Chapter Text
Coraline was the newest to the group. He didn’t know how she did it but somehow, she managed to keep one of her eyes. That alone made her special. Special was never good.
He thought that the twins came before Coraline but maybe it was Whisper. No, it must have been the twins since he remembered seeing Whisper’s shadow when he first arrived. Whisper was weird that’s for sure. Always hiding from their Mother and talking to himself. Sometimes he could hear the other boy cry at night, but after a few months he learned it was odd to not cry.
The twins were different. The female one was the first to come. From what he had gathered, she used to be a cheerful and outgoing girl, but she had long since shattered. Now she stayed huddled up in her decaying sweater, hiding her face from everyone, never moving.
Her brother was the definition of over-protective. If Coraline would try to talk to the girl, her brother would start throwing punches. It didn’t take long for most to realize that the female twin was off limits but Coraline never got the hint. Yet another thing that made her special.
Coraline and the male twin would fight; Whisper would hide; and the female twin would never respond. Why did he feel like he was forgetting someone?
Crash
Oh yes. Fire. She had been here longer than anyone. When he first came here she had shared some of her story with him. Something about a dead mother and a father who stopped caring if he remembered correctly.
He supposed she liked him, since they were both a kind of freak. How they were freaks he didn’t remember. He just remembered being surrounded by lots of noise and people shouting. Most were calling him a freak of nature. Then there were the eyes. The eyes would haunt him in his sleep, always so full of disappointment and anger.
It was after that, that Mother found them. She had promised to love them forever. To be their new mother. Right before she shoved them in a cramped room and forgot about them.
Cramped might be too strong a word. There were a few places where one could sit down and stretch out their legs, even few spots where you wouldn’t block the path doing it. And it was cool how there was stuff from different eras. TVs, books, bicycles, and some boxes prevented the room from feeling too open, which maybe was a good thing? He didn’t know anymore, maybe this was how a kid’s room was supposed to look.
The gray coloring also made him feel at peace. He remembered one time when-
“Hello earth to Goggles, please respond.” Coraline was shaking him.
He wasn’t sure when he started but it was almost like his way of coping. He would just stop responding to the world. Guess it made him more approachable then the rest of the kids.
“I’m fine” He mumbled, his train of thoughts halted.
“You’re bleeding” Coraline stated back. She reached forward and brushed her hand against his cheek. “Hang on, I think I might have some Band-Aids in my bag.”
“There we go, good as new” She smiled at him in false enthusiasm.
“Goggles I know I’ve asked this before but I need your help. Please. If just one kid stands up to her then maybe the others will too.”
She had tried this tactic before. Not just with him, though he might have been the only one who had stayed for the full speech.
“What about seeing your families again?”
He refused to say anything to that. Just glared in her direction.
“Maybe if we find everyone’s eyes we can remove the buttons. You don’t know unless you try Goggles.” Coraline was persistent he’d give her that.
The junk groaned. The floorboards creaked. Underneath him he could feel the dark energy swirling. Pushing and pulling the house apart. A part of him, more primal than anything, told him to run. Told him to get away but the rest of him just wanted to sit there.
From the corner of his eye he could see the male twin grabbing his sister. Whisper had found a new hiding spot near the two, taking advantage of one of the few open areas, bracing himself. Fire sounded close by, he could hear her growling, trying to light the room on fire. He supposed he should be grateful she never succeeded. With all the piles of junk, they were probably in the middle of a fire hazard.
Eventually, the magic settled. This was normal. He could already see the male twin releasing his sister. Everybody was cooling down. Well everybody but-
“What the heck was that!” Coraline shrieked.
“Mother found a new friend” He supposed he should at least tell her what was going on. No one else was going to speak up after all. “Wonder if they’re going to join us or just be eaten on the spot”
“I hope they get eaten!” The male twin yelled across the room.
“Wait… they? As in another kid!” Coraline smiled. Not a fake smile but a real smile. He was surprised those even existed now days.
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Mother will just do the whole shebang; you know like what happened with you.” He pointed to her.
He could practically hear the gears in the older girl’s head turning. Soon she would have some new half-baked scheme on how they could all escape together and then back out into the real world. If he had real eyes instead of his buttons he would have been rolling them. Not that he really cared.
“Goggles” Ah here it comes. “What would you say if you and I went to go grab some bread?”
He blinked, or at least he thinks he did.
“Bread?” Even the name made him salivate.
He never thought about how it worked. He knew their mother would somehow keep them from getting hungry. It seemed like a great idea since all of them were stuck in a storage room and their mother didn’t care about them after sewing in their buttons. Plus, if they did get hungry, well, he was almost certain that the male twin would have fed them all to his sister. Or maybe Fire would have started a nice little barbecue for herself.
“Yes. Remember how the Other Mother would always make that huge feast every night?”
He thought back. Yes, he could vaguely recall something like that.
“I bet while the Other Mother is entertaining, you and I could go out of the room and grab some of the feast.”
He froze. “Go out of the room? But But-“
“I know Goggles, but I’ll be right next to you.” Coraline encouraged.
He looked down. On one hand, they could disappoint Mother. Oh, how he hated to disappoint Mother. People who disappointed Mother didn’t live very long. Yet on the other hand, BREAD.
Coraline smiled when she felt the boy grab her hand. Out of all of them Goggles had seemed the less broken. Guess she made the right choice with him.
From what she could tell none of the other children remembered their names. Some of them had nicknames from either past children (who were long since dead) or just had no names, like the two twins.
Fire and Whisper had gotten their nicknames from the stuff they could do. Whisper would often wander to vacant parts of the room and just start whispering. Fire, well let’s just say she would sometimes have to leave the younger girl alone when things started to get a little hot.
Goggles was the name she had given him when they had first met. He had looked so odd dressed in pajamas with goggles hanging from his neck. When he didn’t object, the name just kind of stuck. From what she could tell Fire was the only other kid to use it.
She hated how the Other Mother would treat all of them. Sure, it seemed nice at first, all the promises of a better life but then she would show her true nature. Coraline was ashamed to say it but she had let the Other Mother get to her. It was only because of the cat that the spell was not complete.
Afterwards Coraline remembered seeing the true horrifying form of the Other Mother. From there, she had run to the tiny door, inhuman shrieks following her. Somehow, she and the cat had managed to escape the unnatural world, crawling through the fabric tunnel to her freedom. But the Other Mother was crafty, tricking Coraline into one final trap.
"Have fun in the other world my daughter. Don’t worry about me. I’ll have plenty of company with my other children.”
She froze. “Other children?”
“Yes, the other children. The ones whose souls I haven’t tasted yet.”
The cat ran his tail under her nose. “Don’t let her trick you. Your almost there.”
“How do I know you’re not lying” She turned to look at the spider-like woman.
A crooked smile appeared on the Other Mothers lips. From behind her back she pulled out five dolls.
“Would you like to meet them my daughter? I’m sure they would love the company”
She bit her lip. The Other Mother had lied to her before.
“Yeah, I think I would.” She couldn’t leave those kids here to die.
“Excellent.”
“Here it is” She said looking at the mirror. “Now let’s see if it works.” She pressed her hand against the reflective surface, only to see the glass ripple.
“Is it supposed to do that?” Goggles asked behind her.
She grinned and grabbed his arm.
“Yep!” she cried as she pulled him through.
The mirror rippled before throwing out two bodies into the hall. A large bang echoed through the newly designed house.
Standing up she brushed the imaginary dust from her pajamas, before turning to the younger boy behind her.
Goggles just looked up at her, his dark green button eyes seemed to plead the question ‘what now’.
She blinked. She hadn’t notice it but their jail cell had been void of any color. Now that they were outside she had found that she missed what the room had been lacking. Though the unlit hall way didn’t show much in the way of color.
“Come on. We don’t know how much time we have until she’s done with her guest” She said proceeding through the hallway. She felt the boy close behind her.
The house’s layout had definitely changed. No longer was it the mirror image of her own house. Instead it felt almost older. A few end tables they passed had doilies covering them. She thought she saw a few areas where the house had been fixed up, but she didn’t dwell on it. Instead, Coraline tried to focus on moving toward the light, and hopefully the dining area.
As they navigated yet another corner, she reached to cover Goggles’ mouth. Cringing as he let out a small gasping noise.
In front of the two, was a doorway leading to the brightly lit dining room. The Other Mother’s shadow, cast on the adjacent wall, stood frozen with her mouth open.
“Everything ok?” a familiar voice asked.
“Of course it is! I just remembered your other father wanted to see you in his workshop. Would you be a dear and see if he needs any help?” Her gut turned upon hearing the fake voice.
“Uh… Sure I guess I could do that… but…”
“But what?”
“Well I’ve always wanted to build a family project. I even made my own design, see!”
“… I really should clean up dinner.”
‘Please go’ She thought. ‘I just need a little free time’. She could feel Goggles trembling beneath her hands.
“Please! It would mean the world to me”
She heard the Other Mother sigh. “Well alright I guess we can see if your other father’s busy”.
As the shadow moved away, she let go of the other kid’s mouth.
“Okay Goggles here’s the plan. We go in there and- “.
“G- Get the bread right?” He finished her statement.
She nodded as she looked around the door. Both the Other Mother and the new kid were gone.
“And maybe a bit extra if we can” She added stepping into the room.
Quickly, she grabbed as much finger food as she could, stuffing it inside her bag. From the corner of her eye she could see Goggles do the same with a dishtowel.
“I think we have enough Goggles lets go before-“
A low pitched scratching sound echoed around the room.
“Hush, my dolls, go to sleep,
Evening shadows softly creep;”
Coraline beckoned Goggles to her.
“Stars a-twinkling in the skies,
Dolls, too, should close their eyes.”
The Other Mother’s head appeared around the door frame.
“All the toys are put away,
Ready for another day;”
Her body shifted with each step the woman took.
“Waiting for the morning light,
Dolls, too, should say Goodnight.”
The Other Mother lunged for the two.