Information

Dollmaker
Legacy Name: Dollmaker

The Common Noktoa
Owner: Syl

Age: 10 years, 3 months, 2 weeks

Born: January 15th, 2014

Adopted: 10 years, 3 months, 2 weeks ago

Adopted: January 15th, 2014

Statistics

• Level: 1
   
• Strength: 10
   
• Defense: 10
   
• Speed: 10
   
• Health: 10
   
• HP: 10/10
   
• Intelligence: 0
   
• Books Read: 0
• Food Eaten: 0
• Job: Unemployed

"I fixed the problem, sir. No one will ever leave me again," she said, smiling. It was a false smile, the kind of smile you create after forcing yourself to mimic the jovial grins of others for years on end. It was as if she had stared in the mirror for hours, acting out what the face is supposed to look like when one is pleased with oneself. Going through the motions without the emotion.

It's not that the good doctor was not used to such falsified emotions. In fact, for better or worse, he had learned how to distinguish them the way an FBI specialist could pick out a liar from a line-up. But there was something gut-wrenchingly wrong about this blank smile―held just a second too long to be natural―on the face of a child.

"I see." He recovered himself from the shock quickly. It was something he had had to learn well in his profession. Working with the so-called crazies, that is. In a way, he was jealous of this child―barely over the age of 13, according to her file―for she naturally had the ability he had yet to truly master. He was the one who couldn't afford to betray any weaknesses, lest his often devious patients exploit them. She ought to have the emotional reactions he did; if only he could swap their neural pathways!

"You need not keep me here any longer, sir," she said, her dull eyes giving no hint to whatever cogs were working behind them. But he knew they were turning. The feigned politeness was daringly blatant, like she was egging him on: challenge me, doc. Prove me wrong. I dare you.

"Regulations say I have to," He looked at her skeptically, but fondly. "Let's go back to how you say you 'fixed' your issues. Would you tell me how you feel you have done this?" She was too young for this, and against his better judgment he felt sorry for her, sympathetic.

"Dolls, sir." For the first time, a hint of something flashed from behind those blank eyes, and he honed in on it like a predator to prey. This was his ticket, the thing he had been searching for with his momentary emotional blip, that second of passion. The key to her mind, for once, revealed voluntarily, rather than hidden cryptically within a scratchily handwritten dream. "A doll cannot leave you, you know. And it carries the soul, sir. The dolls hold onto their souls for me."

"Oh?"

"It's in the eyes. You have to make the eyes just right." Her eyes bored into his as she spoke, mapping his hazel irises. A girl of just thirteen was reading him better than he read his patients, and despite all his years of experience in avoiding such situations, he felt a clammy hand clench at his stomach. In that moment, he knew: She would never leave this place. Child or not, she was the next adversary -- the satan, as it were, in the word's most literal meaning. The table before his eyes was a chessboard, and this well-rehearsed emotional mannequin, false smiles and false laughter, was a worthy opponent.

"They are the windows to the soul, after all" he said, a smirk crossing his tanned, olive-skinned face. "I'd love to see one of these dolls, you know. Would it be possible to bring one to our next session?"

"I could, sir, or..." her eyes met his once more, her mouth twitching into the mirror image of his, a practiced act. He was the mirror in her childhood room, she mimicked the behaviors she learned from observation. She, like many he had met, had likely begun training her facial muscles to shift to the expressions of others from the moment she realized she was different. But this smirk was meant to convey meaning, an eerie meaning, devoid of empathy. "Or, I could make you one."

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