So, I'm back from the dead and it's 1:00 AM and my ADHD said no sleep so I decided to finally give this chapter a spit shine and get it to you guys. You're allowed to murder me, but only after I finish planning the rest of the plot so y'all don't put yourselves in fanfic purgatory.

Also apologies in advance, this is kinda short. I wanted to post. Quantity over quality just this once.

●○●○●○●○●○

The child slept, holding the doll tight against its cotton pajamas. Cotton, lovely to stuff, so easy to stitch the child into.

The child... Y/N? Y/N was its name. Delightful.

Such a clever little thing - it would surely find the key. It would love the new world. It would open the door to a bloody, burning, perfect revenge.

The reckoning was due. The child would be the herald to its arrival, and then a darling addition to the collection.

The Other Mother smiled.

~~~

My eyes were open before I truly wanted to be awake.

I blinked heavily, not trying to dispel the cobwebs in my brain as much as reapply them. The sun was only a faint haze of light through my threadbare curtains; surely it wasn't even 6:00 AM yet.

Go back to sleep go back to sleep go back to sleep-

Welp.

I groaned, stretched, heard the popping along my spine, and sat up. My strange doll fell into my lap from where I'd been holding it to my chest. I considered it, briefly, how it smiled up at me with its stitched mouth and button eyes, and I smiled back at it.

Moving through the crumbling building of the Emporuim was never a soundless affair. The floorboards creaked and cracked under my feet, but luckily Mrs. D kept snoring away in her room. Good. I wasn't quite ready to explain myself after yesterday. Still, the hollow feeling of guilt knawed at my heart so I whipped up a few pancakes in apology. They were left on the counter for her to find when she rose.

As I slipped out into the early morning world, just beginning to stir, I pondered where I might go.

I didn't make Wybie mad yesterday, I could go loiter on his couch for a few hours. But- ugh, it's Grandma's couch too. Nevermind. I can't deal with her right now.

I squished the doll against my waist in a small parody of a hug.

I wonder if Wybie would know where it came from.

But I knew he'd be suspicious, as he always was, and some baser instinct in me growled at the thought of giving up this easy affection. So, fine. I'd keep the doll a loose secret for now. No harm. None at all.

Unconsciously, my feet led me into the woods, and I found myself climbing the tree I'd jumpscared Coraline from. I shimmied my way up the trunk - careful to keep the doll tucked securely beneath my shirt - and settled properly on a horizontal branch. It was wide enough for me to trust my clumsy feet, so I stood, keeping one hand on the branch above for balance, and walked along the sturdy limb.

Suddenly, I felt the branch above me snap, and I had to dodge sideways to avoid being hit. There was very little sideways to move onto. I wheeled my arms desperately, trying to regain equilibrium as I'd done effortlessly before, but my weight tipped off the center line of the branch and I felt my heart try to fly out of my chest as the world turned on its axes and gravity inverted itself.

On the ground, everything was fuzzy. I blinked slowly, once, twice, vaguely registering the sky above me crisscrossed by the tree I'd been in moments before. I sluggishly moved one arm, registering that there was no longer a bulge in my shirt where the doll had been tucked.

I bolted upright. My eyes went too wide too fast and the light hurt, but I spotted the doll in arm's reach and immediately pulled it to me. It made it a little easier to breathe.

"Y/N," said the back of my mind.

I furrowed my eyebrows and glanced down at the doll. It smiled passively back.

Again came "Y/N. Y/N!"

"What?" I said.

"You's okay?"

That voice. My head snapped up, frantically scanning the trees and bushes, but there was no lopsided face of concern to be seen. I cursed myself.

"Don't you ignore me, Broadway."

From the left. I looked at the trail leading further into the woods, and- was that a bit of that stupid yellow blazer or just a trick of the sunlight through the canopy?

Well. Only one way to find out.

I stood, and only wobbled a little bit before finding my own two feet and sprinting. Running was always freeing, giving chase even better, but something felt different. Maybe it was that part of me knew that my brother wasn't actually running ahead of me and laughing and goading, but my head was still feeling kind of wonky and I didn't want the reality check.

I ran for what felt like hours, finally breaking out of the trees into an open lawn. A horrible pink monstrosity stood a ways away.

Wybie's house. Of course.

"Broadway, c'mere," said my brother who probably wasn't my brother.

Following the ghost of a voice, I walked along the treeline until the grass gave way to occasional cobblestones, and suddenly there was a great hole in the ground. I remembered the warnings given to me and Wybie by our grandma, that the well was very dangerous and never to play there.

Eat it, grandma.

I sank to all fours and crawled to the edge, making sure to leave the doll a safe distance away. The reflection of the sky, tiny and shaky, peered up at me from the depths. I spat in it just to hear the satisfying plunk.

I was just about to scoot back when I thought I caught a glimpse of the stupid yellow blazer again, this time in the reflection on the water. I stared down into the well, my knuckles turning white where they gripped the jagged pieces of broken wood around the edge, and then looked up and around at the sky like my brother might be hovering above me or something.

Too late, I realized my unrecovered sense of balance was wobbly again, and my head tipped down toward the black abyss of the well. My toes had no leverage on the grass they slid on, and my hands were uncurling from their holds as I fell.

A set of arms grabbed the back of my shirt and heaved me to safety with a grunt.

For the second time that day, I found myself on the ground, staring at the sky, blinking once, twice, and inexplicably realizing that I did in fact exist.

"What the actual heck, Y/N?!"

Oh. Right.

"I'm fine, Wy."

Looking up- er, sideways, I saw the bottom of Wybie's shoes, and above them, the look of furious disbelief he was giving me.

"You almost weren't! What, you wanna feed the fishes down there?"

"There are fish in there?"

"No! Maybe, I don't- that's not the point, don't distract me! What were you doing, Y/N?"

"Nothing," came my automatic response.

Wybie have me a flat look. I winced.

"No, really, nothing. I was just seeing things."

I sat up slowly this time, falling over to reach the doll without moving and tucking it under my shirt again. Wybie was agitatedly running his hands through his already messy hair and didn't seem to notice.

"This isn't some weird actor thing you haven't told me about, right?" he said, deflating to just look tired.

My heart ached a little; I never liked making him upset. "I promise it's nothing. Old ghosts, is all. I didn't mean to lean forward that far."

"Grandma said-"

"Never to go near the well, I know. Since when do I listen to that old bat, huh? I intended to be careful."

Wybie smiled hesitantly, and the ache in my heart lessened a bit. "Your sense of balance is usually better than that."

"Yeah, well, I fell out of a tree and it kinda messed me up."

"You WHAT?"

"I mean, uh-"

"Y/N!!"

●○●○●○●○●○

Nyeheheh! There you are! It's been a long time, hasn't it?

I'm realizing this story technically counts as a slow burn, because I'm not getting Y/N and Coraline together for a while. But like... most of the suspense comes from my absolute snail pace upload schedule, so thanks for that, writing gods.

Thoughts on Y/N's brother? He's very much A Character from A Thing but so are most of my extras. We'll unlock more tragic backstory as we go. It'll be so much fun.

See y'all hopefully sooner than later. I do feel bad about leaving you guys in the dark for so long.

Love ya!