Authors: Yolanda Olson
around frantically to make sure no one had seen me. It seemed
like beside the one man I had run into I was alone in the street.
Letting out a sigh, I placed the door next to the cube and pulled
out a paper. October 2nd it said.
Closing my eyes, I recited the months to myself trying to
remember the month I had left London in. April. It was April. So
then how long had I been asleep?
April, May, June, July, August, September, October.
There was no way.
I couldn’t have slept for six months.
That left me with less time than I had imagined.
Why hadn’t Morrison thought to wake me up? I couldn’t have
alienated her in the span of a couple of nights, could I?
I felt a surge of what I assumed to be anger. I would never
have left her vulnerable and sleeping for as long as she left me,
alienated or not. In that moment I decided that I could no longer
trust her.
Placing the newspaper back in its little box, I started to walk
toward the center of town. I had no desire to go back to the
factory tonight and I had never been to the center of town.
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It didn’t take me long to reach my destination though I had no
idea what my intentions were of being there. The deeper into the
heart of the town that I walked, the more I noticed droves of
people huddled outside of doors, talking loudly amongst each
other or smoking by themselves.
I was continuing on my way when I noticed one of the
females staring intently at me in the middle of her group of
friends. She had long light pink hair, reminiscent of cotton candy.
Her bangs were cut right above her steel blue-gray eyes and her
oval face held the innocence of a newborn angel. Little golden
key earrings, swayed gently beneath her hair as she swiveled her
head to get a better look at me.
I stopped for just a moment to take her in. She looked almost
radiant in her white dress with a pink floral design generously
smattered about. Her legs seemed to be impossibly long for
someone as small as she was. I noticed her trick when I looked
down at her feet and saw that she was wearing some type of shoes
with a large, curved heel on them.
I had never seen her before but she obviously seemed to have
a very stark interest in me. If she knew what I was I was almost
certain she and her friends would go back inside of their music
and drink filled building and continue their night.
Out of curiosity I decided to head into the building she stood
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in front of staring at me so intently to see if maybe I could find out what she wanted from me.
As I disappeared into the dimly lit building, I was
overwhelmed by all the sensations that came over me. The music
was so loud that it seemed to shake me from the inside out. There
were lights that flashed colors that I didn’t know where possible.
It smelled of sweat and passion as couples danced together; their
bodies pressed tightly against one another. I pushed my way past
them as I tried to make it to the long table that seemed to wrap
around part of the room with small stools in front of it. I noticed that here it smelled of sweat and desolation. Some people were
sitting together in small groups laughing and talking, while others were sitting alone, hunched over their small glasses of dark
liquids.
This was too much for me to take in all at once.
I made my way back out into the night air and past the cluster
of people that seemed to be making their way in.
She was still there, small and devious as ever.
She kept her hands in her pockets and her face was as hard as
stone as we locked eyes. Nodding at her, I made my way past her
and her group of friends, feeling her eyes boring holes through
me the entire time.
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The more I thought of it as I walked the more my instinct was
to get as far away from her as possible and I had every intention
of doing so. As I turned the next corner I heard footsteps behind
me. One hindrance of having being made and not born, was that
at times like this I wasn’t able to distinguish if the footsteps were closer or further than I thought.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw a flash of pink duck into
an alley.
Not as fast as you’d like to be, are you? I thought to myself
with a grim smile.
Angel Face was following me and I wasn’t sure why.
A plan suddenly formed in my head. I knew where I would
draw her to and it would be somewhere she wouldn’t have a place
to hide. I looked both ways at the crossroads and walked quickly
to the other side. My memory was all I could rely on now to get
me back to where I needed to get her.
Her footsteps behind me quickened as I picked up speed. I
was going to make sure she was exhausted before I got her there
that way she wouldn’t pose as big as a danger to me as she might
like to.
I never glanced behind me again because I knew she would
always be there, instead after each turn onto a new block, I would 79
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quicken my pace even more. A grin formed on my face as after a
few more moments I saw the park where I had met Finnegan in
front of me. Maybe she would be there tonight and we could
interrogate Angel Face together; I wasn’t sure but I knew I could
do it alone if I had too.
I lowered my head as I walked even faster into the darkness of
the empty park and made my way to the swing set, disappointed
in the fact that she wasn’t there that night. Behind me I heard the muffled jogging of my pursuer as she followed me directly into
my new comfort zone.
I stopped walking and turned to face her.
It was so unexpected that she almost ran into me. I looked
down at her. She came up to my chest but for some reason I just
knew she was dangerous by the way she stared up at me. Backing
up a bit she put her hands back into her pockets and looked at me
vacantly, almost as if she were suddenly in a trance.
“What’s your name?” I asked her coldly.
“Cassara.”
Her voice sounded like wind chimes as a soft breeze passes by.
“Why are you following me Cassara?” I inquired.
She didn’t answer me; instead she backed away just a little
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further, keeping her eyes locked on mine. Tilting her head slightly she smiled, revealing a row of perfect and impossibly white teeth.
“I’ve been trying to find you,” she said softly.
A look of confusion crossed my face as she took her hands
out of her pockets and balled them into fists at her side.
“What?”
She put one of her hands over her mouth as she giggled.
Something was definitely wrong with Cassara and I was starting
to feel that familiar twinge of fear.
When she was done laughing at my confusion she put a single
finger to her lips as if to tell me to be silent. Her eyes seemed to grow a little larger as she stared at me.
The only sounds I heard were the sounds of the trees rustling,
the wind blowing, the cars driving by on the street, and the
occasional animal scurrying by.
“Come closer,” she said suddenly.
I gave a slight shake of my head. In the blink of an eye she
was suddenly in front of me holding my arms to my side. She
leaned up and put her lips to my ear and that’s when I heard it.
The familiar sound that lulled me to rest every night and the
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familiar sound that I heard if I was in a quiet enough place; the
sound of small wheels and cogs working away.
“Mother sent me,” she whispered into my ear.
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Seven
I wasn’t sure how I got away from her.
She had run her tongue over my ear which began a vicious
struggle and somehow I had finally managed to pull my arms free.
Cassara took a piece of me with her after I managed to get out of
her grip. I hadn’t realized that she had razor sharp fingernails
which she scraped down my arms as I was using all my strength
to push her away from me.
I looked down as I ran; she had taken my number from me. I
had a gaping hole in my arm where London had branded me and I
wondered if that would be her proof to her that she had found me.
Would London reward her?
I doubted it.
If she had set one of her creations out to find me it was
obviously to either bring me back to her dead or alive. Another
reason I doubted London’s approval for what Cassara would
bring her is because she wouldn’t be going back as whole as she
left. I clutched her right ear tightly in my hand as I ran.
Cassara had taken a prize and I had done the same.
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This would be my private warning to London that if I could
take a piece of one of her creations, that she herself would be easy enough to break.
It served an additional warning to not send anymore of her
little pets after me. I wanted London herself to come for me if she wanted me that badly but I knew this was the genius in her
working. She would send them out to see how strong I was and
what my weaknesses were.
Grimacing at the pain I felt from my newly torn flesh, I
wondered where I could go now that Cassara had found me. How
long had she been tracking me? I wasn’t sure if she knew about
the factory but I couldn’t risk going back there, could I?
I had too.
It was the only place I knew slightly well enough to be able to
recover and had it also had small, unexplored pockets of space to
hide in. I ran faster than I ever had before; faster even than when I had escaped London. I had to get to the factory before sunrise
because I didn’t know what the sunlight would do to my wound
and exposed inner workings.
I darted around cars in the crossroads not caring that the
drivers who were surprised by me suddenly running in their paths
would honk their horns and yell obscenities at me. I had heard far 84
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worse from London on her nights where things weren’t working
the way she wanted them too. I felt myself becoming exhausted
and I wasn’t sure why. With as long as my body had rested I
shouldn’t have felt exhaustion for at least another half year.
Shake it off and keep going, I told myself.
I could see the factory looming in the distance and for some
reason, tonight it looked particularly ominous and for a brief
moment I felt afraid. I stood in front of the building when I
reached it cradling my wounded arm, my breath coming in
heaving gasps.
Be brave, I commanded myself silently.
I approached the boards and kicked one in. I wasn’t exactly
caring if anyone would notice that a trespasser was inside.
Tonight I was in an unforgiving mood and anyone that dared to
enter would deal whatever had taken over me that caused me to
tear Cassara’s ear from her head.
I pounded my way up to the third floor. As soon as I entered I
made my way to the window and placed her ear on the
windowsill. It was chilly in the room but I wanted to make sure
that my prize would be preserved because I had every intention
now of going back to London and I would make sure she knew it
was I that took one of her precious creations and rendered it
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incomplete as she had done to me.
As I lay my head down on the beaten old pillow that was left
on the cot I used for my bed, I wondered if that was her intention all along. If sending one of her recently made creations after me
would lure me back to her, what did she have in store for me?
Would she kill me right away or would she slowly take me apart
piece by piece?
I closed my eyes and even with as exhausted as I was, my
body refused to recharge itself. How could I have been so foolish
leaving without the book? I’m sure in it was some sort of care
instructions and here I was planning revenge on my maker while
slowly withering away. Grunting I rolled on my side. I could feel
myself becoming bitter and that would serve me no purpose. I
was losing myself in the thoughts that were now consuming me.
How could a rotting timepiece destroy something so solid and
real?
I jumped when I heard something small land on the floor. My
arm twitched slightly and continuously. I raised it so that I could see why it had taken on a sudden mind of its own. In the darkness, I peered at it but couldn’t figure out what the problem was until I pulled myself up to a seated position and angled it under the
moonlight. That’s when I saw it; one of the pieces that was used
to keep my motor skills in tact lying on the floor next to the cot. I 86
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reached down to retrieve it and walked over to the window.
Examining the wound in my arm, I saw where it had come loose
from and tried to slide it back in, but without the proper tools, it kept sliding out. Now I would have to learn how to control my
arm or I would lose my life quickly against London.
I tossed the cog next to Cassara’s ear. Neither thing was of
use to me until I went back. Unless… I grabbed the ear and made
my way down to the first floor with a horrifying plot in mind.