Allen watched in awe as the doll separated the seeds from the pile of dirt. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before! The little doll and its hands moved with a speed unlike anything he had ever seen before. He didn't know what he had been expecting, exactly, when the doll insisted it could separate the dirt and the seeds, but if he had to say, he supposed he was expecting something more ungainly and awkward. It was a little, stuffed doll, albeit an enchanted, talking one. He expected it to be able to do what it said it could, one does not simply discount the words of a talking doll, but he hadn't expected it to pull out smooth, graceful, and speedy movements that he had only seen similar in the way that Kanda moved.
Allen felt another pang of loss at the thought of the demon. He still didn't know what to do about that situation. He was still really upset and didn't know what to do with himself. He still felt like he should go back, but he was still afraid of facing it all. However, he did miss the dark-haired man very much, he wouldn't dare lie to himself about that. Allen shook his head, refocussing on the amazing doll who was already almost done with their task. He'd deal with that after he got out of his current problem alive. If he could do that, then he could turn his mind to secondary issues.
The doll finished up what it was doing and floated - yes, floating - back to Allen's side, quickly hiding underneath his clothes. Then it spoke from within the folds. "You must relax. The witch will notice if you are nervous and notice something is wrong."
"I'm sorry." Allen felt himself apologizing. "I don't think I can." Allen wasn't the best at handling his emotions. He wasn't sure if it was because of how new he was or if that was just how he was as a person.
The doll didn't reply to that and instead moved on. "If all goes well, she'll give you another task that I can then help with, as well."
"...If all goes well?" Allen picked up on that and the implication immediately raised his alarm. "What do you mean by that?" He asked, trying to keep his emotions in check.
"The witch is a creature of habit, but you may still never know what to expect from her." The doll replied in a way that seemed hesitant to Allen, but it was difficult for Allen to tell since the doll's way of expressing emotion was entirely muted compared to what he'd expect from a person. The doll didn't explain further, simply leaving the statement as it was.
Allen couldn't get up the courage to specifically ask. His heart was pounding in his chest with worry and it was all he could do to manage himself. Making matters worse, the thought made itself known that it wasn't truly his heart that was pounding. It was someone else's, he was just using it. Allen forced himself to sit down and stop moving as he waited for the witch - for Baba Yaga - to come back. He didn't have to wait long.
The woman threw open the door and hobbled inside the small home, her countenance the same as it had been before but now the strange air about her made sense to him. He could always tell that there was something wrong with her with the way she talked and the aura around her and now he could find the right word to put to it. Inhospitable. She had an inhospitable air about her.
"Have you finished your task?" Was the first thing she asked, done in such a way that her tone of voice and its clipped nature implied she didn't expect to get a positive response. Allen bristled.
"Yes, I have," Allen replied calmly, taking care to keep his tone of voice neutral. Whether it was the upset at being set up to fail in such a way by such a person or the terror of the situation that he wanted so much to keep out of his voice, even he didn't know.
The witch looked surprised at his statement, marked by a slight widening of her beady eyes and a distinct tightening of her lips. She brushed past him as she bustled her way to the table that held his finished project. Allen, who was still sitting at his seat at the dining table, allowed her surprisingly strong shove and moved slightly away. As she stood in his space to examine the two piles left on the table he was sitting at, Allen grew more uncomfortable and slowly pushed his chair away from her form and then - when that proved not to give him enough space to feel comfortable - resorted to getting up from the chair and standing several paces away from the witch.
He truly didn't want to be anywhere near this woman.
Allen breathed in and out slowly, trying to calm his nerves as the old woman peered down at the two piles with such scrutiny that he was worried she might find a flaw even though he'd previously been sure that the job had been done perfectly. He was so scared…
The old woman kept looking at the piles, clearly looking for flaws. For any excuse to tell him that he had failed his task. As she continued to look without apparently finding anything, she began letting out frustrated huffs that grew in frustration as she started combing through both piles with his fingers.
Allen watched, enraptured and terrified by the display. So much so that it took him a few moments to notice when the doll started jerking where it was hidden within his shirt pocket. Casting a cautious look at the witch just a handful of steps in front of him who wasn't paying him any mind, Allen turned his back to her and hunched over so he could whisper into his clothes without risk of her hearing what he was saying. "Is there something wrong?" He asked the little doll.
"There may be," The doll responded, gravely. "The witch looks none too pleased, but more importantly, she looks suspicious."
"She does?" Allen found himself gasping and getting ready to turn around so that he could get a fresh look at her expression.
"Don't look back at her!" The doll hissed, jolting Allen and causing him to freeze in what he was doing and turn back to it. "She suspects something. Of this, I am sure. It's possible that she recognizes my handiwork."
Allen's - borrowed - heart started pounding hard at this information and it took everything in him to not turn around and see what was going on behind him. Turning his back to this woman was… "What am I going to do? She won't be happy if she knows I had help, will she? I'm going to…"
"Be calm and be brave," The doll interrupted, its voice as dull as always but reassuring, nonetheless. "You will not die just as my original owner did not die. Here is what is going to happen: you will turn around and stand completely still, making yourself seem like as little of a threat as possible. When I give the word, you will knock her aside with all of your strength and make a run for it."
"Knock her aside? I...I'm not sure if I can!" Allen worried.
"If you want to live, then you must take risks." The doll informed him in a way that brooked no arguments. "Be brave and do as I say and you will live through this." It promised.
Allen took a deep, albeit shaky, breath and nodded his assent. Taking another breath, Allen slowly straightened his back and turned around to face the witch who was still rooting through the dirt pile, presumably looking for leftover seeds. He would suppose later that it was lucky he chose to do so as promptly as he did. He only had to watch her for a few - maybe ten - long seconds, before she suddenly, eerily stopped her insistent searching and turned on her heel to face him.
Her face was dark in a way that was no longer just vaguely threatening. Her now black eyes pierced into him unforgivingly. He felt that she wanted to kill him on the spot.
"What did you do while I was gone?" She hissed, casting her sharp gaze quickly around the room like the slash of a knife before settling back on Allen just as quickly. "What. Did. You. Do?"
Remembering the doll's instructions, Allen made sure his body was stock-still. He felt his muscles strain as he kept his body where it was as she approached swiftly. A crazed anger started to slowly seep into her eyes and it got even harder not to move. All he wanted to do, with every fiber of his being, was run.
It was the only thing he was good at.
It was as her face got within a foot of his own that the doll finally spoke. "Now! Hurry!"
Allen had been waiting for that with more eagerness than he'd ever waited for anything and so it was with absolutely no hesitation. He shoved the woman away with everything he had and the adrenaline must have made the difference because even though Allen knew that she was by no means the weak, frail old woman she appeared to be (her body belying a disconcerting strength), she was thrown back enough to crash her hip into the dining table.
Allen would think on that later. For the moment, the only thing he could process seeing was the door out of the hut and he tore off towards it before even a second had passed as if the hounds of hell were on him. Perhaps they were.
Allen threw open the door and almost tripped over his own feet getting out of it. As an afterthought, he threw the door closed behind him without ever breaking his stride, hoping that if the woman followed him, it would slow her down even a little. The boy's terror shot through the roof when he heard the rage-fuelled howl that chased him out of the hut, even as the woman herself seemingly did not.
Oh, spoke too soon.
A violent shaking of the ground caused Allen to stop running in order to not fall over as the ground beneath his feet shifted unsurely. What...what was that? Allen shivered, turning back to look at the hut.
"Oh. This is not good." The doll noted.
It really wasn't. What Allen saw when he turned around was that the hut had grown some appendages. In particular, the actual hut was now hovering nearly twenty feet in the air, standing on two legs that looked like chicken feet. The door to the hut was open now and Baba Yaga stood in the doorway of it, still screaming. In horror, Allen watched as the chicken-footed hut took off after him at a run.
"Go! Go!" The doll insisted, once more starting to jerk within his clothing, and jolting Allen back into movement.
With the bloodcurdling scream of someone who was being hunted, Allen whirled back around and took off running as fast as he could. His legs pumped harshly as he propelled himself forward, desperate to get away from the absolute monstrosity that chased him.
Is this normal? He found himself thinking perversely as he ran for his life. Monster encounters are normal occurrences in the world. He knew this, he'd known it from the moment he woke up, being brought to life. He was surrounded by monsters and had actually assumed he was one until Lavi quickly dispelled him of the idea, insisting he was human. Lavi and Kanda were different kinds of monsters from what he had experienced when he was alone and reading about the other kinds of monsters and their habits of predation was an entirely different thing to experiencing it. The creatures in the forest surrounding his home were also no secret and he'd had well enough of those things.
Was this running for their lives thing the type of thing other humans experienced on the regular? Humans who weren't new to the world and weren't created in a mansion where they could remain safe and protected by monsters who could at least pretend not to be as savage as the rest? How many humans besides him didn't know what it was like to fear for their life if they stop running?
Did he even have what it took to survive in such a world? Somehow, he felt that if it was a matter of survival of the fittest, then he would be left behind.
Allen's mind snapped back to the path he was heading when he caught trees in the distance, approaching him. Oh no, he was not risking another jog through a forest. His aim was to survive, not to just trade one creature trying to kill him for another. Allen made a sharp turn, acting on memory at this point as he instead heads for the other side of a mildly distant hill. If he recalled correctly, he had seen houses somewhere off in the distance before he had stumbled upon that hellish hut. He'd been on the hill, he thinks, so it should be on the other side of where he was now and it was probably a town.
He wasn't sure if he would get help there or what nature that help would take - given how his last search for help was going - but he had to try. If he could get someone to let him in or even try to disappear in the spaces between the houses and stay out of sight–!
Pouring even more strength into his legs, Allen got another burst of speed that sent him faster towards the bottom of the hill. On the other side–! Even the horrific screech of rage that came from behind him along with the pounding of the hut's feet on the ground as it chased him wasn't enough to make him slow down or turn to look behind him.
Finally reaching the base of the hill, Allen weaved around it and nearly stopped when the wave of relief hit him as he saw what really did look like a town in the distance. The pounding of huge feet behind him quickly dissuaded him from that and he picked up speed again. He didn't know how long it took him or how far he was running, but as he registered the town coming closer and closer and then finally within reach, he felt nothing but elation. He just needed to reach it!
Allen was finally distracted from his relentless pursuit of freedom by the sound of the feet pounding on the ground ceasing. It happened just as he was about to pass across the outer border of the town. Before he could think about it, Allen was turning around to look at what was happening behind himself, not even registering the fact that he'd stopped running in the process. The chicken-footed house was standing about a yard away from him, just standing there.
The wood that made up the walls of the hut creaked in the wind as it swayed ominously from side to side on its grotesque feet, but it didn't move closer. Baba Yaga was still in the open doorway of the hut, no longer screaming but instead watching him intensely with her mouth pinched.
Why isn't she following? Allen wondered as he stared back in shock. Then he got an idea and turned to look behind him at how close the town was. She doesn't want to go into the town. Allen realized. Or maybe she can't. Either way, it doesn't matter. Allen decided, determinedly turning on his heel and taking up towards the town again. Just knowing that she wasn't following him anymore slowed his run, but Allen still made good time as he booked it to the town. It wasn't until he got to the side of the closest building, close enough to touch the side of it, that he looked back again to see if Baba Yaga and his house were still there.
They weren't.
Allen let out a huge breath, his body sinking back into the wall and then he slid to the ground. He was safe. He was alive. For the moment. At that last thought, he took the opportunity to look around at his surroundings. There wasn't much to look at quite yet; he'd barely entered the town. There was the now empty field to his front and two separate rows of houses that stretched further into the town than he could see. He was leaning against the first house in one of the rows. It was made of a gray stone, but its roof was made of something else that he couldn't identify.
He was so tired. Allen leaned back harder into the wall, his heart slowing as the adrenaline started leaving him. He couldn't remember exercising that much in his life, but more than that, he'd never been so scared…
He couldn't sleep here, he knew that, but the longer he sat where he was, the harder he felt it would be to get up. Already, his mind was starting to haze over. It was nighttime now, the sky dark and the streets and houses lit only by the lamps dotting them. He wasn't sure how late it was but it couldn't be that late, the sun had only started going down a little while ago. Despite that, there wasn't a single person lingering outside that he could see.
It could be that no one wanted to linger outside near the boundary of the town, for safety reasons. Still, Allen neither heard nor saw anyone as he looked around and he thought that was strange considering the chicken hut had been anything but quiet. Even without the witch's yelling, the chicken hut's thudding steps shook the very earth and it certainly should have been heard by at least the inhabitants of the closest houses. And yet, no one had come out to check on what the noise was...or even look out from their windows?
Allen looked around again to check and no, he couldn't see anyone looking through their windows. The lights were off in all of the houses and most windows had curtains that were closed and completely blocking off the view from the inside. Was everyone here asleep? Had they slept through it all? Or..or maybe this really was normal for them. Allen found his mind unwillingly going back to the books he had read about monsters, particularly the ones that lived near towns and preyed on humans, of which there were far too many.
Maybe they were just ignoring it because they knew what was out here and they didn't want to risk running into it.
Allen took a shuddered breath and through sheer force of will, leveraged his exhausted body up from the ground. He staggered a little as he got to his feet, but quickly stabilized. He looked around the edge of the town once again, this time wondering where to go now. It wouldn't be safe to stay sleeping in the street on the edge of town.
"Do you know what you are going to do?" A voice asked from inside his clothes, causing Allen to yelp in surprise. The doll stuck its head out of his shirt to look at him with its emotionless button eyes. Allen pressed a hand to his chest as he calmed down from the momentary fright.
"Oh, I'd forgotten about you for a second, there." He sighed out, then turned his mind to answering its question. "I...I really don't know. I don't have anywhere to go, but I can't stay here." That was basically the only thing he knew. In truth, it had always felt like he knew nothing and was reliant on those around him to guide him and he certainly didn't feel any different now. All he felt while looking at his surroundings and thinking about his situation was how he felt out of his league and out of his element. What was he going to do?
"A good idea would be to venture further into the town and find a nook to sleep in until the morning. Try to find somewhere out of the way where you can remain unnoticed." The doll advised.
"What?" Allen blinked down at it in surprise. "Shouldn't I try and find somewhere indoors to spend the night?"
"Who would answer the door who hasn't come out already?" The doll asked, rhetorically. "And you'd have no way of ascertaining who is or is not dangerous, especially as tired as you are. With a well-hidden spot and some luck, you can probably be safe outside until the morning."
The logic checked out, Allen had to admit, and so the two spent the next twenty minutes searching for a safe spot further inside the boundaries of the town, never once running into another person. Ultimately, they decided that a slim alleyway with some wooden boards propped up against the wall inside of it was a good enough spot. It wasn't located well into the town, but it was far enough away from the edge of town that both boy and doll felt comfortable staying there.
Allen leaned the boards further down against the wall so that he could ease himself between them and the wall to use them as shelter. Hopefully, they would be enough to keep him out of sight if someone or something came by while he was sleeping or to protect him from the rain if that started up. In the morning, assuming nothing else happened, he would decide what to do next. He'd figure out something to do with himself, no matter what it was.
Hidden in the small space between the boards and the stone wall, Allen allowed his eyes to start drifting closed as he yawned.
"Get some sleep." He heard the doll say from where it was still nestled in his clothing. "I'll keep watch while you do." It promised.
Allen thought he answered in some kind of agreement, but he couldn't be sure later. He was already drifting away, lost to sleep before he knew it.
