Button Eyes, Clock Hearts

The Fall

This was a story I co-wrote with DCreed (from fanfiction) some years ago. I reread it and had decided to edit it. SO here it is, the new version. I hope you guys enjoy it, as much as the past one. I have fond memories of writing this.

Now, welcome to "Clock Hearts and Button Eyes"

Let's begin~

It was a normal day around the Pink Palace; It was gray and dusty. Coraline stretched herself in the muggy weather with fog coiling around her knees. She smiled up at the sun which looked like a pale white ball behind the heavy clouds. When her family had moved here three years ago, she had found this weather incredibly...sluggish. Now she was used to it and the boring routine. But thanks to the 'incident', she never complained.

There was a tiny door she had found when she was twelve, now she was fifteen. There wasn't much to do but talk to her only friend, Wybie. Yet, he didn't really visit that much. His grandmother was still paranoid thinking those two were up to trouble. She was half right- only he was the one. He was a bit creepy: some of his activities were capturing slugs, wearing a mask, using motorcycles, grabbing random carcasses to use in his taxidermy experiments. However, this was nothing compared to what she had seen behind the door.

As she hopped down the steps and onto the muddy ground, she noticed an old friend curled up on a rotting log. He wasn't human. He was a black cat she and Wybie decided to keep as their own. She smiled at the old cat who got up to greet her blinking his electric blue eyes blinking. She scooped him up and rubbed him behind his ears.

"Hello there Cat. How are you this morning?" Of course, he didn't answer. He had never answered back since the 'incident'. Never again would she talk about it, yet nightmares plagued her mind still.

Coraline started on her way through the large dead garden cuddling the cat in her arms. She was currently on winter break, but there was no snow. It hardly ever snowed around here. Just more fog. The blue-haired girl couldn't help but yawn in the balmy weather, wondering what to do. Not much to explore here and her friends back at her old home had forgotten her.

As Coraline approached the old well, Cat jumped out of her arms, seeming suddenly alarmed. Coraline tilted her head as she walked over to where Cat was sniffing in the tall weeds to find...a large hole? It was a lot like the old well, but this one was uncovered. There was green, fresh grass growing around it. Coraline knelt next to this hole and peered down.

"...Well, it's probably just as deep as the old well. But what is it? It wasn't here before, was it Cat?" Cat shook his head in response. "Look, there even is fresh grass, how is it possible?"

Though he couldn't talk to Coraline in this world, she did not doubt that the feline at least understood her. Coraline picked up a nearby pebble and dropped it into the hole. She waited...and waited...and waited...and still heard nothing. Cat twitched his ear and turned away from the hole, urging her to stand back as well. Coraline raised her brow, "What, are you bored already?."

Cat shook his head and trotted away...he seemed...uncomfortable. Coraline got up, thinking that she needed to show this to Wybie. But as she stood, her galoshes slipped in the mud and she flailed her arms out in a desperate attempt to keep her balance. But she tumbled down into the darkness, hearing the yowling of Cat above her. As she fell, Coraline couldn't help but wonder, 'was this what the Other Mother's hand felt like, all those years ago?'

Cat sighed and jumped into the darkness. Silly, clumsy girl. After what happened last time, couldn't she understand?! In this land, the curtains that separate her world from others are paper thin. Never go to unknown places (and certainty not down mysteriously appearing holes)! You never know what's on the other side of these walls or what their intentions to foreigners are. This is no bedtime story, this was real! She should have been careful, now she was in another mess.