Saucer-eyed, I looked at the source of the sound only

to find a grinning Hysteria leaning casually against a

wall behind me, holding a musical box in his palm,

“Just kidding! the sight of blood was making

me nauseous.”

My sleepy gaze slid down my wet form to land on the

rough concrete beneath me. Mixture of water and blood
had made small puddles all around me on there.

‘Blood…’

The events from before I had lost consciousness started

flooding my mind, making me immediately look at my
bitten arm and ankle, there were traces of dried blood
on my skin which had turned the puddled water under
me into a small crimson pool yet there were no traces of
injuries left. I lifted my left hand to place it at the
junction of my neck and shoulder, patting to see the
extent of the damage left by the cursed doll on my neck,
but the pad of my fingers could detect nothing but
smooth skin resting underneath them.
‘It’s gone. I’m healed.’

Sensing a movement out of the corner of my eye, urged

me to turn my head in that direction. The silhouette
holding the music box had moved away from the wall
he had been leaning against. Towering over my huddled
form, his long legs were standing just behind me. I
couldn’t see him clearly due to the lack of lamination in
the alleyway yet his translucent amber eyes were
glowing brightly, reflecting some invisible light that
made his irises appear like a swirling lake of gold.

“Mm. My darling likes gold?”

“Shut up.”

I couldn’t believe I had eventually found the courage

to say this to his face. Maybe the multiple near-death
experiences had finally kicked in, wrecking what was
left of my sanity.

“Darling,”

Large warm hands suddenly crawled up my damped

tank top from behind, locking just beneath my
heaving
breasts, tugging me into a hard sturdy chest.

“Don’t you understand, Gia? They don’t believe

you. They can never accept you. For them, you’re
forever going to remain an outcast.”

His voice had unshackled the countless memories I had

been suppressing for years, had kept them bound and
locked into a cage deep inside my aching heart. Over the
time, I had turned my chest into a cemetery and these
painful memories buried deep into it were the remains
of my dead emotions.

The horror written on my parents’ face when I had

narrated to them my yearly encounters with Hysteria,
the pitiful look my shrink had given me when I had told
her about my doll coming to life as the reason behind
my hiding in the small cabinet, the bullying and
humiliation I had faced in every institute of mine
because of my unnatural breakdowns, the way I had
been cornered all my life, never allowed to become the
part of the crowd; everything was coming back,
washing over me like tides washing over a defenseless
broken flank of wood, trying to take it with them to the
deepest darkest parts of the sea.
I had been running from place to place, trying to find
an escape from those damned ambers yet in the end
those ambers were the place offering me a solace from
my tortured past.

“Come to me, Gia. Come, and I’ll take care of all

your pains.”

My hand which had been dangling at my side all along

had started creeping up the leather clad arms, slowly
moving up to reach and hold the already clasped pair of
hands in front of my rib cage. His touch had woken up
those dead feelings. His words had stirred the graveyard
of my heart alive,

“Embrace your Hysteria.”

The man started placing butterfly kisses on the length of

my neck, igniting a deep hunger inside of me.

The hunger to be accepted.

The hunger to be loved.

I could feel the ‘yes’ scratching my throat from inside,
trying find a way to crawl out and escape from my lips
and it almost did. It was on the tip of my tongue, ready
to leave my mouth when the haze surrounding my
head suddenly cleared as I saw the Jack in the box
lying by my legs,

“No!”

Pushing his hands away from my small frame, I broke

out of his embrace, whirling around to glare daggers
at him,

“Stop playing games with me!”

“But it is two hours before sunrise and our little game

is still on.” His chalky lips had turned upside down in a
small pout making me fume at his audacious behavior.

‘This is all just one big game for him, nothing more. I
mean nothing to him.’

“You’re sick!”

“And you’re about to be, with those wet clothes,”

With a snap of his fingers, the water clinging to my
clothes instantly dried out.

If I hadn’t known what this crazy ass bastard was

capable of doing, I’d have easily become fooled by
his action, considering it a token of his care.

‘If he cared this much, he’d have let me go.’

“A plaything,”

“What?”

My soft mumble had caused him to tilt his head to one

side, letting his raven hair fall over one side of his
head,

“A plaything, that’s what I am to you, right?”

Biting my lips to stop them from trembling, I kept my

brimming eyes down, staring at my bloodied sneakers.

“Darling,”

Keeping my frown intact, I turned my heated gaze back

in order to glare up hard at him but found the place he
had been sitting on empty.

In a flash, he had materialized in front of me, causing

me to whirl my head in his direction with a snap, but I
immediately froze in my position when I noticed how
close we were. Our lips were just a hair’s breadth
away. I could feel his hot breathing on my lips as he
parted them to let his next words out,

“If this had been the case then that poisonous little
mouth of yours would’ve long been added to the list
of my prized collections.”

Running the pad of his thumb on my bottom lip,

he gently grazed his soft lips against my static
ones,

“I love your lips, more so when they’re joined to mine,”

It’d be a lie to say that his unusual remarks weren’t

doing sinful things to the butterflies in my stomach. I
had never witnessed this side of him and now that I had
seen it, it had made captivated down to my bone.

“I’ve accepted your offer. I’ll become your companion.

Now, it’s time for you to do the same.”

‘Liar,’

I had been tormented for too long to just let everything

go in a single night.

Staring for a moment at his extended hand in my

direction, I shoved it away with my curled fingers,
trying my best to not flinch at the contact my
fingers made with his burning skin.

“So you’ve decided on continuing the game, Gia?”

I had no idea why I became more unnerved whenever

he addressed me my name instead of his infamous
endearment.

“Wait- game?”

I had almost forgotten about the stupid thing.

“Remember, I can’t bring you back from dead,

especially when there are humans involved,”
‘Humans? Was he talking about that crowd around
the doll incident?’

Placing a finger under my chin, he tilted my head

towards him, making me crane my neck to look up at
him. The unforeseen serious air that had appeared
around him had disappeared altogether He was back
to his crazy playful self,

“Do you know who you’re up against, darling?”

Pushing a lock of hair behind my ear, he neared his

mouth to the side of my head before I suddenly felt
something warm and wet running up my neck. He was
licking my neck.

“Me.”

Just as he said that word, our surroundings started

melted into a blob of nothingness, changing into a
pitch black room with no source of light before small
chips of colour started replacing the dark background,
merging together to form a bright scenario once again.

The room we were standing in was empty of any

objects. Its bare walls along with its high ceiling painted
with the same colour, red. Crimson paint was dripping
down from the ceiling onto the floor and the walls,
resembling strawberry syrup trickling down snow white
frosting of a cake, but I knew better than that. This was
no piece of cake.

Slowly, Hysteria who was still leaning down for the

purpose of whispering in my air, detached himself
from me, allowing me to see his newly painted face.

Instead of the black and white colors marring his

flawless skin, a new addition of green, blue and red
had been made to his features, especially the blood
red which was currently sticking to the tip of his nose
and stretching his plump luscious lips into a wide grin.

“Darling, tell me what are you most afraid of?”

Over his shoulder, I could see a figure dressed in a red

and blue silk shirt and a pair of bright yellow oversized
pants. Similar to Hysteria there was smeared fake blood
on his chalk white cheek, but his makeup hadn’t been
done with as much grace as the man looming over me.
Adjusting his scarlet wig on top of his head, the clown