.
We were here before you rose,
We will be here when you fall."
Looking around, everything seemed to get closer. She was suddenly in front of the door. Like she was pushed right in front of it. Bending down to put the key into the door, she stopped. Whispers of "Home. This is my home, mommy." and "Remember when dad got stung by the wasps? And how you yelled at us for it?" Memories of her dear, long gone daughter came back. Yes, she did remember that. Her heart warmed knowing that her daughter did too. Maybe, if she opened the door, her daughter would crawl out and they'd be a family again. A family that made more memories, and didn't push away the opportunities to make new ones.
"Drip….. Drip….. Drip." She stopped and looked back, towards the well. The old well that they built a wall around and put a covering on because they were afraid that a child would fall in… another child. Water poured out of the sides as the covering was pushed up and tiny children's arms clawed at the stone. The covering too heavy for them to fully push it open enough to crawl out. Blood mixed with the water as the rotting flesh seemed to cry out.
"Mom, help me… It hurts.
Why are you hurting me?"
Tears welled up in her eyes. "I not. I'm not hurting you! You're the one who's hurting me! You didn't come back. Why didn't you come back?"
"Let go, mom! Let me go!"
"I'm not touching you-" She looked down, being faced with a scared looking girl shaking underneath her tight grip on her arm. The little girl was hers. Alive, but crying as she tried to get away from her. Tiny arms pounded on her body as she was frozen and could barely whisper "I'm not touching you."
"Mom! You're hurting me! Let go!" The tear-filled eyes of the girl looked up at her mother. A look of betrayal in them. "Give me the key."
She was in the kitchen, and Coraline was trying to swipe the key out of her hands, looking restless. "Charlie! Help me!" Charlie looked concerned and walked over and took the key out of Mel's hand before Coraline could grab it.
"Coraline, I don't know why you want the key so much.
There's nothing behind that door."
Coraline looked peeved, she had told them stories of what was behind that door. But they were only stories, stories that were easily debunked when they opened the door to be met with a brick wall.
"Yes, there is! A circus, and acrobats, and! And food, lots of it!"
"Coraline, we've told you a million times. Those were only dreams.
Dreams that you should spend less time worrying about,
and start worrying about unpacking those boxes in your room.
You've barely unpacked at all and we've been here for about a month!"
Coraline pouted, snarling at her dad as he put the key on a hook taller than both her and her mother. Her dad looked concerned and sad. Remembering how she was never this angry at him before. Her mother; yes. Her father; no.
"Whatever! I'm going to my room to…. Unpack." She muttered the last word. They watched as Coraline stomped to her room, quite faster than Mel remembered. Like it was a VCR being fast forward.
Mel winched as she looked at all the scratch marks riddling her arms. Coraline has never acted this aggressive towards her before. And that worried her. Coraline seemed to be getting more and more restless to get the key after each passing day. Sometimes staying up for days waiting for them to go to sleep and leave the key somewhere she can get it. But they never did, they always brought it with them to their room, and it was too risky for her to grab.
"Geez, Coraline sure has been getting…" He stopped when he saw Mel's face, it was sad.
"Mel, it's going to be okay.
She's with the Other Mother now."
"What?"
"The Other Mother is going to take good care of her." Charlie's face warped into that of a melting, drooping face. Eyes replaced with buttons as his voice got deeper and his words go more drawn out. " Her strength is our strength." He turned away from her and jumped onto a piano chair, hitting the same notes over and over again; A, B, A, B.
Everything around her seemed to swirl, faster and faster as words followed the wind. The key clinked on the wall as it too was being blown by the ominous wind. It flung off the hook and towards Mel who caught it in her hands. The room changed once again as she was back outside, but this time it was only outside. No living room attached to it.
In front of the well laid a doll on a chair. The chair sunk slowly into the ground, as the Coraline impersonating doll stared back at her with those black, buttoned eyes.
After Coraline disappeared, all that was left of her was the doll. The doll that always seemed to watch them. She wanted to get rid of it, where Charlie wanted to keep it.
"It looks just like her! How can I get rid of it?"
Her eyes burned as her ears thumped. The doll seemed to replace Coraline, always there when she wanted to be alone like it was eavesdropping. She pushed herself into her work to forget Coraline, forget she was ever there. It hurt too much to remember her, but she couldn't help but remember. She thought of taking down the pictures of Coraline off the walls but she couldn't. That wasn't fair to anyone, not to Coraline not to Charlie. She deserved to be remembered, he deserved to remember her.
Charlie seemed to be coping better out of the two of them. Always there to try and keep her spirits up. He did things that Coraline wanted to do with him, like plant the garden. He always brought that doll with him when he was in the garden, to show Coraline that there was going to be a garden. That he didn't just write about gardening, he actually got his hands dirty for once and went out to plant her favorite; Pink Rhododendrons. The Coraline doll seemed to be smiling at him.
When he wasn't out planting, he was writing. Writing as the doll stared at him. The doll gave him motivation to write, he said. The motivation that Mel just didn't have any more without the help of coffee. Mel tried to move on after Coraline, but she tried to move on too fast and too much. Where Charlie held on, he held on too much. He even unpacked all of Coraline's items and decorated her room like the way she might've wanted. Once she came home while he was gone and went into Coraline's room. The doll was tucked into the bed with a stuffed animal by it. Like the doll was a person and replaced Coraline.
"You aren't her!" Mel yelled at the doll, throwing the key into the open well behind the doll. Just as she heard a splash, the doll began to mutate. Mutate to look more human-like, bigger. Almost a little girl's size. The hair grew out into a tangled, brown mess with hints of blue in it. The skin was covered in scars and rotting skin. It looked like a corpse, the only hint of life was the twitching and growls that came out of the doll.
"I'm the master of my fate,
The captain of my soul.
I don't care if I live or die,
You surely can't steal my
soul."
A giant boney hand shot out of the well and grabbed the body of the doll, pulling it down into the well as it swung like a rag doll. Cries rang out as the Coraline imposter cried for her "Mommy."
But Mel made a choice, she was no ones ' Mommy'. She moved on, she was now childless. Once a mother, but now a vilomah. Her child has died and moved along, and so should she. No matter how much it hurts.
The room around her seemed to melt. Melt into what she now saw as beautiful. Back to the beautiful whiteness that this whole thing started with.
"I'm sorry Coraline. I can't be your mother anymore.
It's time for me to move on."
The whiteness melted away and she opened her eyes. She sat up and realized she was in her bed. Next to her snoring was her husband, Charlie. Tears dripped down her face as she saw the doll staring right at them from their dresser.
"You won't control me. I'm my own person." The doll seemed to be sad about that, slouching over as the hair brushed against its face.
"I'm sorry I left. But please, help me!" The doll's cries weren't heard by her mother, who was getting dressed for the day. But they were heard by her dad who was still dreaming, dreaming about her.
A/N: Coraline never escaped, which hopefully you can tell in this story. Mel began to try to move on, but she thought it meant that she should get rid of everything of Coraline. Where Charlie held on. Onto the doll and everything she owned. Hoping that one day, maybe his daughter would come back. The whole well scene is confusing, but the answer to that is that they think she might've fallen down the well. Well most people do, Charlie started to believe that Coraline was telling the truth about the other world.
Also, they were in the house for longer before Coraline was taken. A month, actually. I just don't think the Beldam could get a kid to stay in three days, or in the book 1 day I believe? I haven't read the book since 8th grade. So I have some memories of it.
Mel: Check
Charlie: His dream is yet to come
Wybie: His "dream" will happen
