Out of My Mind (Jason The Toymaker x Reader rewrite)

Chapter 2: Black tendrils

I tentatively brushed my fingers across the cold porcelain. I flinched away as the doll rolled over onto its back. Something in the back of my mind felt a twinge of fear. I couldn't understand how the doll could have gotten onto my bed in the first place. Still, as I stared at it, I  remembered my dream. I remembered the sweet toymaker with the lovely eyes and the calm before the storm that came with the doll.

"I must be out of my mind" I muttered, laughing mirthlessly as I grasp the doll's skirt and pull her out from under the bed.

I carefully navigated her in my grip until her waist sat snuggly in my hand, just as the toymaker had done before. I lifted my other hand to her face, twirling a tendril of her hair around my finger.

"Hey Ebony" I speak, plopping onto my bed and holding her in my lap. I inspected her simple, white sundress, shifting her stuffed limbs, running my fingers along the stitching. Her hair began to tangle as she turned back and forth in my lap. I lift her into the air, looking her over one last time before setting her on my bed.

"Such pretty blue eyes" I note, tracing her glass iris with my finger, "what if I make you a dress to match them, something prettier than what you have on?"

As the words left my mouth, I notice her eyes seemed to shift. I felt a sharp pain in my finger, wrenching it back to find a small mark. I shook my hand frenetically until the pain began to fade.

"Must have nicked it earlier" I mumbled as I inspected it, brows furrowed. I set Ebony down and traveled across the room to my dresser. Stuffed inside are cloth scraps, sewing supplies, and a box of bandages somewhere in the bottom. I removed them, tossing them on my bed haphazardly.

I wrapped a bandage around my hurt finger and got to work finding fabric for Ebony's new gown.

*****

I woke the following morning with the doll in my lap. She wore the half-sewn gown over her sundress like a jacket.  I jumped, unable to recall when or if I'd set her there, and she fell to the floor. I wince and lean over the bed, muttering an apology and setting her on the pillow beside me. My needle sat stuck in the comforter which lay in a pile at the foot of my bed and my thread in another on my dresser. I frowned, unable to recall setting anything aside. I glanced at my phone as it begins to buzz on my bedside table. I sigh and turn the alarm off. Setting aside my concerns, I pull myself from bed and get ready for another day of school.

I glanced once more at Ebony and smiled, then shut the door softly and began my daily commute. 

I walked in the doors, leaving the idea of breakfast behind, and sat by the door to my first class. An acquaintance whose name I couldn't recall sat beside me and began to speak.

"you look chipper today".

I nodded.

"What's got you in such a good mood?"

I shrugged.

"Something happen?"

I smiled. "I found something I lost a long time ago", I explained, checking the time on my phone. The acquaintance nodded awkwardly and began to stand. "Ok," they said, "Imma head off then". I gave them a nod and let my thoughts drift back to the doll. Now rested, I laughed at the idea that maybe that toymaker, Jason, had brought me this old friend. His supernatural gaze had entered my dreams as a manifestation of my mourning, that was all. The eleventh anniversary of my mother's death came on the tail of my eighteenth birthday, effectively souring the event and leaving me desiring solace. Part of me, a part that hid from everyone else, hoped that they would all return. With the return of that doll, of the toymaker, so too would my mom reappear out of the darkness.