Coraline 2: Paint It, Black
"Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of miles, it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans and at this micro-instant for you. Hate. Hate."-AM (I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream)
Chapter 1: Sympathy For Mrs. Vengeance
At 16 years old, Coraline Jones sat in her private school (St. Thomas High), as an Atheist. She had at eleven years of age bested what she knew for sure was "a god", in a game of wits. Coraline had long since admitted to herself, that for all she knew, Other Mother could have been THE God her private school was meant to worship. That was cynical thinking, she realized, but worth a pondering nonetheless.
The idea that the Other Mother was THE God didn't follow, in her opinion. For looking in the stories in the Bible, God's attitude towards humanity is largely "You better fucking love me with out me having to do shit for ya!". And while that attitude was very cold and mean, she preferred the idea of that God to Other Mother's smother you to death mentality.
I wonder… does Her existence, as a God, therefore prove in fact the existence of THE God based on the idea that a God can exist in the first place? She wondered, lacksidasily in her mind. It was math class after all, and surely the killer of God's didn't need to know algebra. Or does the very fact it falsifies the statement that THE God was the only God to exist, prove that no God exists?
She shuddered at the very thought and pushed the thoughts to the rightful place in the back of her mind. The experience of the event 6 years ago had taught her that if anything, every day she got to spend above ground with the people she cared about was a blessing. A blessing that to her was more dear to her then her very existence.
Thou are still alive! Huck Finn Junior's voice rang in her mind, easing that sinking feeling in her heart that comes with thought of her own eventual mortality. The little boy's statement was the truth, her death didn't matter, not while she was alive anyway.
"Psssttttt! Hey Jonesy!" Said Wybourne sitting chairs away in front of her, breaking her concentration. She had tried to ignore him, after all it had been only the other day when Mr. Schumacher had scolded her for talking to Catlin Bree during a lesson. There was little doubt, if she was caught again she'd get a detention.
"Coraline! Pssst!" Of course, Wybourne wouldn't cut her a break and take a hint. No sire, he just had to keep on pestering her in class. After failing to garner her attention, he eventually resided to writing whatever it was down in a note and crumpling it into a ball. He nailed her in the face with it.
"WILL YOU QUIT IT?" She said loudly, she didn't want to get in trouble again this week. But naturally, despite the fact it was Wybourne that had been pestering her during class her teacher hadn't seen that. All he saw was Coraline Jones interrupting his class again.
"Coraline." He spoke, arms folded.
"But! But!" She stammered "It wasn't my fault! Wybour-"
"Go out in the hallway, you can come back in when you've learned to be a good quiet student."
"Your not listening!" She protested.
"Now." Schumacher instructed, pointing his arm at the door.
Coraline groaned, grabbing the crumpled ball in her hand as she got up. I'm flipping 16 years old and they still don't listen to me, she thought in her anger. When she got out into the hallway, she sunk down and pouted. It was unfair, considering the amount of bullshit the school had told the student body about being treated like an adult. When push came to shove and it was convenient for the faculty, you were a child.
Fuck them! She threw the paper ball against the wall. It rebounded back to her, and had a very brief cry over how unfair the world was. Turning her attention back to the little paper ball, she decided examined it to find out what if anything Wybourne had found so important that he just had to get her in trouble over. Upon it's uncrumpling, she became aware that it wasn't a note so much as it was a news article.
HEADLINE: SERIAL KILLER LOOSE IN OREGON!
BYLINE: KILLER SEWS BUTTONS INTO VICTIMS EYES!
"Okay. That might have been worth it." She said to herself, ironically.
The article, written by the associated press, mentioned that no one alive had seen the killer. Whoever it was though, targeting young children and savagely brutalized them while sewing in the buttons, an autopsy revealed.
Coraline leaned back and thought; Erie to be sure, but it couldn't be Other Mother. She's still trapped behind the wall. Plus the mode of operation is all wrong. Other Mother smothers them with love and tricks them into doing it willingly!
Her mind flashed back to the spider-like needle-hand that Wybourne and had hit with a rock, and thrown down the well. Could it be, somehow, the She had resurrected her hand? Coraline dreaded the very thought. But she did think of a saving grace to her dilemma, and that was even if Other Mother had escaped she's clearly not interested in Coraline Jones.
"After all," she laughed to herself "I'm 16, I'm sure there are a lot more easier to get children then me. I'm too smart to fall for her tricks."
To Coraline Jones, this wasn't her mountain to die on. So she let the topic get buried amongst the rest of the high school drama that now filled her days, and her concerns about the upcoming end of the year dance.
It was well after the school day, as they were riding home on Wybourne's bicycle (Coraline resting delicately on top of his handlebars), that the topic of the newspaper article surfaced and the possibility of investigating the resting place of Other Mother's hand.
"Look!" Coraline said with a smack of her tongue, peering over her shoulder at Wybourne from the front handlebars were she was perched "I really do not even want to think about going back there again."
"You think I do?" He responded.
"Then why even bother to bring it up if you don't want to either? Why even entertain the idea? Why get me in trouble during math?" She threw up her arms melodramatically.
"Quit your whining, I said I was sorry." He shook his head "Look, Jonesy, I just feel like we got some kind of moral obligation ya know?"
"Moral obligation?" she folded her arms for a moment, but returned them to the handle bars after the bike hit a small bump in the dirt road. "Look, I don't recall ever signing up to be Batman. I just was kind of forced into a horrible situation and was lucky I got out of it with out having buttons sewed into my eyes. You're just not afraid because you didn't even go up against that."
"Hey now that's not true-"
She cut him off, mocking his nasally voice "I hit it with a rock!" she sighed "Well I was almost killed by a deformed pumpkin version of my father riding a praying mantis tractor! I was nearly eaten by flying dogs, while in a tug of war with taffy! I almost lost my life and my eyes because of a damn rat! You may of hit it with a rock, but you didn't almost have buttons sewed into your eyes!" She paused to catch her breath "You have no idea Wybie, She's dangerous, and if She's back I want nothing to do with it. Let the cops deal with it, and let them play her fucking games. I didn't ask for this."
There was a long pause till finally Wybourne spoke again.
"He didn't sign up." He muttered.
"Mmm?"
"Batman. He didn't just decide to be Batman, his parents were brutally murdered in front of him and that's what made him become Batman."
"So what's your point?" She said frustrated.
"My point is Coraline…" He stopped at the fork in the road, one way went to the pink palace and the other way went to the well. "Sometimes, shit just happens. And just like Batman was the only way crime was going to cease in Gotham, you're the only one that can stop Her from continuing to murder these innocent kids. You're the one who survived.
She groaned "Way to lap on guilt Why-Were-You-Born." and she leaped off the handlebars and turned and faced him, hands on her hips like a bossy little girl. "And I suppose if I still resist you're not going to let it up are you?"
Wybourne leaned over his handlebars, and talked with his hands "If you don't do this, you can walk home from school."
" Oh my gosh. Well I certainly wouldn't want to deny you the pleasure of staring at my ass the whole ride." She turned around posed and stared at him, blowing a little kiss. "Come on, I see you fantasying about it when you think I'm not looking."
Deadpanned, Wybourne stared at her. This wasn't the first time Coraline had tried this trick.
She groaned again, dropping her shoulders. She wouldn't be charming her way out of this, not this time anyway and reluctantly hopped back on the handlebars to go check out the place the fight for her life had ended so many years ago.
***
Love. That was a distant memory. A lucid dream. A feeling that now not only felt completely alien to Other Mother, the very idea of feeling it again about anything always left her with a mix of boredom and frustration. It wasn't that she hadn't tried to love again, she had. First when she coaxed the mangy cat into revealing the means to escape her pocket universe. However as soon as he had out lived his usefulness, she impaled him on the pink palace sign with a knitting needle.
Leaving the Pink Palace she assumed the identity of the only adult female shed ever sewed button eyes on. 21 year old Dakota Gaiman, a college student that had merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time (Jogging threw the park at 5 in the morning), with no time or energy to create a faux world Other Mother merely tackled the young girl to the ground. Penetrating her with her needle like limbs, and sewed the buttons into her eyes and quickly devoured her sweet delicious life. It was a small amount, not as filling as a child's, but it was enough and gave her an alternate identity to blend into the world. Other Mother was now a spitting image of Dakota, with red hair small perky breast and long shapely legs. Acquiring the girls things, she also gained access to the college girls cash and for Other Mother's luck she emptied a large sum out of the girls bank account.
Ironic how these pieces of paper are more important than their lives. She licked her lips thinking.
She soon found that schools were the best place to abduct children, and forcefully take them to her pocket universe. Much more time effective then luring them in slowly, she thought. It was the first sign of Her patience's giving out on her.
Her next victim, Nancy Callahan, Age 8, got the luxury of five minutes with the Other Mother's love before she too faced the searing hot raping of her needle threw her little eyes. It was here, Other Mother realized She was now capable of hate. It was the little girls resemblance to Coraline that did her in. Upon devouring her life, she dumped the body in a river.
Her next victim was a little boy, Dewey Foley, age 5. She had lured him away from his father's single parent home, promising him the life he could never have: both his parents together in a big loving family. This façade, the boy saw for about 30 seconds before once again she grew frustrated and savagely collected yet another eye in much the same fashion. Dewey was left in a ditch to rot around the time Nancy was being pulled out of the river by police.
Blame it on the competitive spirit that drove her, Other Mother hated losing, and that was affecting Her with these new children.. The fact that Her adoptive daughter had bested Her, outsmarted Her, was simply an insult she could not just shrug off. And these new children couldn't compare… They were no match to her like Coraline was.
It was rather difficult for the Other Mother to initially wrap Her head around it. She was a demonic spider goddess, She needed food. She needed to get the food to land in her pocket-universe web and stay there. Her tool She choose, was love. It had work 3 out of 4 times, and not only that it was pleasurably satisfying to trick a child's young mind into giving up their lives. It filled more than just Her empty stomach, it filled Her spiritually. And if you're a nearly indestructible infinite being, you live for that feeling that only such a thing as a challenge could provide.
What was Other Mother to do? Go back to luring children into Her web slowly and breaking their spirits with love? No, She had tried love once before and She got Her fucking eyes ripped out. Coraline had changed things for Other Mother, and She knew there was no going back. Other Mother was now a being that hated. And amongst all the annoying things She hated about Her immortal existence, the thing that She hated most was that Coraline Jones was currently happy and alive.
That realization, lead Other Mother down a new road. She'd spend the rest of her eternity trying to get revenge on the only little human that ever beat her.
"And it won't simply be for her eyes, for her life." The Other Mother decided, "This time I'm going to destroy her inside and out. And when she's laying on the ground weeping because I've gone ahead and ripped to pieces everything she held dear and loved… When she's begging to me…Pleading to me to just end her miserable life then and there…. Oh!" She laughed manically, "It won't be quick like with the other ones! I will savior every single last waking moment of her torture for as long as I can. I will kill you Coraline. Other Mother is going to abort you."