A/N -- The Other Wybie's become a popular writing subject, hasn't he? I take pride in knowing I was the first in a movement. (I was the first, right?)
This -- my first multi-chapter Other Wybie-centric fic -- is dedicated to everyone who's read and reviewed "Stitches" and "The Sacrafice."
Disclaimer: I don't own Coraline etc. this chapter, I won't own them next chapter, and come the end of this fic I still won't own them.
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The room was enclosed by darkness, the kind of darkness that exists after you turn off the lights in your bedroom at night: not complete blackness, but enough to muffle shapes and make everything uncertain. A source of light glowed somewhere unseen, more otherworldly than any candle.
A twisted shadow slithered this way and that, rummaging around soundlessly. A silhouette albeit to a hand lifted, and something silver and thin glistened in the suffused light. The black shape headed for a far corner.
Hunkered down in the corner was a boy, hard to make out because of the dark clothes he was wearing. He was clearly frightened, yet he lifted his head as if trying to display a little bravery. He had brown curly hair and black button eyes.
In less than a second, the shadow was upon him. A cruel, dry, yet too human voice hissed, "Remember, you wear my eyes. You're mine. Obey now, because one chance is all you get. I don't want you to upset Coraline…"
The hand-shape lifted, and the silver object was revealed.
It was a needle.
---
Coraline Jones awoke with a gasp, her forehead drenched in chilled sweat. She had a few moments of blank confusion, listening to her heart pound, before she was fully able to grip reality.
The view of her room seemed to have shifted slightly. Gradually Coraline came to realize that, sometime during the night, she had completely turned around in bed, so that her head was at the edge and her feet up by the pillow.
Also up by the pillow was a scruffy black cat, who appeared to be quite comfortable.
"How'd you get in here?" Coraline demanded.
The cat coolly blinked its pale aqua eyes.
"Not talking, huh?"
The cat placed his paws on the pillow and stretched nonchalantly. Coraline sighed and attempted to swing her legs out of bed, but found herself thoroughly entangled in her comforter. She kicked herself free, dressed in a striped shirt and jeans, and headed downstairs.
It didn't seem to matter how many projects they finished; Coraline's parents were always busy working on something. Though she usually made futile attempts to attract their attention, on this morning she entered quietly and resolved to unobtrusively pour herself a bowl of cereal, without bothering her rapidly typing mother. The gesture wasn't out of courtesy, however. It was because Coraline was still puzzling over her dream.
It all seemed to boil down to two words: Other Wybie. Other Wybie, a copy of her real-life best friend. Other Wybie, who couldn't talk at all. Other Wybie, who wore black button eyes, the sign of the Other Mother, yet had tried to help her escape until the very end…
Other Wybie, whose clothes had been dangling limply from the flag pole outside of Other Bobinski's apartment – her last glimpse of him.
The moment she'd witnessed in her dream was an unfamiliar one. Never had Coraline seen the Other Mother confront the Other Wybie, nor had he ever expressed any outright fear of her. But something in her heart told her that what she'd seen had happened – she just hadn't noticed it on those nights a few weeks ago.
She hardly touched her cereal.
The morning sky was angry mauve, threatening storms. "Can I go outside for a while?" Coraline asked, rinsing out her bowl.
Her mother's eyes flickered from her screen for a microsecond. "Looks like rain out there," she mumbled.
"If it starts, I'll come right back in," promised Coraline.
"All right…"
The air carried the acrid taste of lightning. Coraline shoved her hands (clad in her special gloves) in her raincoat pockets and plodded on.
She'd barely gone ten steps before nearly tripping over something. Not something but someone, draped in charcoal gray and hunched over as he crawled along the dry, uneven ground.
Coraline stumbled, but caught herself at the last second. She ached an eyebrow and glared down at the boy who had become her best friend. "What the heck are you going, Wybie?"
Wybourne Lovat, more commonly known as Wybie, lifted his head. His curly brown hair was hidden by a skeleton mask sporting a periscope. "Oh, eh, hey Jonesy."
"What are you doing?" Coraline repeated.
Wybie's skeleton-gloved hand reached up to rub the back of his thin neck. "I'm, um, rescuing worms."
"Rescuing…worms?" For the first time, Coraline noticed the soil-filled cardboard box beside him.
"Yeah, you know how the worms come up to breathe after it rains, and they all get dried up in the sun? I'm going to save enough so that they don't become an endangered species."
"What about the banana slugs?" Coraline asked sarcastically.
Wybie wasn't paying attention enough to catch her mocking tone. "Nah, the banana slugs can fend for themselves. They're a lot tougher than the worms."
Coraline rolled her eyes. She would have slugged him, but she really didn't feel like bending down to reach his shoulder.
Without warning, the atmosphere around them changed. The electric taste grew sharper, more distinct, and the smell was now thick and damp. A rumble of thunder echoed boundlessly through the sky, like a mallet pounding on an enormous sheet of aluminum.
Wybie stood up, brushing clumps of earth from his coat. He scooped up his worm box and made a beeline to where his bike was propped up against the wall of the Pink Palace Apartments.
"Running away from the rain, Wyyyy-boorrrnnn?" teased Coraline, emphasizing the name he hated.
Wybie, hunched over as always, might have been wringing his hands together were it not for the worm box he still carried. His gaze was averted – he seldom seemed able to make eye contact. "Grandma'll kill be if I'm out here when it starts – "
Light flashed behind patches of the cloud cover, and one single lightning bolt zigzagged down like a crack in the sky. And it seemed that something indeed cracked, because just like that, it started pouring.
"…raining," Wybie finished. Water slid off of his mask and dripped from the edge. He pushed the contraption aside, then muttered, "Oh, crap."
"You're not gonna make it home, Wybie," observed Coraline smugly.
"I'm so dead," he groaned, swinging one leg over his bike.
"Why don't you hand over at my place until the rain lets up?" she suggested.
More thunder, more lightning.
"Yeah, I'd better," said Wybie hurriedly, abandoning the bike and the worm box as he and Coraline covered their heads and ran for the door.
Coraline remembered something. "Your cat got in here last night, Wybie."
They were now in the front hall, leaving their moistened coats and shoes by the entrance. Wybie added his mask to the pile. "He's still not my cat – and he tends to do that if you leave a window open."
"I didn't leave any windows open."
"Sure you didn't, Jonesy."
"I didn't!"
"Whatever." Wybie's eyes drifted nervously towards the phone. "Hey, listen, I'd better call Grandma and tell her where I am. Why don't you go get him and bring him down here?"
"Fine." Coraline marched upstairs, the creepy gist of the conversation fully processing: she didn't know how the cat had gotten in.
He was still curled up on her pillow, but he wasn't asleep. In fact, he seemed especially alert, as if he were guarding his place.
Coraline approached, giving him a scratch under the chin. "Hey, Wybie's downstairs. He wants you down there."
The cat sprang up, his back somewhat arched, bizarrely tense. His enormous eyes were staring at her intently. He was…trying to tell her something?
"Whatsa matter?"
He began to nudge the pillow with his head, gently at first, then harder. It toppled to the hardwood floor without a sound.
"What's your problem?" demanded Coraline, reaching down for the fallen pillow. She was about to set it back on the bed – when something made her muscles lock into place.
Gazing up at her from the starched bedsheets were two round black buttons.