Childhood Friends

Helena and I were friends since I can remember. We played together, we laughed and cried together, we even ate dinner together sometimes. Our friendship surely was one of the special kind. You see, I never was the very sociable type. Kids always used to laugh at me for my strange looks, thus it was hard for me to make any friends. In fact, Helena was the only true friend I've ever had, but she was enough for me. Her smile alone made me go through another day of my miserable life. She was kindhearted, open minded, and overall the most gracious person I've ever met in my life. Talking about meeting, I can exactly remember the day we met for the very first time...

It was in a big department store in Kansas. It was nearly Christmas time and everyone was buying presents like crazy, paying outrageous prices to obtain all the stuff their loved ones wanted. I never really understood why they always relied on material gifts instead of just love and care for each other, but I digress here. I was sitting on the same spot I always did, watching the visitors of the store as they came by. Most of them threw weird looks at me or ignored me completely, pretending I wasn't there. I hated it. The worst thing was that I sat in the "unwanted" part of the store, where all the discounts and left-over toys from last Christmas were, so there weren't many customers to begin with. I wanted them to notice me, but the minority glanced at me for a second and continued their search for presents. I was actually beginning to feel... lonely. I spent all my spare time in this store, from opening till closure, all year, waiting for someone to acknowledge my existence. My parents and siblings were all taken away when I was young, only I was left. Living on the street was no option for me, so I waited and waited on the same spot every day, until a nice family wanted to take me home with them. With every day that passed, my hope of living a better life faded a little more.

"What is the point?", I asked myself. "The manager is going to get rid of me eventually, so why do I still wait for rescue? No one is interested in a freaky boy like me. I can't even smile normally."

But just as I was about to give up, Helena and her parents entered the store. I think she was about five years old at this point. She had long, silky blond hair and wore a light blue dress with matching shoes. At first, she was guided though the rows of shelves by her mother and father, searching for a suitable Christmas present for her. She looked at every toy and plushie displayed, but nothing seemed to match her liking. After 20 minutes of unsuccessful seeking, the three were about to leave the store with empty hands. They were heading to the front entrance at a quick pace, but only a second before setting a foot outside, Helena turned around a last time and saw me sitting emotionless next to a giant basket filled with left alone toys. She let go of her parents' grasp and rushed towards me, a cheerful smile widening on her face. I remember her exact words that have given me a chance to live.

"Mommy, daddy, look! He is sooo cute! Can I keep him? Pleeeeaaase?"

I couldn't believe what she was saying, and her parents probably neither. She actually... liked me? An ugly monster that was abandoned by everything and everyone? I thought I was dreaming... but it was real. In the end, despite her parents' disbelief, they decided to take me home with them. And what followed was the happiest time of my life. Helena and me played together everyday and we had lots of wacky adventures. Whether we defeated the evil creature in the closet or looked at the peacefully moving clouds, we did it as a team. We also had unlimited trust for each other. Whenever Helena had a problem in school or anything, I was the very first to know about it, and I cheered her up as best as I could. It was just perfect. Even Helena's parents accepted me after some time, I almost felt like I was a part of the family. Soon, Helena began to grow up; from a small innocent girl to a responsible, yet sometimes emotionally unstable teenager... and that was when our relationship started to change.

Helena began to spend more time with her "trendy" friends than with me. At first, I was happy for her immediately finding friends after starting high school... but it started to unnerve me after a while. One time, I was patiently lying on her bed, waiting for her to arrive to tell me about her day, just that she can come home at 11 o'clock, almost worrying me to death, because she went on a date with Craig, her so-called "boyfriend" and "kinda forgot the time". I planned to talk it out with her, but she didn't even notice me! Heck, she even THREW ME ON THE GROUND, because she "needed" to take her daily frustration out on something. She didn't respond anymore when I was talking to her, she left me alone in her room and ignored me every single day...

What happened between us? It was like she completely forgot about me. Whenever Helena called or chatted with her friends online, an unknown feeling was spreading inside of me. It stung like a knife and made me furious and sad at the same time. I felt extreme anger at both Helena and her "friends". How could she replace me with these slackers who can't even understand her; who only know her on the outside, not on the inside like me? At the time, I didn't know what to make of this new feeling and shrugged it off. Looking back on it now, I know exactly what this emotion was called.

It was envy.

Time has passed and Helena's memories of me seemed to have completely disappeared. She didn't even let out her anger out on me anymore, she didn't pay any kind of attention to me. I relived the same loneliness I felt back then in the department store. This feeling of not being worthy to exist; the solitude and the extreme despair made me fall into the old routine again. The need to get noticed. The need to get... loved by anybody. It was too late when I began to realize that Helena was getting too old for toys.

She has gotten other priorities over the years, like being popular in school and getting a boyfriend. By now, all of her childish imagination and innocence had been sucked out by the shallowness of life itself, making me nothing but an object to her. I thought she knew I wasn't like the others of my kind, but I was naive. I didn't comprehend the concept of human growth yet. But how was I supposed to get that, anyway?

Then, one fateful Sunday, I heard a large number of people talking outside. I climbed onto Helena's bed and took a look out of the window. It seemed like her parents were doing a garage sale of some sort. There were many boxes filled with now unneeded objects, clothes and tools, all displayed on the front lawn on top of a dusty old desk which looked like it would burst any second. The business was going good, many people liked the stuff that they sold and the couple made many good deals. I watched observingly as the content of the boxes disappeared one by one. I was so focused in observing the sale, that I didn't notice the door slowly opening. But then I heard footsteps, I turned around and shrieked slightly.

It was Helena. I expected her to call me a dumb fluff ball or punch me like she always did when she actually decided to show interest in me, but... she didn't do anything like that. She looked very troubled and sad to be honest, I didn't know what to think of this. Before I knew it, Helena tightly embraced my small body and carried me out of the room, through the floors, heading towards the attic. I was kinda skeptical about what she was planning to do with me, but one part of me was so happy that she paid attention to me for the first time in years that I didn't think about it too much.

The attic was very dark, only the ray of light that shone through the window offered us sight. Helena slowly walked to the middle of the room and stopped in front of a small box with the word "Memories" written on it with a black marker. I immediately recognized it. We used to put all the photos we took and pictures we drew together into that one box. It was truly filled with precious memories from better days. She knelt down and used her one hand to open the box while holding me with the other one. If my body could produce real tears, I would have cried my eyes out. It hasn't changed at all. All these happy moments; our birthday parties, us playing in the garden, building a castle out of blocks, even back to the day she adopted me... They were all coming back to me. So Helena hasn't forgotten after all.

But that made me wonder... Why did she show that to me all of the sudden? Why did she bring me here?

Suddenly, I was thrown out of my thoughts by a quiet sobbing. I looked up and saw Helena, a few tears streaming down her face, with a faint smile. She hugged me tighter against her chest while softly talking with herself, not knowing that I heard every single word she said.

"...I'm sorry, but I gotta raise some money for college. Please forgive me, Dreat. I'm just not... into that childish stuff anymore. I'm almost a grown up now... Heh. Look at me. I'm talking to a dumb doll. So stupid..."

"Childish stuff"?

She was calling... spending time with her best friend "childish stuff"? How could she? I was always there for her. Always cared for her. Never rejected her. Always listened to her. Never interfered. Always said yes to everything she said. Never said no. Always put her wishes and needs above mine. Never selfish.

AND YET I WAS NOTHING MORE THAN A "DUMB DOLL" TO HER?!

I snapped. That was the final blow to my sanity. She wanted to get rid of me. To sell me to a family that wouldn't give a crap about me, either. She already had abandoned me and now this? In this moment, I realized how true wrath felt. It embraced me, telling me to let go of my worries and... get rid of HER. Tons of weird thoughts entered my head at once, one more gruesome than the other. But all of them had something in common: to let her suffer for what she has done. I couldn't believe it, what was I thinking? Then, another weird feeling appeared. This time, I felt only darkness around me. My one functional eye became heavy all of the sudden, all the "muscles" in my small body grew weaker and weaker and I couldn't keep myself awake for much longer. I must have blacked out from something... or someone.

When I woke up, my whole body felt sour. I felt like a great concentration of power flowed into my body and it couldn't bear the pressure of it. The timespan of my unconsciousness seemed to be short, since the light that entered through the window shone in the same angle as before. I found myself leaning against a wall with blood on the things that were once my tiny hands. They have grown into large, sharp claws and I discovered that I could stretch them out to my liking. But that wasn't the strange part. The blood on them belonged to my beloved Helena.

I found her now lifeless body right next to me. She wasn't breathing anymore, but how could she? All of her limbs were lying across the attic, her blood painting the floor almost completely red. I realized that I was the one who tore her apart in the most cruel way possible.

I was crying. I cried for the very first time over her death. But my tears weren't clear and wet like Helena's, they were black and sticky like goo. My fur and the floor under me were drenched with the glue-like fluid, but I didn't care for anything anymore. I just murdered my best friend and had to live with it thanks to my damn consciousness. Why did I have to be created with a human mind? Why couldn't I have been born like all the others? Brainless, emotionless, lifeless... Why me? Why me of all the objects in the world? What have I done wrong?

...On the other side, though... Maybe it was the best for her. If I hadn't killed her, who knows who could've did in the future? Isn't being dead much better than to live a worthless life in which only beauty and perfection is accepted? She's in heaven now, she doesn't have to worry about things like living anymore. She's in the safest place that ever existed now. Yes, safe... Safe from all these people who only want to see her suffer. To be honest, I envy her a little. I'm out of stuffing and plastic, I couldn't die even if I wanted to. I'm cursed to wander earth till the end of eternity. You could say I did her a favor. But this didn't change the fact that I had to get away from there as soon as possible. Her parents were going to get worried soon and search for her, resulting them to find her body dismembered on the attic. I couldn't stay there, not after what I had done. Then I suddenly remembered something.

Helena once told me that she has a big sister who's living in Chicago. A kind woman who always played with her before she got me. Perhaps she would be a little nicer and less forgetful than her younger sister. I don't know, I'm not delivered to her house yet. It will still take a while, so I have to kill my time with something else after I finished writing my story. But I really hope I don't have to slice her up like Helena, because that would be really sad, for we could have so much fun together, no?

P.S.: I still don't know where my new abilities come from, but sometimes I see a mysterious shadow in the corner of my eye. Next time, I will try to talk with it. You know, to thank it for the little gift it might have given me.