Unwound Read online

  Unwound

  Unwound

  By

  Yolanda Olson

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  Prologue

  My life began with an idea and a stitch.

  The brainchild of a deranged genius who sought to make only

  perfection, not because she herself was perfect, but because she

  knew she could achieve it. That one thought that ran constantly

  through her mind was so simple and so deluded that it would only

  make sense to someone like her.

  At times I wondered what had made London into the monster

  that she was. What had been done to her to drive her to such

  madness? Whatever it was that she had endured must’ve been

  something so hideous and traumatic, that creating us was her only

  escape. I wondered how she had endured all these years; how her

  anguish and pain had not yet driven her to take her own life.

  Maybe by creating us as she did she would let the pain from deep

  inside of her boil to the surface and take shape.

  I feel a sharp whirring inside of me. This is something that

  only happens when I become determined which is what I assume

  to be my adrenaline surging. I never like the way that it feels

  because I’m sometimes afraid that my insides will dislodge and

  I’ll collapse into a junk heap.

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  Truth be told, that’s what we all are; nothing more than junk

  heaps.

  I was the only one who survived in partial tact. She never

  finished any of us because she would grow bored or run out of

  material for her perfect dolls. She once told me she never finished me because she knew I would leave her once I was complete.

  What she didn’t know was that I would leave her even as

  unfinished as she left me. The tell-tale sign of my incompletion

  was hidden behind a patch that a young boy had given me in a

  random act of kindness. A pirate he called me after he placed it

  on my head. I didn’t fault him for his words because of his

  innocence but if only he know that I had escaped a real pirate. A

  harvester of the most grotesque “parts” one could ever hope to

  construct anything out of.

  But she was still my mother and as long as she kept me

  enslaved in her home, I loved her unconditionally. Even when she

  found the boy and used him as material in one of her newer

  designs which she had mockingly sent me pictures of.

  Hidden by a sycamore tree close to the edge of her home, I

  close my eyes as I wrap my fingers tightly around the iron fence

  she had herself erected in one of her manic fits which she had

  managed to build in the span of one night. My jaw tightens as my

  breathing slows; I can hear the whirring inside of me. The

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  constant reminder that I’m not real. Suddenly I’m back in the

  room where she kept me prisoner. In the room where I was

  subjected to many torments, and as I stand there reliving those

  moments I am reminded why I’m standing here.

  The book, I think to myself grimly. The truth behind who and

  what I was and what had caused me to run so frantically from this

  hell is what also caused me to come back. Opening my eyes, I

  raise them to the window on the fourth floor that is still partially shut off to the world with wooden planks wishing I had never

  found it. The ramblings and drawings of a genius destined to

  make life out of death.

  My grip tightens. The wounds of what we find out about

  ourselves are as beautiful and deadly as an alpenrose. At first

  glance it can seem so innocent, so delicate, so fragile looking, but upon deeper inspection such a horrifying truth hidden deep within.

  The depths of things we cannot understand are greater than we

  know.

  I was not built to feel any emotion except pain, but I’ve come

  back with new emotions. I’ve watched others; studied their faces

  and their actions. Now I come back to my mother with anger and

  hatred. My eyes now lower to the grand double doors at the main

  entrance of the sprawling estate before me.

  Inside is the reason I am here.

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  Inside is the creator who tortured me mercilessly.

  Inside is my mother; the one who gave me the gift of life

  would be the one to whom I would grant the gift of death.

  I’m here to challenge a monster, to end her life. My body

  begins to tremble slightly, but it’s not because I’m afraid of her.

  It’s because to destroy a monster, I myself, must become a

  monster. I’ve mentally prepared for this moment since the day I

  first opened my eyes. I knew I was an abomination which was

  confirmed by the words in her book. I look down at the slight

  scarring of stitches that surround my fingers and know that I

  cannot become any more monstrous than I already am. Only one

  thought shakes any fear of becoming like her from my mind.

  Your only peace will come with her death.

  I take a deep breath to steady myself.

  Knowing that it’s time, I move away from the shelter and

  seclusion of the sycamore and pull myself over the gate. It

  doesn’t take me long to navigate the grounds hidden in the

  shadows of the trees she had planted in such careless fashion.

  Two trees that I passed where planted almost on top of each other

  so they wound together and made one giant, mangled mess. They

  were useful to me though as I stood behind them for a moment to

  catch my breath.

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  Get to the door, I command myself. I put a hand to the double

  tree and with everything left inside of me I push off it and run as fast as these legs would carry me. With the fatigue washing over

  me, which was so frequent these past few weeks, I shove the

  doors open and run down the long hallway until I reach the stairs

  that lead down to her dungeon as I liked to call it.

  Slowly, I open that door and stand at the top of the dimly lit,

  stone staircase. In the distance I can hear a chair slowly creaking back and forth. Willing myself to stop hesitating, I make my way

  quickly down the winding steps reaching the double wooden

  doors that she always had so tightly closed, finding them cracked

  open.

  I see her. She’s in a large chair with her legs pulled up to her

  chest, her arms wrapped around them. She’s talking to herself

  softly.

  I step inside the doors and pull them tightly close behind me.

  No one would be leaving this room until the other was dead.

  Looking around, I find a long metal pole and use it to pry the door shut.

  *Cr

  *C e

  r ak,

  e

  cr

  c e

  r ak*

  e

  It was almost as if she didn’t realize or care to acknowledge

  that I had entered into her private, hellish workstation. I remove 7

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  the hooded jac
ket that I’m wearing and toss it aside revealing

  what the last year of being away from this hell has done to me.

  My skin has started to wither and fall off of me. The stitches

  where she seamed my neck to my shoulders are now more

  prominent and my face is gaunt. I was no longer the young

  looking man I was when I left. I didn’t have much definition left

  to me and I was running out of time.

  “I knew you’d come back,” she finally says in a singsong

  voice.

  The creaking stops.

  She slowly swivels the chair to face me and stares at me with

  vacant eyes.

  Now she’s humming.

  Humming the song that would signal the sign that her

  madness was going to burst into full bloom at any given moment.

  “Don’t worry, this won’t hurt very much,” she says as she

  rises from her chair with a seam ripper in her hand.

  I steel myself as she comes charging at me, screaming in a

  horrifying rage, the moment that I had wanted so badly was

  finally at hand.

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  One

  One year ago

  London Blackhouse.

  My mother.

  The one who made me.

  Nourished me.

  Loved me.

  Hated me.

  Kept me locked away from the world in a room full of torture

  and horror where my only friends were my own reflection

  designed to torture me. Why? Mother never finished me which

  was the obvious cruelty the mirrors inflicted on me day by day. I

  couldn’t fault her for it though because I wasn’t the only thing she had that needed attending to. Most days she just would lock me in

  my room; my only friends being the mirrors.

  The mirrors.

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  I hated them all.

  I couldn’t take them anymore and how she loved to taunt me

  with the mirrors. My reflection always stared back at me,

  screaming at me that I was a fool just for looking.

  But I still loved her.

  Despite all her faults, she was a good mother. No, she is a

  good mother.

  I can’t fault her for being a genius.

  I can’t fault her for caring enough to make so many children.

  I can’t fault her for… for any of it.

  I know she loves me.

  She has too.

  As I look around my room I know I can’t stay here anymore. I

  don’t want to leave her, but I can’t stay. Not with the way she’s

  been lately; not with all the torture and anger. Not how she sits in her room at nights, humming to herself. The sounds of the wheels

  and drills spinning. The sounds of cloth tearing and being sewn

  back together. I knew better though. What she referred to as cloth was something completely different and horrible.

  I didn’t let myself think about that. I shoved the terrible truth

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  from my mind and got to my feet. The pain that shot through me

  from that simple gesture was horrendous. Not because of any

  reason other than the broken shards of glass, nails, sewing pins,

  and other little torturous items she had weaved together in some

  netting and laid out along the floor like it was some kind of

  precious, valuable carpeting.

  Gritting my teeth, I walked barefoot quickly to the other side

  of the room. Even though I knew I wouldn’t and couldn’t bleed,

  she made sure that I would be able to feel pain. I remembered the

  night I asked her why.

  “Good boys don’t need to bleed. Blood does not make you

  who you are. Pain however, is a necessity to survive in life. If you don’t feel pain you can never excel and become great. Trust me. I

  know this more than anyone,” she had said, in a sing song voice,

  grinning maliciously. Before I could ask any more questions, she

  had then used her screwdriver to start digging up her fingernails, pulling them straight from their beds and exposing the flesh

  beneath them. As they poured blood, she laughed hysterically and

  then screamed at me to leave her in peace.

  Mother always had work to do.

  So far I was the only one of her “experiments” that had

  survived. I had hoped that it would make her treat me better, but I don’t think she knew how to love or maybe this was her form of

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  love.

  I pondered this as I walked quickly to the closet that she had

  chained and then decided to dismiss this. Trying to understand her would probably only prove to make me as mad as she was.

  I reached into the pocket of the old tattered pants she had

  given me to sleep in, made of a similar material that almost

  matched my skin tone completely, and pulled out one of her

  beloved tools. As I held it up to inspect it, it shimmered in the

  moonlight that was pouring through the wooden board she had

  crookedly hammered onto the windows. She never wanted me to

  see the outside world for what it was worth, because she only

  wanted me to know what she taught me. She said I would be

  corrupted if I knew what happened outside of the window and she

  couldn’t take that chance. Still. There would be nights where I

  would press my face against the planks and try to catch a glimpse

  of the world beyond my room.

  Feeling a smile starting to creep across my weathered lips, I

  closed my eyes for a moment and thought of the one night that I

  caught a small glimpse of life go by. It was something small that

  seemed to go in and out of view so quickly. The colors on it

  where brilliant and beautiful and I watched it in awe whenever it

  came into my line of sight. That night I had crossed the carpeting to the wall on the far left side of the room and sat down on the

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  netting of torture. I remembered rapping quietly three times on

  the wall and putting my ear against, listening for any sign that

  there would be an answer.

  I held my breath for what seemed like hours until I finally got

  the three taps returned faintly to me. I whispered as loudly as I

  dared about what I had seen in the outer world and in response, a

  piece of old paper was slid under the slight crack under the wall

  to me, with a soft whisper back to draw what I had seen. I always

  kept some kind of drawing tool near that wall for the one behind

  it. I grabbed what Mother had once called a graphing pencil and

  began to intricately draw what I had seen.

  Forcing myself not to let a single detail slip, I first drew the

  small body of what had been so busily flittering about. I then

  decided to shade in the darker parts of it as well as the small

  ruffles around its body. At least I thought they were ruffles. I

  drew the two tiny protruding parts that it had tucked into self as it flittered. Then I drew the long, what I could only think of as a

  spike, that came from the front of its face under its tiny eyes.

  Detailing the sleek little body to the best of my ability, I let my hands skillfully slide over the paper until I found myself to be

  satisfied that I could remember no more. Confident that I had

  captured the creature as best as I could, I folded the piece of paper in half and I slid it back under through minuscule
opening,

  leaving just enough on my side to know that it was taken by

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  whomever lived in the next room.

  For a moment there was no movement, but then I watched as

  it was slowly retrieved. I heard the small puffs of effort to pull the paper to the other side and began to nervously chew on my

  fingernails. One more grunt of effort from the other side of the

  wall and I knew that it had my drawing. I sat down and leaned my

  head against the wall waiting for a response.

  My eyes fluttered closed, the sound of clocks ticking quietly

  in the distance, the sound of Mother working away in her

  basement with her drills and hammers were somehow so serene to

  me that I felt myself slipping into a deep slumber.

  I don’t know how long I was asleep for because I don’t dream.

  We aren’t designed to dream.

  I was woken by the sound of the other pounding on the wall

  and mumbling loudly to get my attention. I rubbed my eye; the

  only one she gave me that worked, and looked down. The paper

  was dancing almost frantically. I reached down for it and pulled it out the other’s single fingered grip and got to my feet. I made my way painfully to the window and used the small slits in the planks to examine the answer that was scrawled out for me.

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  Sparrow

  I had never in my life heard that word before; not that I had

  been “alive” very long. Looking back down at the word that had

  been the response to my drawing, I shook the thought away. I

  didn’t like thinking about how little of the world I knew. Of how

  little time I had been here. Of how lucky I had been that she had

  decided I was worth letting live.

  I took the paper carefully in my hand and crossed the

  carpeting again until I reached the closet door she always kept so protected from me. Folding it into four folds, I slid it in the

  waistband of my bottoms and retrieved the tool again.

  I promised myself that one day I would come back for the

  other. I would make sure that they would know the same freedom

  that I was determined to know.

  Standing there for a moment holding one of Mother’s

  precious instruments made me wonder if the other was like me.

  Was it created or was it born? And if either was the answer, why

  could it not speak? I didn’t know much of a world outside these

  walls that imprisoned me my whole life other than Mother.

  My poor, dangerous, deranged creator.

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