Post by sesshyfanchick on Mar 31, 2009 21:44:43 GMT -8
Title: I'll Create Something Too
Genre: Supernatural/Romance
Rating: PG
Author: Sesshyfanchick
Fandom: The Nightmare Before Christmas
Pairings: Jack, Sally
Summary:Being a freshly created rag-doll, Sally must learn to overcome her obstacles from learning how to walk, talk, and think for herself. When her skills improve over a matter of time, she starts to yearn for the freedom that she so desperately wants, and for the attention of the strange skeleton man.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Nightmare Before Christmas or any of its characters. Rightful ownership goes to Tim Burton.
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When Sally was first created, it was hard for her to adjust to the accommodations of the physical world. Well, she was a rag doll, of course it would be rather difficult for her, for we all know for a fact that a rag doll cannot come to life, let alone perform physical ministrations. Sally was no exception to that rule when she first awoke strapped to the cold slab of an operating table, dying leaves scattered around her like a withering blanket. The atmosphere was morbid and mixed with tangents of macabre, as if the very air itself was swiveling with dank and dingy swirls of melancholic fumes.
Dr. Finklestein was beside her, staring at her with curiosity glittering in his beady eyes, that colossal cranium of his shining like a dull light bulb. He had a spool of thread and a glinting needle in his tiny gloved hands, a piece of thread dangling from the spool to show that he was already in the midst of adding the last and final stitches to Sally’s stitched chest.
Being a freshly born rag doll, Sally didn’t know how to respond-- how could she, she was a rag doll for heaven’s sake. She hadn’t a voice, or a will, or a train of thought. Just two pairs of eyes and the observance compared to that of a 3-month-year old child.
She had eyes of course, and she was trying very hard to learn how to use them properly, for the images surrounding her were fading in and out like a blur. Finally, when she managed to focus on the dawdling doctor beside her, she blinked her eyelids (which were stinging for some strange reason) and stared at him, her stitched eyelashes seemingly enlarging her already massive oracles.
The doctor let a wicked smile snarl along his trumped lips, his disintegrating teeth spaced apart and leering out his mouth like stubs of white and gnarled marshmallows. His heart was palpating, although it wasn’t alive, it was probably just doing that because of the rotting juices swiveling around inside his body, but it was close enough.
He was feeling an energy surge of untamed pride as he sat there in his rickety motor-powered wheel chair, staring down at the creation that he had made with his very own hands. It had taken a whole five months in preparation and creation to construct her body and fill it with all sorts of appropriate cushioning, such as little snips of twigs and crunchy autumn leaves, and it had been even more difficult to stitch her body up and compose it in such a way so that she would have the base and outline of a human, but not too human. No, it would have been a mistake on his part if she were to look like a flesh walker, because to put it simply, flesh walkers were not entirely too welcome on the streets of Halloween Town, being that they were the source of mutilating screams that the Halloweeners were always seeking after.
“Hello, my dear,” Dr. Finklestein greeted his creation, fake pleasantry lacing his voice like a bitter sauce. Sally stared at him without a trace of recognition showing on her stitched face. She couldn’t do anything anyway, her mind was still fresh and new and she couldn’t yet comprehend even the most basic of principles. So she did what she could-- she simply stared straight at him.
Dr. Finklestein smiled down at her, his grin growing large across his wrinkled face. “It’s alright, my dear, we’ll work on that in a matter of time.”
She couldn’t understand what he was saying to her; his words were nothing but a gnarled and jumbled mess of sounds that she couldn’t possibly fathom to interpret. Actually, she wasn’t really thinking to begin with, being that once again, her brain was fresh and new…if she even had a brain that is.
“Rest my dear, you simply need to rest,” he told her in a soothing tone, which was probably as soothing as a boiling pot of Deadly Night Shade, but who could complain? Once again, Sally simply could not understand him until Dr. Finklestein’s tiny and withered hands came into her view and tried to cover her two massive eyes, and so, in natural response, Sally immediately closed them.
The rest of the hours that passed were spent with her lying there on the table while Dr. Finklestein tried to add the last finishing touches to his nearly completed masterpiece.
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Over the next two months, Sally’s development had steadily progressed. She was now able to respond to her environment given the situation, and she was always fully attentive and alert with her surroundings. Although she couldn’t yet walk properly on her own (or speak), she was perfectly fine with just sitting around and silently observing her creator and master as he milled about his lab and attended to his various experiments.
Dr. Finklestein was blatantly pleased by Sally’s progression in her motor and communication skills, for she would often point or stare at an object that needed clarification and he would gladly teach her about said object, for he never refused an opportunity to instruct her on the ways of life. You see, he wanted her intelligence to expand to a whole different level, then surely, most surely, he would be recognized and acknowledged by the whole of Halloween Town! Why, even Jack, The Pumpkin King would praise him for this amazing feat. Oh, how the doctor couldn’t wait for Sally to become fully developed.
He stared at her with a wicked twinkle in his eye, his mind painting images of praise and fame so much like that which was often hailed to The Pumpkin King.
Indeed, the doctor could hardly wait.
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Three months had passed and Sally was doing an exceptional job in her progression. Not only could she walk (with the assistance of a random wall to prop her up or a wobbly chair to stable herself), but she could now speak. Her vocabulary wasn’t very large, but the doctor didn’t have any qualms about that. He fully believed that she would be capable of intellectual conversation given months time, and he was fully prepared to instruct her in the ways of casual and formal conversation.
“Master.”
It was a pleasant voice, a soft and gentle one, a voice that made Dr. Finklestein cringe whenever he had the pleasure to hear it, for he did not take to sweet things. Sally never understood what made her creator cringe so, but to compensate for that, she tried her best to be a diligent and practiced pupil. She wanted to be worthy of him as his creation and she especially enjoyed when he would give the random praiseful comment to her from time to time, although they had been growing few in number over the past couple of months.
“Yes, Sally?” The doctor asked, piquing his head to look at her before he returned his focus back to his current experiment, which was trying to convert pumpkin juice into an efficient fossil fuel. “Haven’t I told you to not come into the lab without my permission?”
Sally stared at him for a bit, puzzlement etched on her stitched face, trying to discern the choice of words that he had used to address her. “P-per-miss-. . .?”
The doctor sighed and grumbled a hasty, “Permission, Sally.”
Sally nodded to herself and twiddled her fingers in front of her, her balance starting to waver off. She looked over at a stable looking metal chair that was propped at the far end of the room, its stability looking mighty tempting as she scanned the rest of laboratory for any other props that would be able to support her weight. She didn’t want to go near the operating tables and chairs near Dr. Finkelstein, for she feared that if she did, he would growl at her or scold her for being in the way.
She never liked it when he scolded her.
“Well then, what do you have to say for yourself?”
Sally looked and cocked her head, her fingers still twiddling out in front of her. She had absolutely no idea what to say to him. What could she say? Her sentences were shamefully fragmented and she didn’t have enough time to think up of a full and proper sentence what with her creator sitting before her and giving her the quizzical eye.
“I…I…sorry,” she whispered quickly, bowing her head a bit to show that she indeed felt regret at breaking one of his clearly laid out rules. The last time that she had stumbled into his laboratory without his permission he had removed one of her arms and kept it with him for half of the day, leaving her feeling confused and lost as to what she had done to deserve that kind of punishment.
But she dare not do it again. Only this time, it hadn’t been her fault. Igor had told her that the doctor had wanted to see her, and by the looks of it, it seemed as if Igor had told her an outright lie.
“Tsk,” Dr. Finklestein grumbled. He waved his hand at her and dismissed her. “You may leave now Sally. Go up to your room for the rest of the night. Do you understand?”
She remained where she was for a couple of minutes, trying to fabricate his words to dissect their meaning, until she finally got it and quietly left the room.
She gloomily trudged all the way up the stairs to her dingy room at the top of the house.
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Another five months had passed, creating a grand total of 10 months. Sally had developed into a speaking, walking, and mildly intellectual young rag doll. She was by no means the smartest person alive, but she was capable of formulating quick sentences and as of late, deep thoughts-- or as deep as she could get them to be.
She could walk just fine, no longer needing the extra stability of a chair or a wall to get her along throughout the doctor’s house. She was still a bit wobbly on her legs, but she supposed that was just an malfunction that wouldn’t be corrected any time soon. It was a part of her, and she accepted that.
Her gentle voice was no longer impaired by short fragments and disconnected words. She could now speak fluidly and could respond on command without having to think of what she was going to say. This certainly pleased her, for she no longer had to feel embarrassed when asked a question on the spot.
However, despite the amazing progression in her motor skills and things of that sort, she couldn’t help but feel…what was the word? Impatient?
Sally nodded to herself, piquing her head as she stared at the enormous hinged window located in her dank room.
She couldn’t really pin-point the cause of her impatience, for she didn’t quite understand it to begin with. Why was it that whenever she looked over at her window, a rebellious feeling came over her and captured her very heart and soul? Sometimes, going against her creator’s orders, she would go over to the window, unlatch it and push it open. She reveled in the cold and wispy breeze that always greeted her from the outside world and then all of a sudden, a lurching feeling of insurgence would overwhelm her very being and then she felt as if she wanted to jump from the very window itself!
However, to dispel her thoughts, she would look over at the badly misshapen tower that loomed ominously in the distance, with its single glowing light that illuminated from within, and she would feel calm and patient again, as if the thoughts were never even there.
The tower always seemed to calm her for some strange reason, as if she were looking over at an accommodating beacon of hope. She didn’t know who or what the tower belonged to, nor did she think she would ever find out, but just gazing over at its presence was enough to satisfy her on those nights where she felt restless and fidgety.
“If only I could be out there,” she whispered sadly to herself, her tiny hands bunching up the bed sheets sprawled over her rickety cot. And oh, how she longed to walk amidst the grounds of Halloween Town; to roam and walk freely like a normal citizen taking in their town’s view, but she knew that she couldn’t.
Dr. Finklestein had told her many a time, and she always seemed to remember and repeat his monotonous lecture: “Sally, haven’t we been through this already? You’re a rag doll, an incomplete being, for you are merely a creation. Halloween Town will never accept you-- it’s dangerous out there. Too dangerous. I’m only keeping you in here for your own well being. Trust me my dear, it‘s a phase, and like all phases, it will pass.”
However, he had told her that over four months ago, and she was by no means over that so called phase. With every rustle of a fallen leaf, with every whisper of the passing wind, Sally yearned to connect to the world outside her imprisonment. Of course, she didn’t know what lay out there, she didn’t even know what the blasted town looked like, but if she was ever going to roam about, she was going to have to take a gander at it sometime.
There was only one thing that constantly got in the way of her freedom, and that was:
Dr. Finklestein.
Disclaimer: I do not own TNBC or any of its characters, Tim Burton does.
A couple of days had passed within the Finklestein household-- not as if Sally had noticed. She rarely cared for the time and date anymore, since it was useless for her to know anyway. Dr. Finklestein did his very best to keep poor Sally away from the “troubles” of the real world, and that meant keeping her on the down-low in the terms of time.
Sally didn’t quite mind it much, for she was always doing something around the house to keep her occupied, such as spinning new cobwebs to hang about the lofty corners of the dining room until the spiders could spin their own. The doctor had said that appearances meant everything and that meant that she had to do everything in her power to make the entirety of the house look presentable, less a special guest should come.
‘Funny, no one really comes here much,’ she thought to herself, extending her arm over to the far corner of the dining room table where she quickly draped a patch of cobwebs across the edge. She shakily shuffled a few inches back, since her legs were still wonky, and admired her handy-work, a stitched smile spreading as far as it could go over her pale blue face.
She sighed to herself and cocked her head. Was sewing the only thing that she was good at? By all means, she could cook a very mean meal, but the doctor often complained on how she prepared it, for she always used the most strangest of ingredients that were quite unsuitable to the doctor’s tastes. She always thought that she was doing right by picking the most freshest of herbs to boil in a steaming pot of crystal water when preparing a stew, but the doctor often scolded her and told her to only get the most expired ingredients when preparing a meal, and that, thought Sally, didn’t make sense to her at all.
In order to make a meal, weren’t you supposed to get the most fresh and pleasant tasting ingredients available to compliment the meal? She would often find herself searching in the cupboards for more agreeable sounding ingredients such as Rosemary or Nutmeg, but of course, being the doctor’s house, she could not find any. On many an occasion, she was forced to give up and use Witch’s Wart instead of the congenial Thyme.
And it still didn’t make sense to her.
She tried pointing her confusion to the doctor, but he had just scolded her and told her that she was distorted in the brain and couldn’t think like an average person. Was she really that abominable? Was there something horribly wrong with the make-up of her mind?
Sally always found herself getting depressed and gloomy when she thought about those things. It made her feel as if something were truly wrong with her, and that thought alone never settled with her. She tried consulting the doctor’s library on numerous occasions when she found herself lost or adrift, but the books never ended up helping her any for they were always based on strange topics such as “How to Cut Off the Head of a Sickened Sea Sprite” or “The Evolution of the Diseased Bat”, which really only confused her more.
Wasn’t there anything that made sense in the doctor’s home? Anything at all?
“Sally, are you finished with that stew yet?” Dr. Finklestein’s gritty voice rang from somewhere up above, echoing off the walls and down the stairwells that lead to the equally as gritty basement. Sally uncorked a bottle of Toad Sprinkles and swished the sprinkles around in the bottle, hunching her shoulders as the doctor let out another cry that filtered through her ears. She looked up, expecting to see his bulbous head glide along the stone banister, but of course he wasn’t there-- he was currently locked up in his lab, working on yet another experiment that she had no interest in knowing about.
She once again swirled the Toad sprinkles around and watched as the various assortments of green colored bits shook and rumbled against each other, before she shrugged her shoulders and poured a generous amount of the green stuff into the boiling cauldron set before her. An unpleasant rotting smell escaped the cauldron as fumes spiraled out like wisps of gnarled smoke. She choked back a stagnant cough and retreated from the cauldron to rummage in the cupboards for anything useful enough to gag over the horrific smell. Her eyes widened as she spotted a lonesome bottle of Frog’s Breath shuttled back into the far corner of the cupboard. She reached over and stuck her tiny hands in, trying to reach the bottle, but in doing so, she accidentally bumped into a jar of Witch’s Wart. The jar hurdled to the cobbled ground of the basement and shattered into a vast amount of shard-like pieces, scattering about the floor like glinting grains of sand. The liquid traveled over the ground slowly and seeped into the stones, staining them with their dreadful stench. If Sally could gag, she would most certainly have done so. She was very grateful that her insides were made up of nothing but crinkled leaves.
“What was that sound Sally?” the doctor yelled rather fiercely, his lab door shutting close. Sally’s eyes widened with blatant panic as she frantically (and shakily) ran about the basement in search of a broom and a mop. Not finding neither of them, Sally began to choke back unshed tears as the thought of the doctor’s scolding loomed dreadfully near. She hated when he scolded her; she always felt unworthy when he did that to her, and at most times, she was. If only she could be a bit more well balanced on her feet and a bit keener in the brain, maybe then the good doctor would recognize her more and give her the praise that she most certainly deserved.
Giving up on finding the broom and the mop, Sally backed away until she was standing beside the bubbling cauldron, tiny hands folded in front of her as she awaited for her creator. She could hear the mechanism of his wheel-chair creaking and groaning as he rumbled down the stairwell.
Finally, he reared ‘round the corner and halted in his movements, his beady little eyes immediately switching over to the broken jar of Witch’s Wart scattered about the ground. His thin lips pursed into a wrinkled snarl, his spaced teeth seemingly gritting against each other as his tiny and withered shoulders shook with anger.
“Although the scent is pleasing to the nose, you must clean this up Sally,” the doctor grit out, trying to keep his anger from bubbling over. “Why are you just standing there, insolent girl? You know better than that! Clean up this mess this instant, before I go over there and shred you to pieces!”
Sally quickly nodded her head. “Yes, of course, of course!”
The doctor sneered at her one more time, before he turned around with his wheelchair and headed back up the stairwell, the motor growing faint as he retreated farther and farther. Sally stared up at his retreating form, waiting until he was completely gone before she moved over to the glass shards. She bent down, biting at her lip, her shoulders shaking.
She truly hated being scold at.
‘Well, since there’s no broom…’ she trailed off. She began picking up the bigger pieces of glass with one of her hands, piling the shards onto the other hand while she continued to pick them up one by one. Some of the smaller bits embedded into her palm, which didn’t hurt her at all, and seeped into her skin. Even if it didn’t cause her pain, the feeling that they left behind in her palm made her feel off kilter.
She got up from the floor and carefully strode over to the cupboards, where she opened a door and gently places the glass shards on the top most shelf. She had decided that she would keep them there until she could find a proper broom and disposal can to dump them in.
Now to clean up the Witch’s Wart.
She grimaced as she stared at the putrid liquid running amuck across the basement floor. She cricked her head as indecision crept upon her, until she finally let out a final sigh and shied away from the mess. She supposed that since the doctor liked foul smells like Witch’s Wart, it wouldn’t hurt to have it perfume the air of the basement for a little while until the smell died out. Sure, it would be most unpleasant for her, but it wouldn’t harm the doctor none-- plus, she just wanted to get out of cleaning the darned mess altogether.
Bunching up her nose and trying to block out the retched smell, Sally began mixing a wooden spoon around the bubbling cauldron, green fumes spindling out and encasing her with their putrid scent.
She wouldn’t know if the soup would turn out right, because she wasn’t going to taste it.
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Sally sat at the edge of her bead, her tiny feet tracing patterns amidst the stone ground. Her head drooped and her shoulders were hunched, and once again, like many a night, she was feeling agitated.
She often asked herself, angrily might she add, why she was constantly bombarded with all these thoughts of escape and freedom and what not. Why should she be feeling these things at all? Her creator had slaved over his equipment and equations trying to build her and bring her to life, and what does she give in return? Her undying gratitude and loyalty?
Sally huffed, digging her fingernails into her cot. She wished she could give him loyalty and gratitude as freely as he would have wanted it-- she truly wished that she could be an obedient and responsive little creation towards her master, like a good little rag doll, but as each day passed and as more time elapsed, she constantly found herself on the brink of uncertainty.
Disobeying her masters orders, Sally quickly sprung from her bead (almost toppling over to the ground at the sudden movement) and unsteadily walked over towards her enormous window. She stood in front of it, staring up at the glowing yellow moon that hung over the sky like a giant beacon of illumination. She wasn’t sure if she should open the window or not, for she feared that if she did so, the doctor would unexpectedly wander into her room and catch her in the act.
After a few minutes worth of indecision, the sense of freedom overcame her very own will, and then her mind was set. She scooted closer to the window and unlatched it, jumping back as the window swung from its hinges and stood open like a welcoming embrace.
Sally’s eyes grew even wider than usual, her eyelashes fluttering as she blinked numerous times. Even though she often did this at times when she felt bored or flustered, she really never could get over that feeling of exhilaration whenever she felt that tantalizing breeze brushing across her skin.
She walked closer to the rim of the window, hesitantly jutting out her elbows and placing them on the metal window frame. She leaned in, her body supported by the window frame and her room’s wall, and basked in the moonlight, her eyes eagerly wandering and roaming as she took in the sight of the night world surrounding her.
It was magical to her, in an odd sense though. She couldn’t quite get the beauty from the gnarled and bare trees that dotted the outside like blotches on a painting, nor did she understand why they were still there in the first place, but it was a part of the world outside Dr. Finklestein’s dome, so they must serve some fantastic purpose. Just like any normal night, the atmosphere was practically rotting with gloom and obscurity, the ground swirling with grey and purple mist-- the moon was the only bright thing out there. It was strong, vibrant, and it tickled her very being to know that there was something out there so beautiful that it could shine so magnificently and hang up in the sky so that everyone could get a chance to marvel at it, even a worthless rag doll such as herself.
She smiled up at it, tracing invisible patterns about the air with her finger. She stared across at the misshapen tower hanging about like a rusty nail disembarking from a wall. That single, yellow light was on again, shining with full force so that the tower literally glowed amidst the back drop of its surroundings.
She yearned to know who lived there, what lived there, if there was even anyone that lived there, and why the light was only turned on during the night when the rest of the world should be sleeping. Whoever did live there, presuming that the tower was occupied, Sally’s heart reached out to them. She could sympathize because just like the being in the tower, she could not go to sleep very well. Her thoughts were too restless at night, and they sometimes seemed to suffocate her mind, which wasn’t very pleasant at all.
“I am hopeless,” she whispered to herself, sorrow lacing her voice. She often felt like that because she knew that staring out her window was the closest that she was going to get to feeling a breeze brush across her skin, or taking in the sights of the towers and oddly shaped buildings of the town that stood straight across from her. She didn’t even know the town’s name, which was a downright shame, since Dr. Finklestein never answered her questions any longer. When she was still fresh and new, he would gladly answer any little thing that spiked her curiosity, but now…he only got angry with her whenever she asked about something new concerning the town. It was almost as if he were actually trying to keep her in the dark about it.
“But I want to be free!” she spoke aloud, pressing into the window frame, leering her head out in the window. “I want to be out there. I need to be out there.”
She was looking at the tower in the distance, her eyes mesmerized on that single spot. She inched further, the upper part of her body sticking out the window like a rigid tree branch.
“I am so close, yet so very far away,” she whispered to the wind, and at that very same moment, as if the wind had listened to her plea and responded, a breeze racked through her body and made her lose her stability.
She could feel it, that sense of panic surging from within her until it coiled and sprang. She was tipping over, the top part of her body gradually sliding forward until she was nearly out the window entirely. She gasped, her tiny feet wriggling in the air, but they were too small to support her. She kept sliding and sliding, until she could no longer feel the support from the window frame, or anything at all.
Her eyes were wide, the first shock of perpetual fear clinging to her body like a cat’s sharpened claws, as the ground grew nearer. She closed her eyes, too afraid to open them, until she felt herself smack with a sickening thud against the leaf littered earth. She could hear the ripping of her limbs and she could feel her stitches coming apart with a quickness that seemed strange to her. Surely she still had some stitches left?
So she lay there, her face facing the moon, her eyes now wide open as she stared at the looming world around her. Despite her death defying fall, she could feel the electric tingle of excitement coursing through her. If she could hyperventilate, she would have surely done so, but she was far too thrilled to do anything of the sort.
The gnarled trees were much larger than she knew them to be. They practically soared into the sky in a mixture of twisted limbs and contorted bark.
‘They’re so tall,’ she wondered to herself, still amazed by their length. Actually, everything seemed as if it were larger than life and she just simply couldn’t get enough of it. She drank everything in, from the moon above to the outside appearance of Dr. Finklestein’s home. She never knew that it looked like that from the outside and she was amazed that it even looked that way.
‘I need to get up, I need to look at everything,’ she thought to herself. However, she found that she couldn’t move-- at all. She looked down at herself and gasped, her mouth hanging open like a window. Her limbs, her feet and both her arms were scattered about the ground, surrounded by their own cushioning of leaves. Her head was still connected to her torso, which was a fortunate case for her, but now she couldn’t even move! She didn’t even have any sewing supplies with her to mend her injuries!
She felt as if she should cry, and she would have, given if it were any other situation. She was still feeling that surge of excitement from before, which quelled her mortification at seeing her limbs strewn about the ground like worthless twigs.
‘Oh dear, how am I going to pull myself together?’ she asked herself morosely. She wasn’t prepared for any of this, not even being out here in the open, which was a dream that she wanted ever since her mind could form dreams.
A crunch in the distance.
And the rustles of leaves nearby.
Oh, it scared Sally so, for she was equally not as prepared to meet anyone yet. She could see her limbs twitching along with the apprehension she was feeling. She stared up at the sky, awaiting her fate as dense clouds began forming from above.
“What a pity.”
She refrained was gasping this time, and quickly jerked her head. She stared off into the distance, her eyes practically gluing to the form of a tall, thin figure currently walking across the earth towards the doctor’s place. As he grew near, her panic within her sky rocketed as she viewed the details pertaining to the strange figure.
He was certainly tall, with the skinniest legs and arms and an equally thin waist. Sporting an old fashioned pinstripe suit, and a black bowtie that was placed at the base of his neck, she saw that he wasn’t like anything that she could ever imagine.
The only people she could compare him to would be the doctor and Igor, since they were the only people that she knew, but him…that creature, walking very idly with a somber expression gracing that skeletal head of his, he was out of the ordinary.
“A skeleton,” she answered herself. Thankfully, she knew was a skeleton was, since the doctor had taught her about the inner workings of a regular body, but she always thought a skeleton was supposed to be in the inside of a body, not on the outside. This truly confused her, for she didn’t know what to think anymore.
It was strange how his skeletal face could contort into a vast array of expressions that flitted across his face, however somber they were. All the while she was watching him, she could make out the look of sadness, annoyance, anger, exasperation, and all those other kinds of feelings that splashed across his face like water.
And then she felt bad for him. She couldn’t help it.
He seemed so sad, so lonely. From the way he was walking, to the way his expressions changed, she couldn’t help but feel for him.
“He looks like I do when I want to go outside,” she whispered to herself, lidding her eyes. What could have caused that poor, thin creature to feel so downright horrible?
Lost in her musings, she didn’t notice when a shadow fell upon her, and then, as she screamed within her mind, she looked up.
The creature. The skeleton man was standing close to her on a dirt path, his head tilted up to the sky, his eye sockets squinting in thought.
He was staring at the moon.
“What a pity, the moon,” he said softly, holding a bony hand to his hip while the other dangled by his side.
Sally tried to be as perfectly still as possible, less he notice her, for he hadn’t. She didn’t want him to notice her anyway, not in the state that she was in.
As if her wished were granted, the skeleton man slowly walked away, heading back towards the town with his head still perked to the sky.
Grief filled Sally as he left; she too stared up at the moon. It was nearly covered by the swirling grey clouds that twirled about in the air, blocking its beauty from the world.
“What a pity,” she repeated, closing her eyes.
Genre: Supernatural/Romance
Rating: PG
Author: Sesshyfanchick
Fandom: The Nightmare Before Christmas
Pairings: Jack, Sally
Summary:Being a freshly created rag-doll, Sally must learn to overcome her obstacles from learning how to walk, talk, and think for herself. When her skills improve over a matter of time, she starts to yearn for the freedom that she so desperately wants, and for the attention of the strange skeleton man.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Nightmare Before Christmas or any of its characters. Rightful ownership goes to Tim Burton.
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When Sally was first created, it was hard for her to adjust to the accommodations of the physical world. Well, she was a rag doll, of course it would be rather difficult for her, for we all know for a fact that a rag doll cannot come to life, let alone perform physical ministrations. Sally was no exception to that rule when she first awoke strapped to the cold slab of an operating table, dying leaves scattered around her like a withering blanket. The atmosphere was morbid and mixed with tangents of macabre, as if the very air itself was swiveling with dank and dingy swirls of melancholic fumes.
Dr. Finklestein was beside her, staring at her with curiosity glittering in his beady eyes, that colossal cranium of his shining like a dull light bulb. He had a spool of thread and a glinting needle in his tiny gloved hands, a piece of thread dangling from the spool to show that he was already in the midst of adding the last and final stitches to Sally’s stitched chest.
Being a freshly born rag doll, Sally didn’t know how to respond-- how could she, she was a rag doll for heaven’s sake. She hadn’t a voice, or a will, or a train of thought. Just two pairs of eyes and the observance compared to that of a 3-month-year old child.
She had eyes of course, and she was trying very hard to learn how to use them properly, for the images surrounding her were fading in and out like a blur. Finally, when she managed to focus on the dawdling doctor beside her, she blinked her eyelids (which were stinging for some strange reason) and stared at him, her stitched eyelashes seemingly enlarging her already massive oracles.
The doctor let a wicked smile snarl along his trumped lips, his disintegrating teeth spaced apart and leering out his mouth like stubs of white and gnarled marshmallows. His heart was palpating, although it wasn’t alive, it was probably just doing that because of the rotting juices swiveling around inside his body, but it was close enough.
He was feeling an energy surge of untamed pride as he sat there in his rickety motor-powered wheel chair, staring down at the creation that he had made with his very own hands. It had taken a whole five months in preparation and creation to construct her body and fill it with all sorts of appropriate cushioning, such as little snips of twigs and crunchy autumn leaves, and it had been even more difficult to stitch her body up and compose it in such a way so that she would have the base and outline of a human, but not too human. No, it would have been a mistake on his part if she were to look like a flesh walker, because to put it simply, flesh walkers were not entirely too welcome on the streets of Halloween Town, being that they were the source of mutilating screams that the Halloweeners were always seeking after.
“Hello, my dear,” Dr. Finklestein greeted his creation, fake pleasantry lacing his voice like a bitter sauce. Sally stared at him without a trace of recognition showing on her stitched face. She couldn’t do anything anyway, her mind was still fresh and new and she couldn’t yet comprehend even the most basic of principles. So she did what she could-- she simply stared straight at him.
Dr. Finklestein smiled down at her, his grin growing large across his wrinkled face. “It’s alright, my dear, we’ll work on that in a matter of time.”
She couldn’t understand what he was saying to her; his words were nothing but a gnarled and jumbled mess of sounds that she couldn’t possibly fathom to interpret. Actually, she wasn’t really thinking to begin with, being that once again, her brain was fresh and new…if she even had a brain that is.
“Rest my dear, you simply need to rest,” he told her in a soothing tone, which was probably as soothing as a boiling pot of Deadly Night Shade, but who could complain? Once again, Sally simply could not understand him until Dr. Finklestein’s tiny and withered hands came into her view and tried to cover her two massive eyes, and so, in natural response, Sally immediately closed them.
The rest of the hours that passed were spent with her lying there on the table while Dr. Finklestein tried to add the last finishing touches to his nearly completed masterpiece.
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Over the next two months, Sally’s development had steadily progressed. She was now able to respond to her environment given the situation, and she was always fully attentive and alert with her surroundings. Although she couldn’t yet walk properly on her own (or speak), she was perfectly fine with just sitting around and silently observing her creator and master as he milled about his lab and attended to his various experiments.
Dr. Finklestein was blatantly pleased by Sally’s progression in her motor and communication skills, for she would often point or stare at an object that needed clarification and he would gladly teach her about said object, for he never refused an opportunity to instruct her on the ways of life. You see, he wanted her intelligence to expand to a whole different level, then surely, most surely, he would be recognized and acknowledged by the whole of Halloween Town! Why, even Jack, The Pumpkin King would praise him for this amazing feat. Oh, how the doctor couldn’t wait for Sally to become fully developed.
He stared at her with a wicked twinkle in his eye, his mind painting images of praise and fame so much like that which was often hailed to The Pumpkin King.
Indeed, the doctor could hardly wait.
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Three months had passed and Sally was doing an exceptional job in her progression. Not only could she walk (with the assistance of a random wall to prop her up or a wobbly chair to stable herself), but she could now speak. Her vocabulary wasn’t very large, but the doctor didn’t have any qualms about that. He fully believed that she would be capable of intellectual conversation given months time, and he was fully prepared to instruct her in the ways of casual and formal conversation.
“Master.”
It was a pleasant voice, a soft and gentle one, a voice that made Dr. Finklestein cringe whenever he had the pleasure to hear it, for he did not take to sweet things. Sally never understood what made her creator cringe so, but to compensate for that, she tried her best to be a diligent and practiced pupil. She wanted to be worthy of him as his creation and she especially enjoyed when he would give the random praiseful comment to her from time to time, although they had been growing few in number over the past couple of months.
“Yes, Sally?” The doctor asked, piquing his head to look at her before he returned his focus back to his current experiment, which was trying to convert pumpkin juice into an efficient fossil fuel. “Haven’t I told you to not come into the lab without my permission?”
Sally stared at him for a bit, puzzlement etched on her stitched face, trying to discern the choice of words that he had used to address her. “P-per-miss-. . .?”
The doctor sighed and grumbled a hasty, “Permission, Sally.”
Sally nodded to herself and twiddled her fingers in front of her, her balance starting to waver off. She looked over at a stable looking metal chair that was propped at the far end of the room, its stability looking mighty tempting as she scanned the rest of laboratory for any other props that would be able to support her weight. She didn’t want to go near the operating tables and chairs near Dr. Finkelstein, for she feared that if she did, he would growl at her or scold her for being in the way.
She never liked it when he scolded her.
“Well then, what do you have to say for yourself?”
Sally looked and cocked her head, her fingers still twiddling out in front of her. She had absolutely no idea what to say to him. What could she say? Her sentences were shamefully fragmented and she didn’t have enough time to think up of a full and proper sentence what with her creator sitting before her and giving her the quizzical eye.
“I…I…sorry,” she whispered quickly, bowing her head a bit to show that she indeed felt regret at breaking one of his clearly laid out rules. The last time that she had stumbled into his laboratory without his permission he had removed one of her arms and kept it with him for half of the day, leaving her feeling confused and lost as to what she had done to deserve that kind of punishment.
But she dare not do it again. Only this time, it hadn’t been her fault. Igor had told her that the doctor had wanted to see her, and by the looks of it, it seemed as if Igor had told her an outright lie.
“Tsk,” Dr. Finklestein grumbled. He waved his hand at her and dismissed her. “You may leave now Sally. Go up to your room for the rest of the night. Do you understand?”
She remained where she was for a couple of minutes, trying to fabricate his words to dissect their meaning, until she finally got it and quietly left the room.
She gloomily trudged all the way up the stairs to her dingy room at the top of the house.
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Another five months had passed, creating a grand total of 10 months. Sally had developed into a speaking, walking, and mildly intellectual young rag doll. She was by no means the smartest person alive, but she was capable of formulating quick sentences and as of late, deep thoughts-- or as deep as she could get them to be.
She could walk just fine, no longer needing the extra stability of a chair or a wall to get her along throughout the doctor’s house. She was still a bit wobbly on her legs, but she supposed that was just an malfunction that wouldn’t be corrected any time soon. It was a part of her, and she accepted that.
Her gentle voice was no longer impaired by short fragments and disconnected words. She could now speak fluidly and could respond on command without having to think of what she was going to say. This certainly pleased her, for she no longer had to feel embarrassed when asked a question on the spot.
However, despite the amazing progression in her motor skills and things of that sort, she couldn’t help but feel…what was the word? Impatient?
Sally nodded to herself, piquing her head as she stared at the enormous hinged window located in her dank room.
She couldn’t really pin-point the cause of her impatience, for she didn’t quite understand it to begin with. Why was it that whenever she looked over at her window, a rebellious feeling came over her and captured her very heart and soul? Sometimes, going against her creator’s orders, she would go over to the window, unlatch it and push it open. She reveled in the cold and wispy breeze that always greeted her from the outside world and then all of a sudden, a lurching feeling of insurgence would overwhelm her very being and then she felt as if she wanted to jump from the very window itself!
However, to dispel her thoughts, she would look over at the badly misshapen tower that loomed ominously in the distance, with its single glowing light that illuminated from within, and she would feel calm and patient again, as if the thoughts were never even there.
The tower always seemed to calm her for some strange reason, as if she were looking over at an accommodating beacon of hope. She didn’t know who or what the tower belonged to, nor did she think she would ever find out, but just gazing over at its presence was enough to satisfy her on those nights where she felt restless and fidgety.
“If only I could be out there,” she whispered sadly to herself, her tiny hands bunching up the bed sheets sprawled over her rickety cot. And oh, how she longed to walk amidst the grounds of Halloween Town; to roam and walk freely like a normal citizen taking in their town’s view, but she knew that she couldn’t.
Dr. Finklestein had told her many a time, and she always seemed to remember and repeat his monotonous lecture: “Sally, haven’t we been through this already? You’re a rag doll, an incomplete being, for you are merely a creation. Halloween Town will never accept you-- it’s dangerous out there. Too dangerous. I’m only keeping you in here for your own well being. Trust me my dear, it‘s a phase, and like all phases, it will pass.”
However, he had told her that over four months ago, and she was by no means over that so called phase. With every rustle of a fallen leaf, with every whisper of the passing wind, Sally yearned to connect to the world outside her imprisonment. Of course, she didn’t know what lay out there, she didn’t even know what the blasted town looked like, but if she was ever going to roam about, she was going to have to take a gander at it sometime.
There was only one thing that constantly got in the way of her freedom, and that was:
Dr. Finklestein.
Chapter: 2
Rating: PG
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own TNBC or any of its characters, Tim Burton does.
Chapter 2: The Skeleton Man
A couple of days had passed within the Finklestein household-- not as if Sally had noticed. She rarely cared for the time and date anymore, since it was useless for her to know anyway. Dr. Finklestein did his very best to keep poor Sally away from the “troubles” of the real world, and that meant keeping her on the down-low in the terms of time.
Sally didn’t quite mind it much, for she was always doing something around the house to keep her occupied, such as spinning new cobwebs to hang about the lofty corners of the dining room until the spiders could spin their own. The doctor had said that appearances meant everything and that meant that she had to do everything in her power to make the entirety of the house look presentable, less a special guest should come.
‘Funny, no one really comes here much,’ she thought to herself, extending her arm over to the far corner of the dining room table where she quickly draped a patch of cobwebs across the edge. She shakily shuffled a few inches back, since her legs were still wonky, and admired her handy-work, a stitched smile spreading as far as it could go over her pale blue face.
She sighed to herself and cocked her head. Was sewing the only thing that she was good at? By all means, she could cook a very mean meal, but the doctor often complained on how she prepared it, for she always used the most strangest of ingredients that were quite unsuitable to the doctor’s tastes. She always thought that she was doing right by picking the most freshest of herbs to boil in a steaming pot of crystal water when preparing a stew, but the doctor often scolded her and told her to only get the most expired ingredients when preparing a meal, and that, thought Sally, didn’t make sense to her at all.
In order to make a meal, weren’t you supposed to get the most fresh and pleasant tasting ingredients available to compliment the meal? She would often find herself searching in the cupboards for more agreeable sounding ingredients such as Rosemary or Nutmeg, but of course, being the doctor’s house, she could not find any. On many an occasion, she was forced to give up and use Witch’s Wart instead of the congenial Thyme.
And it still didn’t make sense to her.
She tried pointing her confusion to the doctor, but he had just scolded her and told her that she was distorted in the brain and couldn’t think like an average person. Was she really that abominable? Was there something horribly wrong with the make-up of her mind?
Sally always found herself getting depressed and gloomy when she thought about those things. It made her feel as if something were truly wrong with her, and that thought alone never settled with her. She tried consulting the doctor’s library on numerous occasions when she found herself lost or adrift, but the books never ended up helping her any for they were always based on strange topics such as “How to Cut Off the Head of a Sickened Sea Sprite” or “The Evolution of the Diseased Bat”, which really only confused her more.
Wasn’t there anything that made sense in the doctor’s home? Anything at all?
“Sally, are you finished with that stew yet?” Dr. Finklestein’s gritty voice rang from somewhere up above, echoing off the walls and down the stairwells that lead to the equally as gritty basement. Sally uncorked a bottle of Toad Sprinkles and swished the sprinkles around in the bottle, hunching her shoulders as the doctor let out another cry that filtered through her ears. She looked up, expecting to see his bulbous head glide along the stone banister, but of course he wasn’t there-- he was currently locked up in his lab, working on yet another experiment that she had no interest in knowing about.
She once again swirled the Toad sprinkles around and watched as the various assortments of green colored bits shook and rumbled against each other, before she shrugged her shoulders and poured a generous amount of the green stuff into the boiling cauldron set before her. An unpleasant rotting smell escaped the cauldron as fumes spiraled out like wisps of gnarled smoke. She choked back a stagnant cough and retreated from the cauldron to rummage in the cupboards for anything useful enough to gag over the horrific smell. Her eyes widened as she spotted a lonesome bottle of Frog’s Breath shuttled back into the far corner of the cupboard. She reached over and stuck her tiny hands in, trying to reach the bottle, but in doing so, she accidentally bumped into a jar of Witch’s Wart. The jar hurdled to the cobbled ground of the basement and shattered into a vast amount of shard-like pieces, scattering about the floor like glinting grains of sand. The liquid traveled over the ground slowly and seeped into the stones, staining them with their dreadful stench. If Sally could gag, she would most certainly have done so. She was very grateful that her insides were made up of nothing but crinkled leaves.
“What was that sound Sally?” the doctor yelled rather fiercely, his lab door shutting close. Sally’s eyes widened with blatant panic as she frantically (and shakily) ran about the basement in search of a broom and a mop. Not finding neither of them, Sally began to choke back unshed tears as the thought of the doctor’s scolding loomed dreadfully near. She hated when he scolded her; she always felt unworthy when he did that to her, and at most times, she was. If only she could be a bit more well balanced on her feet and a bit keener in the brain, maybe then the good doctor would recognize her more and give her the praise that she most certainly deserved.
Giving up on finding the broom and the mop, Sally backed away until she was standing beside the bubbling cauldron, tiny hands folded in front of her as she awaited for her creator. She could hear the mechanism of his wheel-chair creaking and groaning as he rumbled down the stairwell.
Finally, he reared ‘round the corner and halted in his movements, his beady little eyes immediately switching over to the broken jar of Witch’s Wart scattered about the ground. His thin lips pursed into a wrinkled snarl, his spaced teeth seemingly gritting against each other as his tiny and withered shoulders shook with anger.
“Although the scent is pleasing to the nose, you must clean this up Sally,” the doctor grit out, trying to keep his anger from bubbling over. “Why are you just standing there, insolent girl? You know better than that! Clean up this mess this instant, before I go over there and shred you to pieces!”
Sally quickly nodded her head. “Yes, of course, of course!”
The doctor sneered at her one more time, before he turned around with his wheelchair and headed back up the stairwell, the motor growing faint as he retreated farther and farther. Sally stared up at his retreating form, waiting until he was completely gone before she moved over to the glass shards. She bent down, biting at her lip, her shoulders shaking.
She truly hated being scold at.
‘Well, since there’s no broom…’ she trailed off. She began picking up the bigger pieces of glass with one of her hands, piling the shards onto the other hand while she continued to pick them up one by one. Some of the smaller bits embedded into her palm, which didn’t hurt her at all, and seeped into her skin. Even if it didn’t cause her pain, the feeling that they left behind in her palm made her feel off kilter.
She got up from the floor and carefully strode over to the cupboards, where she opened a door and gently places the glass shards on the top most shelf. She had decided that she would keep them there until she could find a proper broom and disposal can to dump them in.
Now to clean up the Witch’s Wart.
She grimaced as she stared at the putrid liquid running amuck across the basement floor. She cricked her head as indecision crept upon her, until she finally let out a final sigh and shied away from the mess. She supposed that since the doctor liked foul smells like Witch’s Wart, it wouldn’t hurt to have it perfume the air of the basement for a little while until the smell died out. Sure, it would be most unpleasant for her, but it wouldn’t harm the doctor none-- plus, she just wanted to get out of cleaning the darned mess altogether.
Bunching up her nose and trying to block out the retched smell, Sally began mixing a wooden spoon around the bubbling cauldron, green fumes spindling out and encasing her with their putrid scent.
She wouldn’t know if the soup would turn out right, because she wasn’t going to taste it.
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Sally sat at the edge of her bead, her tiny feet tracing patterns amidst the stone ground. Her head drooped and her shoulders were hunched, and once again, like many a night, she was feeling agitated.
She often asked herself, angrily might she add, why she was constantly bombarded with all these thoughts of escape and freedom and what not. Why should she be feeling these things at all? Her creator had slaved over his equipment and equations trying to build her and bring her to life, and what does she give in return? Her undying gratitude and loyalty?
Sally huffed, digging her fingernails into her cot. She wished she could give him loyalty and gratitude as freely as he would have wanted it-- she truly wished that she could be an obedient and responsive little creation towards her master, like a good little rag doll, but as each day passed and as more time elapsed, she constantly found herself on the brink of uncertainty.
Disobeying her masters orders, Sally quickly sprung from her bead (almost toppling over to the ground at the sudden movement) and unsteadily walked over towards her enormous window. She stood in front of it, staring up at the glowing yellow moon that hung over the sky like a giant beacon of illumination. She wasn’t sure if she should open the window or not, for she feared that if she did so, the doctor would unexpectedly wander into her room and catch her in the act.
After a few minutes worth of indecision, the sense of freedom overcame her very own will, and then her mind was set. She scooted closer to the window and unlatched it, jumping back as the window swung from its hinges and stood open like a welcoming embrace.
Sally’s eyes grew even wider than usual, her eyelashes fluttering as she blinked numerous times. Even though she often did this at times when she felt bored or flustered, she really never could get over that feeling of exhilaration whenever she felt that tantalizing breeze brushing across her skin.
She walked closer to the rim of the window, hesitantly jutting out her elbows and placing them on the metal window frame. She leaned in, her body supported by the window frame and her room’s wall, and basked in the moonlight, her eyes eagerly wandering and roaming as she took in the sight of the night world surrounding her.
It was magical to her, in an odd sense though. She couldn’t quite get the beauty from the gnarled and bare trees that dotted the outside like blotches on a painting, nor did she understand why they were still there in the first place, but it was a part of the world outside Dr. Finklestein’s dome, so they must serve some fantastic purpose. Just like any normal night, the atmosphere was practically rotting with gloom and obscurity, the ground swirling with grey and purple mist-- the moon was the only bright thing out there. It was strong, vibrant, and it tickled her very being to know that there was something out there so beautiful that it could shine so magnificently and hang up in the sky so that everyone could get a chance to marvel at it, even a worthless rag doll such as herself.
She smiled up at it, tracing invisible patterns about the air with her finger. She stared across at the misshapen tower hanging about like a rusty nail disembarking from a wall. That single, yellow light was on again, shining with full force so that the tower literally glowed amidst the back drop of its surroundings.
She yearned to know who lived there, what lived there, if there was even anyone that lived there, and why the light was only turned on during the night when the rest of the world should be sleeping. Whoever did live there, presuming that the tower was occupied, Sally’s heart reached out to them. She could sympathize because just like the being in the tower, she could not go to sleep very well. Her thoughts were too restless at night, and they sometimes seemed to suffocate her mind, which wasn’t very pleasant at all.
“I am hopeless,” she whispered to herself, sorrow lacing her voice. She often felt like that because she knew that staring out her window was the closest that she was going to get to feeling a breeze brush across her skin, or taking in the sights of the towers and oddly shaped buildings of the town that stood straight across from her. She didn’t even know the town’s name, which was a downright shame, since Dr. Finklestein never answered her questions any longer. When she was still fresh and new, he would gladly answer any little thing that spiked her curiosity, but now…he only got angry with her whenever she asked about something new concerning the town. It was almost as if he were actually trying to keep her in the dark about it.
“But I want to be free!” she spoke aloud, pressing into the window frame, leering her head out in the window. “I want to be out there. I need to be out there.”
She was looking at the tower in the distance, her eyes mesmerized on that single spot. She inched further, the upper part of her body sticking out the window like a rigid tree branch.
“I am so close, yet so very far away,” she whispered to the wind, and at that very same moment, as if the wind had listened to her plea and responded, a breeze racked through her body and made her lose her stability.
She could feel it, that sense of panic surging from within her until it coiled and sprang. She was tipping over, the top part of her body gradually sliding forward until she was nearly out the window entirely. She gasped, her tiny feet wriggling in the air, but they were too small to support her. She kept sliding and sliding, until she could no longer feel the support from the window frame, or anything at all.
Her eyes were wide, the first shock of perpetual fear clinging to her body like a cat’s sharpened claws, as the ground grew nearer. She closed her eyes, too afraid to open them, until she felt herself smack with a sickening thud against the leaf littered earth. She could hear the ripping of her limbs and she could feel her stitches coming apart with a quickness that seemed strange to her. Surely she still had some stitches left?
So she lay there, her face facing the moon, her eyes now wide open as she stared at the looming world around her. Despite her death defying fall, she could feel the electric tingle of excitement coursing through her. If she could hyperventilate, she would have surely done so, but she was far too thrilled to do anything of the sort.
The gnarled trees were much larger than she knew them to be. They practically soared into the sky in a mixture of twisted limbs and contorted bark.
‘They’re so tall,’ she wondered to herself, still amazed by their length. Actually, everything seemed as if it were larger than life and she just simply couldn’t get enough of it. She drank everything in, from the moon above to the outside appearance of Dr. Finklestein’s home. She never knew that it looked like that from the outside and she was amazed that it even looked that way.
‘I need to get up, I need to look at everything,’ she thought to herself. However, she found that she couldn’t move-- at all. She looked down at herself and gasped, her mouth hanging open like a window. Her limbs, her feet and both her arms were scattered about the ground, surrounded by their own cushioning of leaves. Her head was still connected to her torso, which was a fortunate case for her, but now she couldn’t even move! She didn’t even have any sewing supplies with her to mend her injuries!
She felt as if she should cry, and she would have, given if it were any other situation. She was still feeling that surge of excitement from before, which quelled her mortification at seeing her limbs strewn about the ground like worthless twigs.
‘Oh dear, how am I going to pull myself together?’ she asked herself morosely. She wasn’t prepared for any of this, not even being out here in the open, which was a dream that she wanted ever since her mind could form dreams.
A crunch in the distance.
And the rustles of leaves nearby.
Oh, it scared Sally so, for she was equally not as prepared to meet anyone yet. She could see her limbs twitching along with the apprehension she was feeling. She stared up at the sky, awaiting her fate as dense clouds began forming from above.
“What a pity.”
She refrained was gasping this time, and quickly jerked her head. She stared off into the distance, her eyes practically gluing to the form of a tall, thin figure currently walking across the earth towards the doctor’s place. As he grew near, her panic within her sky rocketed as she viewed the details pertaining to the strange figure.
He was certainly tall, with the skinniest legs and arms and an equally thin waist. Sporting an old fashioned pinstripe suit, and a black bowtie that was placed at the base of his neck, she saw that he wasn’t like anything that she could ever imagine.
The only people she could compare him to would be the doctor and Igor, since they were the only people that she knew, but him…that creature, walking very idly with a somber expression gracing that skeletal head of his, he was out of the ordinary.
“A skeleton,” she answered herself. Thankfully, she knew was a skeleton was, since the doctor had taught her about the inner workings of a regular body, but she always thought a skeleton was supposed to be in the inside of a body, not on the outside. This truly confused her, for she didn’t know what to think anymore.
It was strange how his skeletal face could contort into a vast array of expressions that flitted across his face, however somber they were. All the while she was watching him, she could make out the look of sadness, annoyance, anger, exasperation, and all those other kinds of feelings that splashed across his face like water.
And then she felt bad for him. She couldn’t help it.
He seemed so sad, so lonely. From the way he was walking, to the way his expressions changed, she couldn’t help but feel for him.
“He looks like I do when I want to go outside,” she whispered to herself, lidding her eyes. What could have caused that poor, thin creature to feel so downright horrible?
Lost in her musings, she didn’t notice when a shadow fell upon her, and then, as she screamed within her mind, she looked up.
The creature. The skeleton man was standing close to her on a dirt path, his head tilted up to the sky, his eye sockets squinting in thought.
He was staring at the moon.
“What a pity, the moon,” he said softly, holding a bony hand to his hip while the other dangled by his side.
Sally tried to be as perfectly still as possible, less he notice her, for he hadn’t. She didn’t want him to notice her anyway, not in the state that she was in.
As if her wished were granted, the skeleton man slowly walked away, heading back towards the town with his head still perked to the sky.
Grief filled Sally as he left; she too stared up at the moon. It was nearly covered by the swirling grey clouds that twirled about in the air, blocking its beauty from the world.
“What a pity,” she repeated, closing her eyes.
