Chapter 4
– Abused and Abuser
Once Elena arrives on the third
floor, she sees that the floor is gone and the only thing that she can walk on
to explore further are spikes that jut out from below.
“Am I really supposed to walk across
these?” Elena asks herself.
She looks around to see that there’s
no way around the spikes and makes sure what she sees isn’t an illusion by
touching a spike with her finger.
“I guess I don’t have a choice.”
Elena carefully walks across the
spikes to discover that they don’t hurt her feet.
“I just have to walk like the
princesses in the fairy tales. Soft steps. Soft steps…”
With soft and careful steps, Elena
makes it through the spikes and steps on a platform only to see nothing to step
on ahead of besides darkness.
“Now what…”
“Now, you trust me,” a familiar voice
says.
Elena looks in the darkness to see
the faint face of the girl who is supposed to be working with Mia’s parents.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to fall into the
darkness. You will shatter, but I will put you back together.”
“I’ll…shatter?”
“This is what scares away everyone
and convinces the other dolls to hate us. I wish this could be done
differently, but Mia has set it up this way. The only way, so you’ll have to
trust me.”
“…Okay. I see. You’ll have to tell
me one thing for me to trust you.”
“What is it?”
“What’s your name?”
“My name?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Camilla.”
“My name is Elena. It’s um. Nice to
meet you.”
“Now will you trust me?”
“Yes...”
Elena takes a step into the
darkness and falls until she shatters on the floor. She’s then put back
together with magic. When she regains consciousness, she takes a breath of
relief.
Camilla walks out of the darkness
and says, “You are the strangest doll I’ve ever seen. You seem so shy and scared,
but you’ve done something that even the bravest dolls refused to do.”
“That’s because I want to go back
home to my parents. Now tell me how I can be free along with the others.”
“I don’t have any control over that.
Mia does.”
“Mia’s parents are here with you,
right? Can I talk to them?”
“Go right ahead. You’ve shown them
that they can trust you.”
The same large doll that Elena saw
before comes out of the darkness except now she sees all the deformed limbs and
other cracks and holes on the doll that would suggest that it shouldn’t be
living or living comfortably at least.
“E-excuse me. Can you talk to Mia
to free us from this place?”
The large doll touches Elena’s
forehead and shows her the full memory of what started this. After their
magical clash, Mia’s parents forced her and themselves into this mansion to
contain Mia’s rage.
“I’ll make sure no other doll
suffers because of their abusive parents!” Mia proclaims, “I’ll do the same
thing to them that I did to you when I get out of here!”
Mia places a spell of her own on
the mansion that attracts hundreds of young dolls who have suffered because of
their parents.
Once the vision is gone, Elena
says, “So, you placed the spell that trapped Mia and yourselves here.”
“We did it to trap our dangerous
daughter in here. We did it to make her learn her lesson,” Mia’s parents say in
a combined and pained voice.
“That’s not going to do anything.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I suggest that you go talk to her.”
“She’ll just fight us. Do you see
what she did to my face?” Camilla says.
“You have to try,” Elena persists.
“What makes you think she’ll listen
to us?”
“You’re her parents. You love her,
don’t you? If you can do all this magic, you can make your daughter see that
you love her, right?”
“…We’ll try.”
Mia’s parents make a large door
appear in the darkness that they open.
“I hope you’re right about this.
Otherwise, things are going to get really messy,” Camilla says.
“This should work,” Elena says with
some confidence.
Mia’s parents, Camilla, and Elena
walk through the large door that leads to where Mia and the other dolls are on
the ground floor. The dolls scatter in fear as Mia stands her ground.
“I see that you monsters now have
two lapdogs and you say I’m the one with devil horns. I wonder where I get them
from,” Mia says.
Mia’s parents clench their fists.
Elena holds their hand to calm them down.
“Mia…We want to apologize to you
for what we did,” Mia’s parents say as they get down on one knee to lower
themselves to her.
“I want to apologize to you for
hitting you. I lost myself in my anger again despite promising not to,” her
father says as his voice becomes dominant, “Can you please, forgive me?”
“I…I won’t!”
“Mia,” her mother’s voice says as her
voice becomes dominant.
“What?!”
“We love you. We’re sorry that we’re
not the parents that you want, but we’re still your mom and dad. It’s our responsibility
to take care of you and love you no matter what, so that’s why we promise to
try harder this time. Can you forgive us?”
Mia begins to break into tears.
“Your-your magic isn’t going to
help you convince me! This is a trick! I…I…”
Mia’s parents embrace her as she
cries.
“Mia. We love you,” her parents say
in one voice.
Mia continues to cry until she
gives in to her feelings and hugs her parents. The other dolls come out of hiding
and in tears wishing they were with their parents.
“I…I love you too, mom and dad,”
Mia says in a pained voice.
With Mia’s confession of love for
her parents, they turn back to normal and the doors of the mansion open as the
entire place is filled with light. Mia and her parents promise to help the
dolls with their abusive parents as they get rid of their magic powers.
Elena asks, “Aren’t you going to
use your magic to help other people?”
“Magic didn’t help us come
together. It only separated us. Instead, it was the love between us that solved
everything. Magic shouldn’t be used by anyone anyway. It’s too powerful and
evil,” Mia’s dad says.
“Oh. Well, I’m going to go back
home to my parents. They’re probably worried about me.”
“I’ll see you in town, Elena, we’ll
be around. If you need help or a friend, don’t be afraid to ask,” Mia says.
“Okay. I hope to see you soon!”
Elena says goodbye to Mia, her parents,
and other dolls as she goes back home. She’s hesitant as she nears her house
and is shocked to see her parents waiting at the front of the house. As she
cautiously approaches them, they catch her in their sights and run towards her.
“Elena! You got us so worried when
you ran away!” her dad says.
Elena’s natural reaction makes her
close her eyes and raise her hands, but instead of being scolded, she is embraced
by her mom and dad.
“Are you okay, Elena?” her mom
asks.
“Y-yes. I’m sorry for running away,
mom and dad. I was afraid of getting hit by you for no good reason.”
“Don’t worry about that. We forgive
you, Elena.”
“Please, don’t scare us like that
again, okay?”
“O-okay.”
Elena says as she begins to cry.
Her parents pick her up, take her home, and make her a big dinner to celebrate
her return.
The
End
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