07-05-2015, 01:39 AM
Nerissa’s eyes widen and Syl sees rage flashing within them. Fear strikes her cold. She doesn’t want to go back. She can’t go back.
“You … you … bitch!” Nerissa’s voice is shaking with anger, but it drops to a whisper on the last word. Poor Lena gasps, clearly shocked by the ‘b-word.’ It’s not something she would ever dream of saying. “That’s MINE. You STOLE it!”
Lena takes a tentative step backwards. She knows enough about Nerissa to be afraid. “I … I’m sorry. My, my mo- … I mean. I found it. It was in the garbage. I-I thought you wouldn’t … want it any more.” Lena’s eyes are starting to shine - tears threatening at the corners. She knows she’s messed up, and badly.
“GIVE IT BACK!” Nerissa marches over to Lena and wrenches Syl out of Lena’s now trembling hands. Syl feels her heart die a little as the slightly sticky hand closes over her. No, she can’t leave Lena. Lena needs her! And she needs Lena …
Nerissa reaches forward with her other hand as if to push Lena, then hesitates and pulls back, as if having thought better of it. A nasty smile splits her fleshy little face. “I’m going to tell Mummy.” Syl hears a sharp intake of breath from Lena. “No! Please Nerissa! No, don’t tell her! I’ll do anything!” Nerissa giggles. “I’m going to tell her and you can’t stop me.” With that, Nerissa twirls away, laughing and skipping towards the house. Syl hangs sadly in her hand. As they slip through the front door, Syl can just hear Lena burst into tears.
The minute they’re through the door, Nerissa’s demeanour changes. In seconds, the giggling and skipping turns into wild, dramatic sobs. “MUMMYYYYY!” Nerissa’s mother appears out of nowhere, scooping Nerissa up in her arms and holding her tight. “What is it princess? What’s wrong?!” Nerissa’s sobs grow even louder. “I … it’s Lena! She … she …” She dissolves into tears. Nerissa’s mother holds her even tighter. “You can tell me sweetie. What happened?” Nerissa pulls away and looks at her mother with wide, tear-reddened eyes. Hand shaking, she holds up Syl. “She stole Bubblegum.” Syl can feel anger starting to burn in her heart. Nerissa’s plotting something, something that will hurt Lena - the theatrics are making that much clear. “She, she took her. Because Bubblegum’s my favourite. And then …” She pauses, probably for dramatic effect. “She called me something. Something mean.” Nerissa’s mother kneels down and sets Nerissa down. “You can tell me Nerissa. You won’t be in trouble.” Nerissa stands up straight, as if trying to gather the courage. Syl wishes she could reach out and kick the little shit. “She called me a … a … b-word.” Her voice drops to a tiny whisper. “A bitch.” Syl rages against her frozen, plastic body.
Nerissa’s mother stands up and pats the girl on her head. “Thank you for telling me sweetie. Now, you head off to school. I will deal with this. And hand me Bubblegum please. I’ll look after her while you’re gone.” Nerissa whispers a pathetic sounding “ok,” then turns to go. As the girl slips Syl into her mother’s hand, Syl can see a tiny, wicked grin cross her face.
After Nerissa is gone, her mother heads straight up the stairs and into a room where Lena’s mother is working away quietly, carefully dusting some figurines on a mantlepiece. She looks up when Nerissa’s mother enters the room, and her face falls the moment she sees Syl in the woman’s hand. “Mrs Bergmann, we need to talk.” Lena’s mother nods her ascent, and moves to follow. Both woman walk downstairs and sit down at the spotless kitchen table. Nerissa’s mother places Syl on the table between them. “Lena stole this from Nerissa.” Mrs. Bergmann looks from Syl back to Nerissa’s mother. “No, it wasn’t like that! I-” She stops when Nerissa’s mother holds up a hand. “No excuses. This isn’t the first time, but it will be the last.” All of the colour suddenly drains from Mrs. Bergmann’s face. “But …” Nerissa’s mother waves her hand dismissively. “Enough. You have performed your duties admirably, but we can’t have your daughter sneaking into our house and stealing. We’re going to have to let you go.” Mrs. Bergmann’s gaze falls to the table, not looking at Syl. Syl can feel her anger start to boil. She doesn’t know what Nerissa’s mother means by ‘letting her go,’ but she can tell that it doesn’t mean anything good. Lena’s mother doesn’t deserve this! Lena didn’t steal anything! Syl tries to force her body to move, tries to open her mouth so that she can explain, but of course, she’s still frozen solid. “We’ll give you severance, and a good reference. But you need to get your daughter some help. She’s going wild.” Nerissa’s mother stands up with awful finality. “We’ll give you a week to find other arrangements. Then you and Lena need to be out of here.” And with that, she walks out of the kitchen. Mrs. Bergmann sits there for a few moments longer, slumped forward, tears beginning to leak out of the corners of her eyes. Syl wishes more than anything that she could reach out to her, comfort her, tell her it’s not her fault. But she’s as frozen as ever. After a few minutes pass, the woman picks herself up, stands tall, and takes a deep breath. Then she too, leaves the room.
Hours pass by with Syl standing quietly on the table. With the humans gone, she can move once again, but she doesn’t see the point. There’s nothing she can do to help. And she’s stuck on the table no less. There’s no way for her to get off without hurting herself - her legs are barely holding together as it is (and they still ache, a reminder of the crushing weight of the car). So she remains there, silently, as people bustle by in the other rooms, until the end of the day when Nerissa finally returns. Syl can hear her when she comes crashing through the door, though she doesn’t enter the kitchen immediately - Syl can hear her speaking with her mother in the hall in a hushed voice. After a few moments, Nerissa comes skipping into the kitchen, with a massive grin on her face. When she spots Syl on the table, she snatches her up with a sweaty hand and giggles. “Serves her right!” She peers in at Syl with her pale blue eyes. “You’re going to help me Bubblegum! We’re going to teach her a lesson!” Syl knows that whatever’s coming next won’t be good. She resigns herself to her fate.
Giggling and swinging Syl painfully by her tail, Nerissa runs out the back door towards the housekeeper’s cottage. Lena is sitting on the front steps, her hands over her face. Syl’s heart aches for her - she wishes more than anything that she could reach out and comfort the girl. That they could once again snuggle up in her bed for sleep. But she knows it won’t happen now. It won’t happen ever again. Nerissa has her in her vile little hand and there’s no way she’s letting Syl go in one piece.
“Hah! Youuu have to leeeeave.” Nerissa sings at Lena and giggles, clearly pleased with herself. Lena looks up, her face blotchy and red and wet with tears. “Why did you do that? Why did you tell her?” Nerissa grins and sticks her face right up into Lena’s. “Serves you right for stealing Bubblegum! She’s mine!” Syl wish she could reach up a kick the little brat across the face. “But I didn’t steal her! You threw her away! She was in the garbage can, and Mum fixed her up and …” Nerissa suddenly pokes her in the stomach, hard. “Doesn’t matter! She’s not yours! She’s mine! And I’m going to teach you a lesson!” Lena is forced back, tears welling up in her eyes again. “But she fired my mom! She has to find a new job! We have to move!” Nerissa laughs. “I don’t care! It’s your fault anyway, not mine!” Nerissa suddenly twirls away, and runs to a shiny, silver barbecue that’s standing a few feet away. There’s a gas lighter on lying on top, which Nerissa snatches. Before either Syl or Lena realizes what she’s doing, she turns on the lighter, and sets Syl’s mane and tail on fire.
Syl’s world dissolves into pain. Lena screams. “No! What are you doing?!” She runs at Nerissa and tries to snatch Syl away. “VIOLET!” But Nerissa turns the lighter on Lena, burning her hand. “Ow!” Lena backs up fast, clutching her hand and crying. “Her name is Bubblegum. And she’s mine, not yours. I can do whatever I want with her.” Nerissa’s face looks smug, and Lena cries even harder. “Please, don’t! Stop it!” Nerissa’s face hardens and she glares at Lena. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
She turns off the lighter and lets both it and Syl drop to the ground, then runs off to a little shed close to the house. Within moments she’s back, holding a small pair of gardening shears. With a wicked grin, she takes the shears to Syl’s body. They snip cleanly through the now soft plastic, cutting Syl’s barrel in two. Lena doesn’t even try to approach this time. Nerissa takes the shears to Syl’s body again and again, cutting off chunks at a time - the parts of her body that Lena’s mother had so lovingly reattached are severed in mere moments. Syl wishes she could die.
But, even through her pain, Syl thinks of Lena. She can hear the girl sobbing and she wishes that there was something she could do to comfort her. Lena doesn't deserve any of this. It's Syl's fault. If she hadn't been transported here, none of this would have ever happened. Nerissa would have never found her, broken her and dumped her in the trash to be found by Lena's mother. Lena would have never loved her, but she would have been able to stay here. She would have never lost her home.
But what can Syl do? She's a chunk of plastic. Or, now, many chunks of plastic. She can't do anything. She's completely useless.
Nerissa continues snipping away until Syl's body is scattered across the manicured lawn. Syl has no idea how she's still conscious - she's utterly destroyed. By all rights she should be dead. She wishes she was dead - everything is pain.
When Nerissa is fully satisfied that she's made her point, she drops the shears to the ground. “There!” She smirks at Lena, who's standing a few feet away, still clutching her hand and crying. “I hope you learned your lesson!” Lena nods, but doesn't say anything and, satisfied, Nerissa marches back to the house. Slowly, ever so slowly, Lena walks up to the broken pieces of Syl's body. She begins crying in earnest, then sinks to her knees in amongst the plastic bits. “I ... I'm so sorry.” She chokes on her words, fighting against the tears. “It's all my fault. I s-shouldn't have taken you out of the house.” She stays there for a time, kneeling and crying. Then, finally, she starts to pick up all of Syl's pieces. “I-I'm sorry Violet. I d-don't think even Mum can fix you now.”
It takes Lena a long time to find all of Syl's pieces. But eventually she finds them all and gathers them up in her hands. Then, she walks to the back of the cottage where her mother has been keeping a tiny vegetable garden. There, right at the base of the house, she digs a little hole. She kisses Syl's nose (that is, the chunk of plastic that was Syl's nose) and places it gently in the hole, before placing all the rest of the pieces of Syl's body on top. “I love you Violet.” Then she covers Syl’s body with earth and, for Syl at least, everything goes black. Her body is still on fire, but at least it’s peaceful, in the damp, soft earth. Her pieces lie there, unmoving and Syl hopes for oblivion.
She doesn’t know it, but Lena returns a few moments later with a tiny cross fashioned out of a few twigs and some old hair ties. She places it in the earth above where she buried Syl and, after a few more silent tears, walks away.
“You … you … bitch!” Nerissa’s voice is shaking with anger, but it drops to a whisper on the last word. Poor Lena gasps, clearly shocked by the ‘b-word.’ It’s not something she would ever dream of saying. “That’s MINE. You STOLE it!”
Lena takes a tentative step backwards. She knows enough about Nerissa to be afraid. “I … I’m sorry. My, my mo- … I mean. I found it. It was in the garbage. I-I thought you wouldn’t … want it any more.” Lena’s eyes are starting to shine - tears threatening at the corners. She knows she’s messed up, and badly.
“GIVE IT BACK!” Nerissa marches over to Lena and wrenches Syl out of Lena’s now trembling hands. Syl feels her heart die a little as the slightly sticky hand closes over her. No, she can’t leave Lena. Lena needs her! And she needs Lena …
Nerissa reaches forward with her other hand as if to push Lena, then hesitates and pulls back, as if having thought better of it. A nasty smile splits her fleshy little face. “I’m going to tell Mummy.” Syl hears a sharp intake of breath from Lena. “No! Please Nerissa! No, don’t tell her! I’ll do anything!” Nerissa giggles. “I’m going to tell her and you can’t stop me.” With that, Nerissa twirls away, laughing and skipping towards the house. Syl hangs sadly in her hand. As they slip through the front door, Syl can just hear Lena burst into tears.
The minute they’re through the door, Nerissa’s demeanour changes. In seconds, the giggling and skipping turns into wild, dramatic sobs. “MUMMYYYYY!” Nerissa’s mother appears out of nowhere, scooping Nerissa up in her arms and holding her tight. “What is it princess? What’s wrong?!” Nerissa’s sobs grow even louder. “I … it’s Lena! She … she …” She dissolves into tears. Nerissa’s mother holds her even tighter. “You can tell me sweetie. What happened?” Nerissa pulls away and looks at her mother with wide, tear-reddened eyes. Hand shaking, she holds up Syl. “She stole Bubblegum.” Syl can feel anger starting to burn in her heart. Nerissa’s plotting something, something that will hurt Lena - the theatrics are making that much clear. “She, she took her. Because Bubblegum’s my favourite. And then …” She pauses, probably for dramatic effect. “She called me something. Something mean.” Nerissa’s mother kneels down and sets Nerissa down. “You can tell me Nerissa. You won’t be in trouble.” Nerissa stands up straight, as if trying to gather the courage. Syl wishes she could reach out and kick the little shit. “She called me a … a … b-word.” Her voice drops to a tiny whisper. “A bitch.” Syl rages against her frozen, plastic body.
Nerissa’s mother stands up and pats the girl on her head. “Thank you for telling me sweetie. Now, you head off to school. I will deal with this. And hand me Bubblegum please. I’ll look after her while you’re gone.” Nerissa whispers a pathetic sounding “ok,” then turns to go. As the girl slips Syl into her mother’s hand, Syl can see a tiny, wicked grin cross her face.
After Nerissa is gone, her mother heads straight up the stairs and into a room where Lena’s mother is working away quietly, carefully dusting some figurines on a mantlepiece. She looks up when Nerissa’s mother enters the room, and her face falls the moment she sees Syl in the woman’s hand. “Mrs Bergmann, we need to talk.” Lena’s mother nods her ascent, and moves to follow. Both woman walk downstairs and sit down at the spotless kitchen table. Nerissa’s mother places Syl on the table between them. “Lena stole this from Nerissa.” Mrs. Bergmann looks from Syl back to Nerissa’s mother. “No, it wasn’t like that! I-” She stops when Nerissa’s mother holds up a hand. “No excuses. This isn’t the first time, but it will be the last.” All of the colour suddenly drains from Mrs. Bergmann’s face. “But …” Nerissa’s mother waves her hand dismissively. “Enough. You have performed your duties admirably, but we can’t have your daughter sneaking into our house and stealing. We’re going to have to let you go.” Mrs. Bergmann’s gaze falls to the table, not looking at Syl. Syl can feel her anger start to boil. She doesn’t know what Nerissa’s mother means by ‘letting her go,’ but she can tell that it doesn’t mean anything good. Lena’s mother doesn’t deserve this! Lena didn’t steal anything! Syl tries to force her body to move, tries to open her mouth so that she can explain, but of course, she’s still frozen solid. “We’ll give you severance, and a good reference. But you need to get your daughter some help. She’s going wild.” Nerissa’s mother stands up with awful finality. “We’ll give you a week to find other arrangements. Then you and Lena need to be out of here.” And with that, she walks out of the kitchen. Mrs. Bergmann sits there for a few moments longer, slumped forward, tears beginning to leak out of the corners of her eyes. Syl wishes more than anything that she could reach out to her, comfort her, tell her it’s not her fault. But she’s as frozen as ever. After a few minutes pass, the woman picks herself up, stands tall, and takes a deep breath. Then she too, leaves the room.
Hours pass by with Syl standing quietly on the table. With the humans gone, she can move once again, but she doesn’t see the point. There’s nothing she can do to help. And she’s stuck on the table no less. There’s no way for her to get off without hurting herself - her legs are barely holding together as it is (and they still ache, a reminder of the crushing weight of the car). So she remains there, silently, as people bustle by in the other rooms, until the end of the day when Nerissa finally returns. Syl can hear her when she comes crashing through the door, though she doesn’t enter the kitchen immediately - Syl can hear her speaking with her mother in the hall in a hushed voice. After a few moments, Nerissa comes skipping into the kitchen, with a massive grin on her face. When she spots Syl on the table, she snatches her up with a sweaty hand and giggles. “Serves her right!” She peers in at Syl with her pale blue eyes. “You’re going to help me Bubblegum! We’re going to teach her a lesson!” Syl knows that whatever’s coming next won’t be good. She resigns herself to her fate.
Giggling and swinging Syl painfully by her tail, Nerissa runs out the back door towards the housekeeper’s cottage. Lena is sitting on the front steps, her hands over her face. Syl’s heart aches for her - she wishes more than anything that she could reach out and comfort the girl. That they could once again snuggle up in her bed for sleep. But she knows it won’t happen now. It won’t happen ever again. Nerissa has her in her vile little hand and there’s no way she’s letting Syl go in one piece.
“Hah! Youuu have to leeeeave.” Nerissa sings at Lena and giggles, clearly pleased with herself. Lena looks up, her face blotchy and red and wet with tears. “Why did you do that? Why did you tell her?” Nerissa grins and sticks her face right up into Lena’s. “Serves you right for stealing Bubblegum! She’s mine!” Syl wish she could reach up a kick the little brat across the face. “But I didn’t steal her! You threw her away! She was in the garbage can, and Mum fixed her up and …” Nerissa suddenly pokes her in the stomach, hard. “Doesn’t matter! She’s not yours! She’s mine! And I’m going to teach you a lesson!” Lena is forced back, tears welling up in her eyes again. “But she fired my mom! She has to find a new job! We have to move!” Nerissa laughs. “I don’t care! It’s your fault anyway, not mine!” Nerissa suddenly twirls away, and runs to a shiny, silver barbecue that’s standing a few feet away. There’s a gas lighter on lying on top, which Nerissa snatches. Before either Syl or Lena realizes what she’s doing, she turns on the lighter, and sets Syl’s mane and tail on fire.
Syl’s world dissolves into pain. Lena screams. “No! What are you doing?!” She runs at Nerissa and tries to snatch Syl away. “VIOLET!” But Nerissa turns the lighter on Lena, burning her hand. “Ow!” Lena backs up fast, clutching her hand and crying. “Her name is Bubblegum. And she’s mine, not yours. I can do whatever I want with her.” Nerissa’s face looks smug, and Lena cries even harder. “Please, don’t! Stop it!” Nerissa’s face hardens and she glares at Lena. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
She turns off the lighter and lets both it and Syl drop to the ground, then runs off to a little shed close to the house. Within moments she’s back, holding a small pair of gardening shears. With a wicked grin, she takes the shears to Syl’s body. They snip cleanly through the now soft plastic, cutting Syl’s barrel in two. Lena doesn’t even try to approach this time. Nerissa takes the shears to Syl’s body again and again, cutting off chunks at a time - the parts of her body that Lena’s mother had so lovingly reattached are severed in mere moments. Syl wishes she could die.
But, even through her pain, Syl thinks of Lena. She can hear the girl sobbing and she wishes that there was something she could do to comfort her. Lena doesn't deserve any of this. It's Syl's fault. If she hadn't been transported here, none of this would have ever happened. Nerissa would have never found her, broken her and dumped her in the trash to be found by Lena's mother. Lena would have never loved her, but she would have been able to stay here. She would have never lost her home.
But what can Syl do? She's a chunk of plastic. Or, now, many chunks of plastic. She can't do anything. She's completely useless.
Nerissa continues snipping away until Syl's body is scattered across the manicured lawn. Syl has no idea how she's still conscious - she's utterly destroyed. By all rights she should be dead. She wishes she was dead - everything is pain.
When Nerissa is fully satisfied that she's made her point, she drops the shears to the ground. “There!” She smirks at Lena, who's standing a few feet away, still clutching her hand and crying. “I hope you learned your lesson!” Lena nods, but doesn't say anything and, satisfied, Nerissa marches back to the house. Slowly, ever so slowly, Lena walks up to the broken pieces of Syl's body. She begins crying in earnest, then sinks to her knees in amongst the plastic bits. “I ... I'm so sorry.” She chokes on her words, fighting against the tears. “It's all my fault. I s-shouldn't have taken you out of the house.” She stays there for a time, kneeling and crying. Then, finally, she starts to pick up all of Syl's pieces. “I-I'm sorry Violet. I d-don't think even Mum can fix you now.”
It takes Lena a long time to find all of Syl's pieces. But eventually she finds them all and gathers them up in her hands. Then, she walks to the back of the cottage where her mother has been keeping a tiny vegetable garden. There, right at the base of the house, she digs a little hole. She kisses Syl's nose (that is, the chunk of plastic that was Syl's nose) and places it gently in the hole, before placing all the rest of the pieces of Syl's body on top. “I love you Violet.” Then she covers Syl’s body with earth and, for Syl at least, everything goes black. Her body is still on fire, but at least it’s peaceful, in the damp, soft earth. Her pieces lie there, unmoving and Syl hopes for oblivion.
She doesn’t know it, but Lena returns a few moments later with a tiny cross fashioned out of a few twigs and some old hair ties. She places it in the earth above where she buried Syl and, after a few more silent tears, walks away.