Oh, come on... Not again?!
Andrey screamed in his own mind, staring at his own lower half.
I was just starting to enjoy life...
The sight of blood pouring from his severed pelvis made his consciousness recoil in horror. If he focused, he could actually see part of his large intestine lying ownerless on the asphalt.
The only thing he wanted right now was to unsee it. Watching your own legs lying a meter away from your face has to be the worst form of torture imaginable.
I hope I die quickly...
Andrey took one last look at the car speeding away in the distance.
Asshole...
"Kha..."
The last sound his upper body produced was a wet, painful cough, a final expression of resentment at the unfairness of it all.
The next thing he remembered was a nauseating current. He was floating, drifting, completely lost in the comforting flow of Mother Death.
This is new... Andrey thought as his consciousness slowly pieced itself back together. Instead of rebirth, just a void where time flows... And apparently, we can still think.
If you think, you are alive. That statement solidified inside him, becoming an anchor. The more he repeated the phrase, the more he understood that he wasn't "nothing." He was "something."
And then, he realized what that "something" was. A disembodied spirit in pitch darkness. But even here, there were sounds.
The roar of cars, which for some reason terrified him now with their monstrous noise, human voices, and... the rhythmic clatter of a loom.
That mechanical rhythm was the only thing keeping him afloat. It became the meaning of his existence.
Then, the sound stopped. It felt like losing a limb. He was made of the loom's song; he lived by it, and now it was gone.
But then, a new sound emerged.
He didn't recognize it at first, but the realization bloomed instinctively: the loom had been replaced by a sewing machine. It was as if he had graduated to a new stage of life.
I... Yes! I'm alive! Andrey screamed in the void.
Then came the sensation of being pierced. Folded. Twisted like a rag.
What the...?
Car sounds. Then a loom. And finally, a sewing machine. Was he being born? Created? Or shoved into... fabric?
He'd been run over and split in two, and now he was being stitched back together as if the universe was mocking death itself. Did he really deserve this?
I didn't live the most honest life, sure, but making a mockery of the concept of death? That's just rude.
The sewing machine phase ended. Someone had decided on his form. He was stitched anew into a bizarre doll, a monstrous, inhuman figure made of cloth.
I am a doll... Andrey felt it with his entire being. He couldn't see himself yet, but he could feel every inch of his new, stuffing-filled body.
Pain flared in the area of his eye, and then, light.
He had almost forgotten what light looked like in the heavy darkness of his own mind. Only now could he say he was truly living, not just existing.
I thought, therefore I existed. I see light, therefore I am either dying or being born. Simple logic... he concluded, feeling dazed. Hah...
Laughter bubbled up inside him, tearing him apart. Because the first thing he saw with his single eye was a needle and the thread trailing from it.
A gentle, feminine hand vanished from his view and reappeared holding a black button, his second eye.
Haaa... HAH!
He didn't know how long it lasted, but his insides shook with hysterical laughter. He couldn't stop.
Somewhere deep down, he hoped the sheer force of his mirth would rip this fabric shell apart and set him free.
Suddenly, it worked.
The perspective shifted. The world changed, and Andrey found himself looking down at himself.
There sat the black doll, deformed by its creator's twisted imagination, with bright white metal claws and unnatural limbs.
Magnificent, as always...
Andrey wasn't sure if he said it because it was his own body, or if he genuinely liked the aesthetic.
He didn't have an answer, but the sight of the doll brought him a strange pleasure, as if it were the pinnacle of artistic genius.
His body was picked up, and Andrey, his spirit, floated after it. The girl who had crafted his physical vessel placed it on a shelf right next to her bed. He followed the doll like a dog on a leash.
Entertaining the thought that he might actually be tethered, he looked down at himself.
He saw a near-perfect copy of the doll, only much larger and... scarier. A mouth that split his face vertically, ending in the middle of his chest.
It even frightened Andrey himself for a second.
Magnificent, as always... Right?
"And this isn't Photoshop?" Enega asked, squinting at the phone screen.
They were parked in the lot outside the convenience store.
"Photoshop edits photos. This," Clint jabbed his finger at the screen, "is a video from cloud storage."
So far, the footage made one thing clear: the doll and the massive silhouette were connected. How? That was the question. And Clint had a sinking feeling that the person sitting next to him might hold the answer.
Even though she was family, he couldn't rule anything out. Hell, maybe this was an assassination attempt via... whatever this was.
Enega was the one who gave him the doll, after all.
The longer he stared at her, the more his nerves frayed. He wasn't exactly a trusting person to begin with, but now the last crumbs of his confidence were tumbling into a dark abyss of paranoia.
Deep down, he wanted her to be the culprit. That would be easier to process. But if she genuinely didn't know anything about the doll... then the truth was buried much deeper.
"Did you watch the other videos?" Enega asked, glancing over and catching his stare. "Do I have something on my face?"
"Huh? No, sorry... What did you ask?" Clint rubbed his eyes, snapping out of his trance.
"Right, let's just go to my place." Enega started the engine and spun the wheel. "You get some sleep, and we'll figure this all out tomorrow, okay?"
"O-Okay..."