What update what is this.
I'm seeing LAIKA (the animation studio that created the Coraline film) at Portland Comic Con tomorrow, so weep with envy.
There are sheets thrown over the furniture and layers of dust on the floorboards. Natural light filters through the grime on the windows.
She walks through the hallways, still breathing heavily. Blood trickles down her face, warm over her cheekbone. Her heart pounds.
The door to their apartment is locked. She opens a window, clambers out. There's no one in the flat and there never will be, at least not for her. Her parents died five years ago, when the Other Mother shattered the snow globe.
The door to Ms. Spink and Forcible's flat is locked. She jams it open with her shoulder. Her blood smears over the wood. No one's in here, either, but she can tell it still belongs to Spink and Forcible from the posters on the wall, the stuffed dogs stacked high. Her arms won't stop shaking.
She opens the fridge, finds leftovers and milk and condiments. The microwave whines as she heats up a pan of rice.
She eats the rice straight from the pan. It's the simplest food she's eaten in years, and it fills her up the way nothing ever has before. She eats until she feels sick, until she has to sit down and put her head in her hands to breath.
The rain patters against the roof. Outside is Oregon gray. She breathes deep.
She's alive. She's free. It's okay.
The wounds have stopped bleeding, but she remembers that it was friggin rats that caused these wounds, and looks around for Spink and Forcible's first-aid kit, cursing for a few minutes until she finds it under the kitchen sink.
She dabs antiseptic into the cut on her arms, wraps the worst of the wounds in gauze, and finds the bathroom mirror to treat the cuts on her face.
Drops the first-aid kit. Backs away until she runs into the hallway wall.
Stares.
Struggles to breath.
Reaches up to touch her face, run her fingers over her black button eyes.
Well.
Well.
She knew it couldn't be that easy, didn't she?
"It's okay," she tells herself. "It's okay. I'm still alive. I'm still free."
She takes a deep, shuddering breath. The cuts on her face continue to bleed.
"Oh, my twitchy-witchy girl," she mumbles to herself as she climbs back through the window and into what used to be her family's flat.
"Oh, my twitchy-witchy girl
I think you are so nice.
I make you lots of porridge
And make you lots of ice-"
She can't remember how the rest of the song goes.
Okay. A plan. Okay. That's what she needs.
The emptiness of the apartment had gotten to her, so she'd clambered up to the rooftop, where she sits next to the chimney. The rain is less than a drizzle, but she's been sitting out here long enough that her hair is soaking wet.
Her clothes do not grow wet. She's still wearing clothes from the other world, a bright pink jacket that changes in shade depending on the temperature and a skirt that flutters like leaves. She hates them.
A plan. Okay. Okay. She can do this.
Her plan last time had been to go back to the Other World and face her fears. She laughs at the thought, a little hysterically. Like hell she's ever going back there again. She's not that brave, not anymore.
She's free and she needs to stay free.
She can't go out in public, not like this. She can find a pair of sunglasses, pretend to be blind, maybe. Steal some normal clothes from somewhere, maybe. Blend in, somehow.
And then what? She looks like a nine-year-old, and the name Coraline Jones belong to a girl who's been missing for five years and presumed dead. If she goes to the police, they'll have questions, and at some point someone will see her eyes.
Panic rises in her chest. She hugs herself, tightly, closes her eyes.
Okay. Okay. Spink and Forcible. They believe in voodoo and magic. They'd believe her story. They could help her. They'd liked her before. Maybe they'd even adopt her. They'd figure out something to do about her eyes.
She had a plan.
She breathes in deep, forces herself to relax.
Then she hears the thumping noise down in her flat.
She doesn't think logically. The part of her, the part of her that's still getting some of her memories back, connects the thumping sound with the landing of a black cat. She thinks maybe her friend's down there.
She doesn't think. She doesn't want to be alone.
She climbs back into the window, back into her flat. Another thumping sound. Her thoughts catch up with her hopes. The cat's been dead for years, too.
Thumping.
"Kitty?" she breathes out, tiptoeing through the apartment.
"Cat? You there? You?"
The noise came from the room with the door in it, and she has to know.
She looks into the room.
There's still blood on the floor, but the rat corpses are gone, along with the key.
The thumping is coming from behind the door as something hits it. Repeatedly.
"Oh, fuck," she says.
The door smashes open.
She runs.
She runs even though she knows it's hopeless. She screams even though there are only monsters to hear her.
She flees the flats. The apartments are out in the middle of woods, no help nearby. Her bare feet slap gravel. The rain has started pelting. The sound drowns out the crashing footsteps behind her. Night sinks into the earth, and she finds hope in the shadows, running into the woods around the house.
She forces herself to stop screaming. Huddles behind a tree, daring to hope a little.
"Hullo, Coraline."
The Other Mother settles into a dark shape in front of her, long, spidery fingers piercing the shadow fog. Coraline flinches back, despite herself.
This is our world, she wants to say. This is our world, this is my world. You're not allowed to be here. It's against the rules.
But she knows the Other Mother has never played fair.
"Did you really think you could escape me?" the Other Mother strokes her cheek. Coraline flinches again as the cold fingernails dig under the cuts, dragging them open, making fresh blood run down her face.
"You're mine now. I own you. You can't hide from me." The Other Mother leans in closer to Coraline, until their foreheards are almost touching. "You're my beautiful daughter, and I'll do whatever it takes to help you accept that."
"It'll never work."
The Other Mother stops, draws back. "What did you say?"
"It's never going to work," Coraline snaps out, to hide the fear. "I broke free of you - and I'll do it again. Every time you brainwash me, I'll figure out a way around it. I'm never going to be yours, and you know why that is?"
"Why don't you tell me?" the Other Mother snarls.
"Because I've won." Coraline stands. "I've won this game of ours a thousand times." She clenches her fists. "You're never going to have me, not really."
The Other Mother looks shocked for a moment, then angry. She laughs and drags a finger over Coraline's button eyes.
She won, and the Other Mother cheated, and it's not fair. She was supposed to be free.
Tears streak the blood over her cheeks. She can't help it. She stands there and lets the Other Mother stroke her, hold her close, squeezing tightly and bruising bones.
"Oh, Coraline," the Other Mother murmurs. "You cheated, too. You don't play fair either, not anymore. You're just like me. And I'm better at this sort of game."
Will Coraline ever be free? Will she ever get her parents back, or at least, her normal eyes? Will Liz ever update again? Find out in next installment!