Humane

Chapter 6

I tucked my knife under my pillow.

The swift motion of inserting the blade right between the pillow case and the mattress came to me so naturally. I had gotten acquainted with the weapon to the point that I could wield the knife without much trouble.

And it had only been a day.

I lay sprawled on my bed, aimlessly staring at the ceiling. Twenty-fours hours was all it took to turn my life around, as if those hours were elongating infinitely and getting over just as quickly. I didn't even have enough time to formulate a plan and follow through. If I couldn't guarantee living till the next dawn, on what ground could I base anything upon? Did I truly have no escape? Was there not one glitch in the system that I could exploit?

I shifted uncomfortably under the blanket. I felt restless; I wouldn't be able to sleep. However, that worked out in my favor somehow–at least Doll wouldn't be able to exploit me when I was not conscious.

My fingers instinctively began inspecting my upper arm again. Every time Doll came to my mind, I had that reflex motion to examine my skin. I had realized my muscles were hardening... but I would have never guessed that it would ever be into porcelain. I was turning into a literal organic doll. The eyes, the body, the smile.

I was starting to creep myself out.

The longer my mind wandered, the worse my situation seemed. I couldn't ignore any of it and enjoy my remaining days in peace, but neither could I figure something out and work towards it. I had absolutely no context, mercilessly trapped in a web of magic.

One observation that took me an embarrassing long time to figure out was the absence of the mineral. The medium of exchange wasn't coating my skin, or whatever organic porcelain was, which meant that Doll and I were bound tight.

And if Doll turned out to be that sleep-deprived-mother-of-an-infant lady I would–

I pushed the blanket out of the way and kicked at the air in frustration. I was so tired of dealing with things thrown my way just because. What nonsense was magic anyway? Something idiotic that existed in one's imagination! A trick, a deceiving power in my head that manifested in my stories. And... my best friend.

Magic was kind.

I clutched one of my pillows and screamed into it, teardrops lining my eyelashes. That was the third time I had cried that day. Frequent mood swings had taken hold of me; I was stressed to the point that everything inside me short-circuited.

"It's not." Joker's loud voice stung my eardrums. "That lady died ages ago."

He was always around. Hearing him reply to my worthless thoughts due to some telepathic power of his was starting to become a new normal.

"Three days sure proves to be a lot in your timezone, I see."

Conversing with him didn't make me second guess, and that was so unlike me, but I couldn't care any further. There was nothing for me to hold on to, neither a lifeline nor a support. In the outside world, I would be considered deranged. Therefore, I had started toeing suspicious things every time they came to pass, because I was more-or-less tired of pitying myself.

"Days?" Joker scoffed. "It has definitely been a month or two. You must be referring to the doll soul."

I cleared my throat. Somehow that made it worse. "Let me get this straight. So there was a doll who had a child–"

"We don't have kids, as such. We replicate by the process of, as you humans call it, binary fission of the soul. And we do not have any emotional attachment with our offsprings whatsoever."