Otherside
by the Marvelous March Hare
Ever been suffocated? It's like life has just been cut off from you, and you have less than 30 seconds to get it back it. Nothing else matters, just you and your will to live. Your lungs freak out, but instead of jumping around they just curl up in your chest and wait for the results. The rest of you is going a hundred miles, kicking and screaming to live…just to live.
And then, there's that piece of you, that, depending on your nature, or life experience, may be bigger or smaller…much like a cancerous tumor. If you give in to that piece of you that most people talk of and few honestly listen to, you die.
If not, you live until you die like everyone else.
Coraline was experiencing just that.
You never want to die, you just want the pain to stop. Simple logic: if life did not hurt, you would probably not mind living it. But it does, and so you do mind living it, some days more than others.
You also have a piece of programming, deeply imbedded in you, as deep as the primal emotions such as fear, joy, and sorrow. Ride down the ladder, right down to the core of your being, and you will find it, beyond the pain, beyond the terror, beyond the mortal.
it's called Hope, and it's a broken winged angel.
Some people learn to live with it broken, some learn to fix it. Those that do fix it keep moving forward, those that don't...don't.
Coraline was also experiencing this.
Her life was ticking before, a clock with a beginning and a end. Try to stop it, and you won't. Try to go with it, and you will find it over before you know it. Don't do anything, and it will be longer than you ever dreamed.
She wanted to live. She wanted to die. She wanted the pain to just stop.
She knew she was in a church, a typical protestant church that played at being a small catholic church. The only thing that felt truly catholic was the stained glass windows, but the ornamentations and pretty things, not representations of any scene of the Bible or the like. She knew this because she could see, but she also knew that her eyes were not open. She could just "see" it, in her mind's eye, like she was outside herself looking in.
Coraline never talked to God in her life, except when her goldfish was sick and needed healing. He never did heal it, and so it died. She never talked with him again, not really out of bitterness, but more of the typical way people are with religion and higher thought.
Don't think about it, and it doesn't exist. Think, and you give it life. Giving something life that was beyond your control. Something being beyond your control, or something you wished you could control on you own terms, was just about the fear of every woman or man who ever lived.
You never realize you had unanswered questions until you realized you are dying and you never asked them in the first place, in fear you would get an answer.
The Cat never hinted at God, but she figured there was something more than just the Beldam. She figured that there had to be other spirits, good and evil. She figured that there had to be good and evil in each person, or something like that. She figured that, much like the Big Bang, there had to be a giant push from nowhere that started everything.
She had her mother's sensibility, but her father's fantasy. A thick-skinned girl with big eyes, she was born a contradiction. Hated being lonely, disliked a lot of people, she was a contrary child. She could lead the charge, and hated listening to others, but often achieved her best results when she thought of what others did and what others told her. She was afraid, but bold. She was a mighty, but she was still a child, a girl with dreams and hopes, a person born imperfect.
She was Coraline.
"God, can you hear me? It's Coraline."
"Yes, Coraline," a voice said to her, though whether her own spirit or a greater being she didn't know.
"Can you help me? I don't know what's going on, and I want to just give up and… let it all go."
"Please don't give up. You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
"Yeah, I guess. I did beat the Beldam. But this seems so much bigger-"
"So did the Beldam when you faced her. However, you beat her, and if you can beat her-"
"I can beat this."
There was a sudden still in the void, and then, a burst of blinding light.
"Now you're talking."
Coraline opened her eyes. At first, everything was black, and she could feel nothing like she was back in the Void. Then, slowly, light broke through, and she could feel a soft cushion beneath, as if she was lying on a bed. She began to make out the windows she already knew were there, she began to sense she was not on a bed, she felt her body breathe, ever so slightly. She took another breath, and she could see again. She now knew she was on pew. She knew it was just her, her parents, and the sound of silence…yet again, no God.
But, instead, a purpose.
Her mother was rubbing her arm, with tears in her eyes and her other hand clenched in a fist. She was praying, but it took Coraline a minute to realize this.
"Hey, Mom." Was all she could manage, but it was enough. Charlie and Mel's eyes shot open, and their heads swiveled in a flash to their daughter.
"Coraline!" they cried in unison. They wrapped their arms around their daughter, waves of love gracing the shores of Coraline's heart. It had been too long.
"Oh, my twitchy, witchy girl!" Charlie cheered and cheered, while Mel merely cried tears of joy.
"Easy! Easy!" Coraline cautioned. "I'm still getting back to the whole being alive thing."
Charlie and Mel backed off, but their hands still held to Coraline like iron bands. "We thought we had lost you!" Mel said with a laugh.
"I'm better now I guess." Coraline replied as she tried to move. Her parents shared instant looks; she looked like a cross between Marilyn Mansion and an anorexic model. But she was acting like their daughter again, stubborn and chatting, so they both kept their mouths shut.
"Now hold there you little dragon snap." Charlie went to stop her. "Alive or not, you need to rest."
"No, Dad, I need to go help the Cat with whatever is wrong with me." She stopped, and suddenly looked around. "What are we doing in church, and why has the roof not fallen on Mom's head?"
Mel rolled her eyes. "Now we know she's doing better. Dear, the Cat…told us…" she realized just how weird she sounded. "that to protect you from the rats…we had to get you to a church. You know, holy ground."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Coraline began to get her temper up. "You mean that stuck-up wuss-puss talked to you before he talked to me!"
"No, no!" Charlie corrected. "Mr. B translated…" he began to stumble over their words. "for him."
"You mean he can talk to mice and cats now?"
The couple looked at each other. "Apparently." Charlie shrugged.
"Coraline." Mel interjected solemnly. "Mr. B and the Cat are out trying to stop whatever is coming for you."
"They're out there without me?!" Coraline lifted herself up, her thin limbs finding new strength. "Why those jerk wads! I'm gonna give them a piece of my mind when we get there!"
"Oh, no Coraline!" her mother stopped her. "We are not leaving this building until everything is safe!"
"But, Mom, they can't stop it!" Coraline countered. "I have seen it." The silence rang for eternity. "I have seen...it." she confessed, a little more reluctantly. "They need help. My help."
Charlie slowly stumbled back into reality. "But...how can you-?"
She interjected. "I'm the new Beldam."
He hated rats, even at the best of times. They were inferior, verminous, and lacking in polite manners. But they did have some things he did envy. Where there was one rat there was 5 others, so they always had numbers. They also had a certain ferocity to them, that was only strengthened the larger their numbers were.
Three laid dead at his feet, while the other four had him surrounded, with his back to a wall. His right leg was utterly useless, and screamed like a banshee in pain. His other leg was only better off because it was still working, but it too was in agony. His back had sustained a vicious bruising, but it would heal if he could get out of this. His paws were bloodied, and his teeth bared. The remaining fiends had him in a corner, and while his mind told him to run, his savage heart told him to just charge in and tear them to pieces.
They were closing in, their chattering tongues dripping with venomous saliva.
He took leave of his senses.
The Cat sprung at the one farthest to his right, boxing it on the nose. The others leapt toward him as their sister stumbled to the ground. He twisted his body, and was able to leap off his one better leg while raking his left claw on the side of the one closest to him now. He was now behind the rats, but his injuries prevented him from taking advantage. The rats turned back to face him before he could make a move, while the knocked down sister was now getting her second wind. The Cat bucked his back legs, and managed to hit the fallen sister again, his back claws slicing her face. The three remainders charge in, but this time the two on the sides flanked him while the one in the middle charged him head on. He took the one in the middle head-on, leaping by her as best as he could while swinging away. She backed off quicker than he expected, but the other two leapt into his sides. His vital organs now exposed, he twisted his body to the side, forcing one rat to hit only his back again while the other met his 3 good claws. He savaged her in a flash, while jumping back on his one good foot. He now contended with the one on his back, who had dug its teeth into him and was now attempting to chew its way to his spinal canal.
He flipped on his back again, and then rolled to his feet. The rat was bucked off, but the pain in his back was now unbearable. He knew from the pain; bone was being exposed to the open air, and the chill was utterly miserable. The bucked off rat was getting up, while the one he had maimed was now crawling back from the shadows. The one good one left was nowhere to be-
A sudden movement from behind told him that he had just been flanked.
By the time the Jones had made it, the Pink Palace was in ruin. Everything from the main floor up was blown out, like some cake that had been left too long to bake and now was now bursting out. The windows were already broken into thousands of shards of glass from the shockwaves, blanketing the area while rats...hundreds of rat corpses surrounded the place, caught in the explosions and carried from the house out. The smell was atrocious, the deceased rats' burnt flesh filling the air with noxious fumes. A fire, started somewhere in the upper area, was now raging through the house, so not only was the cake ruined, it was now being set ablaze. Given all the explosions, there were holes all up in the house, but in each hole there burst forth a blazing inferno, as if their lovely home had become gate to Hell.
This would had all been manageable for Coraline if not for the fact Miss Spink and Forcible had called the fire department down, and to make matters worse she could hear the sounds of sirens in the distance.
The Jones pulled up the road behind the fire department. "Son of a bitch." Charlie murmured. Mel put her hand to her mouth in disbelief, for though she knew that this would not end well this was far worse than she expected. True to form, Bobinsky had "forgotten" to tell the Jones about his old stash of landmines.
Coraline wasted no time. As soon as the car stopped, she bolted forth. I'll be back!" she yelled over her shoulder. "I love you!"
Mel yelled in both motherly concern and anger. "Coraline! Stop!"
Coraline did not, not for her mother, not for the two firemen that came racing towards her, not for the smell of burning corpses or blazing inferno that laid before her. She rammed into the front door, and ran up the stairs. The fire had, as seen from the outside, consumed the top half of the apartment. The world was full of smoke that hung heavy to the top, but was slowly making its way back down.
"Mr. B!" she screamed into the flames. "Mr. B!" she cupped her hands around her mouth. The smoke began to fill her lungs, and she started to cough. "Bobinsky!"
"Over here golubushka!" harked a weak and tired voice. The giant's arm, though obscured by the smoke, rose for a moment and waved, then fell back down. He was the on the other side of the fire, sitting in noble defeat and leaning in one of the corners that stood next to her room.
"Hold on, I'm coming!" she replied.
"That's a relief!" Bobinsky laughed weakly. "For a minute I thought you were just going to let me warm up a bit more!"
"Oh, shut-up!" She cried back over to him, as she took a step back, and leapt through the fire. She felt an overbearing heat surrounded her, and then leave as she landed on the floor. She stumbled, but only for a moment, and then landed on her knees, crawling over to the fallen giant.
He looked like living Swiss cheese. The flesh of his legs and arms were all torn open, and blood gushed from them freely. His right hand was torn to ribbons, and would take months to heal if it didn't develop an infection (which was more likely than not). His face and torso had a whole lot less damage, but his back was cut up like some demon had ran his claws up and down it. He looked delirious, a sort of manic exhaustion that came from surviving the worst.
"I seemed to have an amazing job, no?" he smiled at her.
"Yes, amazing." Coraline said, though she could only feel her heart breaking in her chest. "Like you always do." She tried to smile, but the tears still snuck out. "Now, put your arm around me you big blue dummy. We're getting out."
"Out, Caroline?" he muttered, as Coraline took his arm and put it around herself. "That would seem highly unlikely given our current state." That much was true.
"Well, you've got blue skin… and you talk to mice and cats." she replied. "I think you know personally that the unlikely happens."
Bobinsky laughed, but said no more as the two rose together. The Russian was tired and broken, and the girl was choking on smoke and trying to lift a man more than twice her height while not touching his injuries any more than necessary. To both their surprise, they got up, and slowly began to move.
Downstairs, Coraline heard voices.
"The firemen are coming up!" she cried jubilantly.
The stairway way fell with a loud crash like it had been swallowed by fiery jaws, a roar like a roaming lion seeking whom it can devour.
"I don't think it'll be anytime soon." the Russian quipped.
"Come on! We'll use my window!" Coraline began to pull Bobinsky to her room. "They've got to have a ladder or tarp to catch you!"
The girl's room suddenly fell through, and the fire, as if forcing its way up, burst from the wreckage.
"What the hell!" she screamed.
"Yeah, that's what we get for thinking it would be that easy." Bobinsky said, then, suddenly he swooned. Coraline's knee's nearly buckled in surprise.
"Whoa!" she cried. The giant suddenly turned back to reality, lifting himself back up.
"Caroline," he rasped, his body covered in sweat and blood. "Get out of here! Let me die! I have lived my life, now do the same!"
"No! Nobody dies on my watch! Got it?" she spat back, but her lungs filled with her outburst and she fell into a fit of coughing.
"I don't think we have much choice in the matter, huh, Caroline?" he snickered deliriously. "We all got to die some time, no?"
Outside, she could hear her parents screaming, men barking and yelling orders, sirens ringing in her ears and eyes. The fire was moving fast, helped only by the generous supply of air the explosions had produced. There was no way down, no way out the side, and they were running out of air.
"Think, Coraline!" she thought, "Think!" Bobinsky faded out again, and suddenly his weight all came crashing down on her. She landed hard on one of her knees, while she pushed up vainly with the other foot. "Damn it!" she cried.
Below her, she could feel the heat and smoke rising through the cracking floor...wait a second, cracks!
"Here goes nothing!" she groaned, closing her eyes and pushing her mind out in all directions. Her first push yielded only a blood vessel bursting in her head and she gasped for air, only managing to swallow cinders. Her throat burned, and her lungs went into another fit.
"Come on!" she cried, and she pushed her mind out again. This time, she felt as if she had seen something, but only a glimpse in the dark. Beneath her, the floor buckled.
"Son of a bitch!" Her world flashed in and out. She felt her muscles fail, her head explode, her body collapse into a black void.
She felt a tiny tear in the fabric of space, and pulled it open.
Bobinsky felt like he was falling, and then like he had landed on something hard. Then he woke up and realized he had, in fact, fallen and landed on something hard. When he opened his eyes, his brain swam with pain. He was face down on what felt like the coldest, blackest stone he could ever fine. All around him was near-darkness, yet not a sound could be heard except the beating of his heart. It was like he had fallen in a Void, a place between places.
His limbs were still half-eaten, and the pain was like that of a thousand needles sticking in him. He couldn't move without the tears and bites acting up, and he could barely breath with all the weight on his chest. He started off with small breaths, and then worked his way up, keeping his mind as focused on the breathing as possible, to do anything but to think about how much pain he was in, the full extent of his training subconsciously kicking in.
Slowly, his mind and reality fully tuned in to the same frequency, and he could make out the blurry form of Coraline, paler than it was physically possible, leaning up against a rock that melded almost seamlessly with the ground. She was gasping for air, as if she had just escaped nearly drowning, but she was not sweating. In fact, she looked remarkably like an shiny, anorexic porcelain doll.
"Mr. B?!" she anxiously smiled through the breathes. "How are you?"
"I could really use a drink right about now, but otherwise I'll get through." he muttered. "What happened?"
"I pulled us out of reality, I think." Coraline replied, struggling just to breath. "I don't think I did it right though."
"Nonsense. It felt right to me."
The two tried to laugh, but it was meager imitation at best. There they were, for what felt like an eternity, shivering in the cold and gasping for life.
"Why did you take them on your own?" Coraline asked when she finally gained control of her breath.
"No one else could help." He simply replied, gritting through the pain. "The kitty was gone, and your parents had you, so I just took it head on."
"Sucks to take things head on, doesn't it?" she smiled.
"Like a vacuum." he replied. "Sorry about the house. I knew you were just getting use to the place too."
"Well, it's not the first time I moved. At least now moving will be easier now that there's nothing to move."
Silenced reigned again, and all Bobinsky could hear was strained breathing the sound of his heart and head pounding away. Finally, Coraline felt herself ready to move. She put her arm on the rock and began to prop herself on her legs. "Alright, Mr. B, I'll be back in a jiff. I got to get the Cat-"
"What?!" he jumped with a start. "You want to go help the Кошка in your condition?"
"The what?" She sputtered, as she got on her two, thin legs.
"The kitty cat!" he answered, as he too began to struggle in vain to get up. Tears of pain began to well in his eyes with each strain. "What makes you think he needs help?"
"First of all, you are staying on the ground whether you like it or not." She stumbled over to him and put a reassuring hand on his head. "You are in no condition to move. Second of all, I just got a feeling. I'll get the Cat, come back, and get us back to reality. I know its stinks, but you'll have to remain here until then. Don't worry about the rats" she said before he could interject. "I've been listening to the echoes, and I ain't been hearing nothing but emptiness."
She began to make her way clumsily down the tunnel.
"Finish it for all of us, okay?" he asked.
"Of course," she grinned back, fading away into the black.
"Just do me a favor and stay alive while you do that, okay?" he called down the tunnel.
There was no answer. Only the echo, and then…nothing.
Just him, the pain, and the silence…
Coraline did not know what she was really doing. She did not know how she should feel about this curse that had been mysteriously planted in her, if it could be cured or not. She did not want to feel about losing the house or quite possibly Bobinsky or/and the Cat. All she knew was that she had a scent, a chance to win the day, and a score to settle.
It was time to finish the game.
The tunnels were heavy with the smell of refuse, of death and slow decay, yet all running at the manic pace, a pace a human would not understand for rats, unless highly gifted, live relatively short lives, so they must pack everything in a short and sometimes brutal times. It was nauseating to all senses, and Coraline found herself choking on it all. It was like an endless stream of bad news clips of wars and plagues and endless suffering, a broken faucet forever spewing cold.
She shivered, not only out of fear, but out of realization. This was the realm she was connected to, his place of pain and sorrow. She did not understand it, but she knew it like a spider knows how to spin a web, to hunt, to kill. Even now, Coraline felt hungry, and it was not the hungry for cooked goods or sweet beverages.
She tried not to dwell on it either.
The tunnels were small, for everything that was small to her in the material was large to her now. A pair of scissors, a scrap of cloth, a blind man's sunglasses. Why? She didn't know yet, but once she got the Cat's rear in gear she would be getting those answers she wanted.
"The jerk," she muttered under her breath. Countless nights, she had talked to him, and he never answered back. That would have been all fine and dandy, but would he at least had the respect to tell her what was happening ? Even IF he couldn't speak DIRECTLY in the material!
She swore in her head. She had been stupid in her own account, however. At first she had pushed everything off as the long-awaited changes she had been waiting for in puberty. She actually was happy about being so thin, considering her grandmothers on both sides had a physical semblances to watermelons. But the changes happened faster than she expected, so she lied to herself and threw her worries aside as growth spurts. Her parents must've too, or else they would have been alarmed to see their daughter becoming a holocaust victim in a matter of months.
She got colder, but only everyone else noticed it. She got quieter, but she thought she was finding less reasons to talk. She was getting more solitary, but she only figured…well, that she really didn't notice until the day her mother came in to talk to her on her own free will. It was then that the ugly truth hit her; she had not talked to her mother in weeks. One of the two people she had gone to Hell and back for and she had not talked to her, really talked to her, in was what had happened to her, and it was unacceptable.
She was now determined to change things, to eat more, to force herself to talk more, and the such. But that was only a few days ago, so when she caught a massive fever only two days later, she had been able to do little work. Then she woke up this morning from uneasy dreams to find herself transformed in her bed into a monstrous vermin…
The anxiety she had been pushing down suddenly burst in her chest, and she suddenly fell on the wall, gasping for breath and begging for air. "God, can this get any worse?!" she thought.
The pained yowl of a cat rang down the halls, as if the Universe had answered her question with a devious grin and laugh.
"CAT!" she cried, and burst into a run. She no longer felt pain, or stiffness, though it was still there, hindering her movements but not her heart. She forced her body into motion, and ran down the halls in a blur, lost things flashing by her. A second scream, rat-like in nature, answered her. She followed it down the tunnels, instinctively putting her hands on the walls to feel the vibrations. Following the motions, she made turn after turn in a dizzying motion that was beyond her mortal comprehension. She now moved by action, led by will, incapable of no other thoughts but the objective before.
The tunnel she was now following opened into a crossroads of sorts, and it was there that the sounds of a tremendous battle rang from. She burst into the opening, and instinctively dropped on the first rat she saw. Her hands turned into elongated claws, which bit into the vermin's fur, and she ripped with a shout into the poor fools' guts. In a matter of seconds she had disemboweled it, leaving it merely a wiggling mass of skin and pain, and then that too was no more. Blood slicked, Coraline turned to face her other opponents, her teeth sharped needles.
Savage rage was cooled by the sudden calm, she could now make out her opponents. There were 2 left standing now, one with barely a face left from what must have been one savage clawing, and the other, which was still in full health. They were both roughly her size, so she did now know for a fact she was smaller than usual. The two, with mouths bloodied, back off from her, bowed by her display of power. On the other side of the area, there laid Cat, cuts to pieces and showing signs that, though still barely breathing, the rats had begun to feast on him…
"Oh, mightiest of mighty Beldam," said the healthy one as it cautiously approached her with its nose to the ground, "we have-"
It didn't get a chance to finish, as Coraline sank both her hands into its skull and ripped out its brain in rage. She then turned to the other rat, but all she caught sight of was its tail disappearing into the safety of the dark tunnel. "I'll handle with you soon enough," she hissed.
A soft mew graced her ears, dissolving all her anger with fear. She turned around, and looked upon the ruined, now-giant form of Cat. He was mangled in each limb and tails, the places where the rats had eaten on, and his body was torn up and down.
He was near death.
A wave of pain fell on Coraline, and she ran over to the Cat, wrapping her tiny arms around the massive, beautiful beast. "Oh, Cat, I'm so sorry."
"No, it was my fault." He coughed, his eyes blinking open for a second, and then closing. "I never was brave enough to tell you… to warn you of the dangers left. I had thought it all over, or so I dreamed. But I was proud, and underestimated their strength while not realizing… the extent of my own. I guess that's what I get for lounging about in the Sun and accepting-" he coughed again. "all those damn handouts." He snickered, and then coughed some more. His eyes were growing dim.
"It's hard to resist a cute face." Coraline tried to laugh, but it only broke. She stroked the noble beast's fur. "What do I do now?"
"Kill the last of the mothers, and leave this realm. Then, the curse will be lifted. But, I warn you," he said, "the last one will try to talk to you and convince you otherwise. She is now the only one, and will use all the cunning of her kind to manipulate you, like they did to the last Beldam…"
His eyes, once bright green with whimsical energy and knowledge, fell black. "Good-bye, Coraline."
His head fell heavy into her lap.
"Good-bye, Cat."
The silence was defeaning.
Bobinsky woke up the hospital, upside down, and with enough gauze on his back and legs and face to make a mummy. He could still see and talk, but he was on his stomach, with his head poking through the bottom what must have been a modified bed for such patients. Before him was a table with a half-empty glass of orange juice, now warm, and three "Get Well!" cards. One was from the Spink and Forcible, the second was from the Jones, and the second was from his Mice and Coraline.
He could only beam with joy. He was a alive! And he was loved! Which considering his lifestyle and recent actions were both surprises!
Looking back, he could only assume he passed out from the strain not too long after Coraline left him. Personally, he felt like the time he got up from his coma, but this time he was just stiff and sore all over. However, he knew he was not asleep nearly as long, guessing from the calendar he could see up on the wall facing him.
On that same wall was a window, shining light down upon him. It was a warm summer day, still the morning, so the light was golden, and gentle. The skyline the city glowed before him, yet all he could hear was the twitter of birds out his window. He felt a calm descend upon him. The war was over and the peace put his weary soul to rest. Even now, the voices that had haunted him for so long did not even raise a whisper.
Truly, he was a happy man.
It was then that he saw Coraline, her knees tucked up, sitting underneath the window. She was asleep, he first thought, till she said his name.
"Mr. B?"
She rose her head slowly. She looked like she was suffering from a hangover, her face pale and worn and ragged. Her hair as a mess, black roots sticking over from her skull along with her blue ends. She wore a tank-top and sweat pants, both of which were pitch black. If he hadn't such amazing eyesight, he would of missed her; she almost was invisible in the shadows. Strangely, her eyes looked like pits of black, almost as if they were…
"I am here." He opened up, only to find his mouth dry. "How is everyone?" he tried to sound cheerfully, but he was still exhausted.
"Everyone has moved in with Misses Lovett and Wybie." She cracked a small smile at the packed and mad image of all that oddness under one roof. "Everyone is still adjusting, but they're working something out. Fortunately, she had insurance on the house, so it's being repaired to its original, boring, pink form as we speak." A light chuckle escaped her body.
"And you?" he queried.
"I'm alive." She said, her eyes filled with exhaustion. He could see now that she was stroking something in her hands, but it was hidden by her knees.
"That's good to hear." He replied. "What of the…" he tried to finish his statement, but he felt reluctant to speak of it.
"They're taken care of." She said, with a slight smile of her own. "The state has decided that the fire was an accident, and the rats were just an unknown pest problem. They never found any other problems whatsoever."
"That's relieving to hear," the Russian let out a sigh. "Though law trouble was the last thing on my mind."
"What is on your mind then?"
"The…curse? Is it…"
"Same as the rats."
Bobinsky felt himself chuckle in joy, as the morning light reflected from his eyes. "That's…amazing to hear."
Coraline walked out of the hospital, cradling the little animal in her arms. "Well, I say all that goes well ends well."
"Yes-yes, oh kind and merciful Beldam." Said the mother rat, her face now healed save for the massive scars.
"I'm in the mood for some pink lemonade. How about yourself?" the young girl inquired with thoughtful, hungry look in her eyes.
"Oh, most certainly, mighty mistress. I have been craving for some lemonade. Being with pups makes one thirsty-dry."
"Then it's settled," Coraline smiled as she walked out the hospital doors . "We'll get some lemonade, and then settle down for some child molester."
"I don't know how you can eat the souls of such foul people." The Cat said, bouncing from his hiding place in a nearby bush. His body was healed up, but one could identify scars were stiches were once put in. "But it does make the world a better place. You can find him on the 3rd apartment story down the way of the barber shop. He's been ignorant of my presence around his chambers, so capturing him should be as easy as it comes. All you would have to do is ensnare him and drag him away."
The three turned the corner and began down the street, as Coraline placed the pregnant mother on her shoulder and scooped up the cat in her arms.
"Good job, Cat. By the way," she pseudo-seductively purred into his ear. "I finally mastered that transformation spell I learned from the butterfly. We can finally go to that sweet, little malt shop for a date instead of your nasty old riverside."
"And not draw stares?" Cat laughed. "that would be purr-fect."
"With all due respect, oh beloved master," the mother rat suggested, slightly nervous. "could you two keep the cuddle-cuddle to a minimum?"
"Oh, alright, party pooper," Coraline groaned.
The Cat groaned even more. "Do you have any idea what I've gone through to finally get the girl, Rat?" he started getting riled up on a long and angered rant, as the three entered the local gas station to settle down to get some pink lemonades. The two girls rolled their eyes as the Cat began.
"Let me tell you what I had to put up with, first and foremost…"
And that's the end of our first story arc…and sadly, our only story arc, possibly for quite a few months. I'm being called away on some intensive business for some time, and while it's for the greater good, it will cost much of my down time. I will try to return to writing as soon as possible, but I will mostly stick to my "magnum opus"; V.I.P : The Villain Improvement Program, due to it's size and my desire to finish it. That means I might return to Coraline, and her tale which I dearly love, if I feel so inspired, but until then we will consider this little story to be done for all realistic purposes.
I want to thank first and foremost my most dedicated readers, first and foremost of them Woodswolf, who always reviewed and loved my work, and even drew fan art for it (COME ON, HOW MANY WRITERS CAN SAY THEY HAD FAN ART DRAWN FOR THEIR STORIES BY SOMEONE OTHER THAN THEMSELVES?). Ahem, as I was saying. I thank you all, for without people to read and comment on their stories we writers would be lonely and miserable people.
You have all been a blessing, and I wish you all the best in your destinies and goals!
Sincerely Mad,
The Marvelous March Hare
