doll
. helium lost .
disclaimer. Hunter x Hunter © Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, etc.
That's all she was.
A doll.
Just a doll.
Only a doll.
And that was why she hated dolls. She hated how everybody told her that she was a pretty little girl who shouldn't get involved in boys' activities, and she hated how she had to wear those itchy, frilly dresses. She'd been slapped once for putting on a pair of her father's pants. She hated being told that, being a beautiful little girl, she should be prim and proper, courteous and polite, sweet and caring, feminine and dainty.
That was why she taught herself how to sew.
And that was why the first thing she sewed together was a doll.
It was a simple rag doll, made of a white dress that didn't fit her anymore. She'd torn it apart with great relish and sewn it into the doll using the first spool of thread she found. The yellow thread on that spool made it hard for her to see her stitches. They weren't perfect stitches, either; some were long and some were short; some were straight and many were crooked. The doll had spots of blood on it from when she had accidentally pricked her finger with the needle. She had stuffed it with the rest of the dress and used some ink to blot on two eyes and a frown.
She had spent the rest of the day chucking it against walls, throwing it to the ground and stomping on it, and stabbing it with butter knives (the meat cleavers and other knives were locked up in a glass case). She'd wiped the sweat off her brow and smiled at the ruin of the doll.
Then she ripped it apart.
It was funny how she had spent painful and tedious hours sewing together the doll, and yet it could all come apart in a few minutes.
She had gathered the remains of the doll and dumped it in a mud puddle outside. It had rained while she was sewing. The air smelled fresh and clean. New.
Just like her.
A new life.
This was the memory that waltzed through her head as she stared at the carnage before her. She pried the rag doll away from the limp arms of a six-year-old girl, and, after glancing at the girl's dead and blank stare, she meticulously began ripping the doll apart.
"Machi, the little girl, is gone," she muttered as she ripped off the doll's arms. And, as she ripped off the doll's head, she murmured,
"All that's left now is Machi, a free-willed and feared member of the Genei Ryodan."
author's notes. Reviews and constructive criticism are all greatly appreciated.