When the bloody scene unfolded before her, the man taking up the hatchet and running at his victim with deadly purpose, Hannah’s knees jerked absurdly, and she felt herself begin to dance, inexplicably, as she watched helplessly from the shadows. Her eyes flickered in the dim light, but the grotesque smile marring her face was a wooden mask. Behind her, the boy chuckled darkly.

Hannah felt her left arm rise above her head and come down, as final as the last cutscene in a survival horror game.

The killer mimicked her motions, and the blade of the hatchet complied, catching the light of the lantern and holding onto it. Whoosh! It landed with sharp precision in the centre of the strange woman’s brow, separating the segment between her eyes, as though finally freeing them from the captivity of her face. A guttural sob was wrenched from deep within her chest. She dangled pathetically for a long moment. Her assailant wrestled with the hatchet, finally yanking it free with a hideous squelch, like someone trying to extract a plunger from a toilet clogged with the corpses of a thousand unwanted goldfish. Her lifeless body crumpled and fell to the floor, as useless as a broken accordion. The large house grew silent. Not even the threatening whispers of all its past victims could be heard. They were too enamoured of the newest recruit added to their total.

In the aftermath of the violent spectacle, Hannah’s overwhelmed brain had revolted against the brutality of her actions, and she stood frozen in place. But the expression on her face was gleeful, reflecting the savage conceit of the puppet master.

Things were different now. Ever since Allie had turned 5 her emotions would rapidly change. She was just a soul while someone else controlled her body.

“Hey, mom!” Allie said, suddenly her mouth turned down and her eyes shut as she got into a yelling position. Nothing came out of her mouth, and her mom had no reaction.

(Me will finish this later lol😭)

Puppet on a string Don’t know what it means Not what it seems Compassion is missing Tessa🦋

“Sunny steps back, a look of terror on her face, when suddenly, she starts laughing, for her terror had been a mask to reveal her true intentions!” I look back at my writing, a satisfied smile playing on my lips. This is only the rough draft, of course, but I like where it is going.

…

I step back out of fear, a look of terror on my face as I realize what exactly Julie had done to wind up in a jail cell. She starts begging she’s innocent and that she was framed. I can’t believe her! She has to be lying.

But suddenly, I start laughing. Wait. Why am I laughing? I try to control my face but it’s suddenly like I can’t control any of my facial expressions. The sensation spreads until I feel like I’m watching from a screen, not actually controlling anything.

Julie steps back from where she was clutching the bars desperately, she looks at me, full of distrust. “Why are you laughing?!”

I feel my own mouth speaking but I’m not saying anything. “Oh you still haven’t figured it out yet? Well, either way, no one would believe you.” These aren’t my words!

“You… you betrayed me.” No Julie! I promise you, I didn’t!

I step closer to the bars, “Let me tell you a secret.” My, no, whoever’s controlling me’s voice, drops to a whisper. “I. Killed. Them.” What?! No I didn’t!

I look at Julie’s expression, I can tell now that she is innocent, and I feel guilty for blaming her. How could I doubt my one friend, who’s stuck with me through so mu- YOU KNOW WHAT I HAVE BIGGER PROBLEMS!

“And you’ll be put to death soon enough. Everything’s going according to plan.” What plan?!

I remember something suddenly, but it makes no sense. I remember locking a door? Wait, but then I have a memory of me on a cliff, throwing a match onto the building below me. The building goes up in flames.

Just how the three were killed. Trapped in a burning building.

I can’t describe it but it’s similar to reading a bit. The author chooses when to reveal memories or facts. It’s like I’m reading my own story as it’s being written, but I’m not the one writing it.

I’m not even paying attention anymore to what my body is doing, I’m thinking about how this could be possible. Who is ‘writing my story’?

I hope that’s just a metaphor.

How did I even get those memories? I was in my bed reading at the time of the burning building. Also, I would never kill anyone.

…

Ah shit I got a plot hole. Let me just edit this part and switch point of views quicker so that there’s time for the building to be burned by Sunny.

Great. All set.

…

I grin at Julie. “No one will believe you even if you try to tell, so don’t bother.”

Everything is going perfectly according to plan.

It started with a tickle. Vern had stolen all the covers again. When I touched his arm he jerked awake and began to giggle. The laughter bubbled out of him. I turned on my bedside light and just stared. After a few minutes his laughter quieted and he began to snore. Well I was up the rest of the night.

Over breakfast Vern said he didn’t know what I was going on about. But I know I’m not crazy. A day or two later we were watching Law & Order and Vern began to guffaw. Tears rolled down his cheeks. I was besides myself. Then he stopped laughing and looked around surprised. Vern told me he remembered something funny from the day before. Vern told me I’d better drop it.

Of course I called my sister Pearl because she worked in a hospital for years. Vern told me not to fuss. Pearl told me about this lady from her church whose cousin did the same thing right before he died. I called Dr. Shaw immediately and made his girl give us an appointment the very next day.

Vern and I argued half the night and into the next morning but we went to the doctor. Vern was a fuss bucket but the nurse doctor gave him a physical. She was very nice but I couldn’t understand all she said but what I did understand scared me. The words emotional incontinence stuck out in my memory. Vern was polite to the lady but I could tell his back was up. Vern and I drove home in silence.

Apparently this is all my fault. Vern said poking my chest with his finger to accent each word that he was not getting additional tests because he was fine. Vern started sleeping on the sofa. We lived in silence. I made the meals. Vern moved the lawn. He read the paper while I knit booties for Cheri’s new baby.

Late at night I can hear his laughter. Howling laughter rattles around our house. During the day, Vern will cover his face with both hands as laughs spurt between his fingers. Sometimes I catch his toothy smile out of the corner of my eye and I shiver in spite of myself.

I called Cheri and begged off her next visit telling her dad was not himself. I can hear the laughter on the stairs. I told Cheri not to worry and to focus on taking care of her babies. Laughter is pelting my left shoulder. I reassured my baby girl that everything was fine and we would see her soon. Loud barks of laughter swamped our master bedroom. I steeled myself for the argument to come.

Hana woke up with her messy, butterfly-blue hair in a bun, looking as if all the hair strands were sticking together. She got up, made her extra-messy bed with chip crumbs, a plate from where she last ate dinner and a few bits of food here and there.

After making the bed, brushing her teeth, ate her usual morning Cheerios, she wore her 'Monday School Outfit', which consisted of a short t-shirt along with baggy jeans and normal school socks and black leather shoes and her hair tied up in a ponytail with her dlowy bangs revealing her not-that-big forehead.

When Hana fetched a glass mirror in order to do her makeup, she found something unusual about her face. In fact, she found out that she could not change the expression on her face at all. It remained as the type of face you would make if you heard about a whole lot of embarassing secrets from someone else.

Seeing that she would not be able to change her expression for the rest of the day, Hana fetched a blue mask that matched her hair color and sunglasses along with a hat and ran to school.

part 2 coming soon! <3

I am sitting alone in a forest. I loved the forest until this day. Because now when the trees sway with the wind, I am the wind. And when the birds chirp for there friends, I am the birds. Don’t ask me how. I was just sitting on a quiet log minding my own business when I stood up, walked to a bush, and wind came out of my mouth, so powerful it shook the bush. And a bunny scurried out, only I was the bunny. Who I am switches every single moment. And now I am thigh deep in mud walking where nature decides I am going. I keep walking, lucky for me I cannot feel the resistance of the mud. Then I see a figure, tall sturdy, a person I have not seen in years. Suddenly I am at home. All the worries from the past years are gone. I run to him. And I can feel the forest still controlling me but I would have run to him anyways. I hug him, and he feels the same way, still tall and lean. Then he touches my hand and the spell breaks, I can control myself again. But he is gone. I stumble around but he is gone. Just like he should be.

“Hah—“ I bit my knuckles but the sounds kept trickling out like blood from a seeping wound.

“Hahaha… haha… haha ha ha HA hahaha.”

It’s a nasty little trick those Fae pulled. Never doing business with the buggers again.

They said they’d grant my wish in exchange for my body.

I wasn’t rightly sure what that meant, but a few balls of multicolored light flew into my ears and now I can’t stop sniggering. Like a child that’s still figuring out how to make sense of arms and legs and a mouth. Well, now I have three Fae creatures rattling around in my brain, tripping random wires and watching what happens.

I should have just gone to the elves.

I heard laughter. Laughter, in response to that dry, monotonous anecdote? I was aghast!

My eyes focused in on our interrupted speaker, the department VP, and I did a double-take. Turning, I scanned the individuals around me, staunch old faculty and dyed-in-the-wool buy-ins mostly, and those few young, abitious individuals who, like myself, were trying to get ahead by seeking out more face time with the boss, even when bored to tears; they weren’t bored right now. They were all looking, staring, at me, gaping like they had collectively swallowed a live codfish.

‘…that laugh wasn’t me…was it?!’

I hadn’t felt like laughing, hadn’t planned to react in any way but with an appropriate somber nod. I knew the gravity of this occasion, knew that VP Steve Erwin was trying to inspire and inform, not entertain. Nothing within me should have lead to this outcome—yet the echoed shrieks of joyful, unrestrained laughter still hung in the air!

I hurried to put on a contrite face, to apologize for my lack of restraint, my failure of decorum—only to feel my mouth twist upward into a huge, shit-eating grin!

‘What the hell is going on?!!’

All I was feeling was embarrassment and fear. The emotions I wanted to convey were chagrin and regret. Instead, my face chose happy, even proud and defiant?! I reached up to feel my mouth, nonplused at the unexplainable expression I felt there—my feelings and intentions be damned.

…then the peals of laughter started once again. And I couldn’t stop them.

‘?!?!?!??!??!!!’

I felt confusion, horror, fear—yet my face would show nothing but abject glee!

As I wreeled about, taking racking breaths between shrieks of seemingly hysterical joy, my gaze caught on a young man in the corner, a new hire whose name escaped me. Unlike the others around me, whose shocked looks were rapidly morphing into those of discomfort or, in the case of my manager, Harold, concern, he was staring with an oddly intense, evaluating gaze.

He was fiddling with something in his hands, invisible behind the person sitting before him, but never once looked down. His gaze, fixed on me, felt predatory, threatening in a way that even with almost ten year in this cutthroat business seemed novel—like a cat observing the mouse held between it’s unsheathed claws.

The laughter ramped up; my face was hurting from how much the smile muscles were straining; I just couldn’t get enough breath. Even as the blackness began to close in around my vision, the young man continued to hold my gaze with his own. Slowly, his mouth twisted into a smirk and he mouthed something at me, something I was too foggy minded to even attempt to get.

That predatory smile, teeth bared and shining, was the last thing I saw before the darkness overtook me.

cheer up he says yet my reasonable feelings aren’t validated when forced to tag along no kids to play with no kid drinks only drunk adults with cases of miller lite feeling unheard with cloudy eyes I smile beaming of small talk anytime someone walks near by not because I want to be here but the microwave reads as midnight I will finally be home soon