Author's Notes: This was inspired after watching the first two Hellraiser movies over a few days. It always fascinated me that the Chatterer's human form was a young boy. So this little ditty resulted from that line of thinking, asking the questions of how someone so young ended up becoming a Cenobite. The Leader in the story is of course Pinhead, but I figured Chatterer would hardly call his boss something so undignified.

"You were all human." A joke. Surely it had to be a monstrous joke. I snapped my teeth in a laughing manner. We'd always known this soul fit in better with us than she so desperately tried to protest and this right here proved it. I couldn't remember a time before I had been what I was, doing my duties faithfully and willingly. Then why were these feelings of uncertainty creeping up from somewhere deep inside my leather-clad form?

"…..it's a puzzle box, honey. See, you try and move the pieces around until they all match up and…"

No! It wasn't true! I….I wouldn't believe it. But who was that woman? Why did I know that voice so well? I could hear a panting sound that was almost like whimpering from my right. The fat one was agitated. Surely he didn't believe this nonsense. This was-

"…..still working on that puzzle box, son?"

"I'm gonna get it soon enough." I smiled up at my dad. I'd forgotten about most of my birthday gifts, most of them discarded or forgotten, but this one still was keeping my interest. The other kids in the neighborhood didn't like to play with me. They thought I was weird, especially after they saw all the scars from the cuts on my arms. That was alright. I was fine on my own. I could do it. If this part turned there and this one moved here, it would slide right in…..

Oh God. Oh God! I remembered. I remembered it all so well. The house I had grown up in with the rosebushes in front, the dog I had so desperately begged for as a pet, my school that had been painted the hideous shade of yellow. My…my parents, (how could I have forgotten them, their faces, their love?) they bought me the box as a birthday present. I had been so very intent on solving it, little fool that I was. And once I had, I wished I'd never been born….

…I was so close now. Just a few more turns and there! It was complete. I didn't expect the sparks to fly out when it did, moving over the box and touching my hands. Startled, I threw it across my room. Okay, that was way too freaky for me. I'd planned to show it to Mom and Dad once it was done. That's what I'd do. I'd go tell them I'd figured it all out and then they'd say how smart I was and how proud they were of me. I went to the door, but the knob wouldn't turn.

I think I already knew at that point. Somehow, I already knew what was to become of me. The room went dark, the lamp flickering out. I tried to turn the knob again, tugging with all my might. Still nothing. I began looking around the room with frightened eyes. There was something in the dark, I just knew it. I wished I was wrong when the man with the pale skin and black clothes stepped out of the darkness. I screamed at the sight, the nails digging into his skull and those cold, black eyes. The Boogeyman had come to life.

"Now, now, none of that." He sounded almost kindly in tone. It didn't stop my terror. "You will need to save up those screams for the real pain ahead of you."

"No! Go away! Please!" I sobbed out. I wanted to wake up from this horrible nightmare now.

"We can't, child." The raspy voice (raspy because of her torn open throat.) of the other figure sounded out. "You opened the box. Now, you must come with us."

"Momma! Daddy!" I pounded on the door, desperately hoping they would hear. Then the first chain ripped through the side of my face, tearing it from the side of my mouth, stretching back until there was a gaping, dripping half smile left in my cheek. I remembered that very well, for it was to become a signature of the pain I endured…..

My chattering slowed to only a few clicks. The female Cenobite looked at me. The others had learned to distinguish the emotions from my otherwise meaningless noise long ago. She knew, as I did, what Kristy said was the truth. I could see it in her eyes. Who had she been, long ago, before she had given into the pain? Strange, to think I had been around my companions for so very long, yet I knew nothing about them. Not even their names. I was no longer eager to make these two souls suffer. The very thought sickened me. I felt very old yet very young at the same time. I wanted my mother. I wanted to go home. I wished my tear ducts still worked. I wanted to cry so very badly.

….For some reason, the Cenobites always enjoyed mutilating my face. Perhaps it is because a child's face is so very perfect. Nothing bad has touched it yet, so it remains innocent. It's all that is good about the world made into flesh. That didn't last very long. Burning, tearing, ripping, stretching. I went through it all and more. I wanted to die more times than I could remember. Little by little, my sanity and innocence were stripped away from me.

There were plenty of screams left in me, as the Leader had promised. After a while, it seemed there was nothing else, had never been anything else besides this place, the unendurable pain, the sweet pleasure that sometimes accompanied it, like tears and blood mixed together. How long I was there for I couldn't tell you. Maybe it was a day or a thousand years. Then through the haze of pain came forth someone.

It was the Leader, the demon who had brought me to this foul place. Those black eyes stared at what was left of my form with something akin to curiosity. "I do hope you are not too broken. There's work that needs to be done and I aim to have you for my own purpose." I wanted to tell him exactly what I thought of him and his plans, but all that issued forth from my mouth was a hideous chattering noise. The wires piercing through had stretched my mouth back until the damage was irreversible. I'd never speak again.

Then that demented and twisted figure appeared, wanting the girl. Strange to think only minutes before I would have not cared about her fate. But now we all knew that couldn't be allowed to pass. We had to protect her.

I never knew why I was chosen. There were souls who might have served as a Cenobite better than I. Maybe the Leader thought I had potential, being younger and with more creativity. Maybe he just liked the idea of having his own complete little "family", with me as some demented substitute for a son he never had.

With every new victim, I forgot what I was, embracing this new, mutilated from. I had always been a Cenobite and nothing would ever change that. I became happy in my task, willingly doing what was asked of me, my happy chatters mixing with the screams of the tortured souls. It was all I had ever wanted or needed.

"Ahhhhh. Good. A fight." I was scared. Funny how that emotion came back so quickly to my wretched form's mind. I hadn't felt fear in ages, yet here I was, afraid of what was to come with the simple fear of a child. Just like so long ago, when the Cenobites came for me the first time, I already knew what the outcome of this fight was going to be. We did do our best. The chains flew fast and thick until that perversion of our purpose was screaming. But it wasn't enough. He snapped them as if they were threads of silk.

Then I knew with certainty that we were done for. The fear was so great then, it permeated through us all. I could almost see it in the air. The stakes flew so fast through the air I could barely see them before they had already embedded themselves in my companions. As they dropped to the ground, I could see their old forms staring up with sightless eyes. Perfect human bodies, straight out of a painting by Michelangelo, if the artist had ever made humans clad in leather.

Then I felt the stake hit my body as I slammed into one of the moving pillars. If I had been hoping for an instantaneous death, as the others had gotten, I was sorely mistaken. I was used to pain, both doling it out and receiving it, but the death blow I had been dealt was not easier to bear than any other. I gave out a muted grunt, the most noise I was capable of, a twisted mockery of the many screams I had made myself once upon a time. After so many times of wishing to die, now that the moment had finally arrived, I felt reluctant to leave this world behind.

Yet I had no choice. I hoped the Leader would last longer than I had, make our sacrifice worthwhile. The two souls would have enough time to escape, we'd ensured that much. Kristy was a very crafty girl. Maybe she could succeed where we had not.

Just before the end came, the darkness embracing me with warm arms, I felt my form slip back to the way it was before. Perfect and whole once more. No more chattering...

"…What is it, Momma?"

"It's a puzzle box, honey. See, you try and move the pieces around until they all match up and then it'll open up."

"What's inside?"

"A surprise. A marvelous surprise."