THE PUPPET’S HEART

The nights are the hardest.

By day, sunlight streams through the narrow gaps between thatched rooftops, casting golden pools on the uneven cobblestones of the village. The boys dart across the streets, their bare feet slapping against the stones with careless abandon. Their laughter swirls in the air, a melody that dances on the wind, brushing past me but never quite settling in my hollow chest. They are so alive, their movements fluid and unrestrained, as if their very existence is music - limbs like pliant willow branches, bending but never breaking.

Their tiny hands clasp each other tightly as they leap from stone to stone, their voices a symphony of joy, their tears a sharp crescendo of sorrow. When they fall, their knees scrape against the coarse cobbles, and bright crimson beads well up, rolling like tiny rubies down their skin. The sight pierces me, not with pain but with envy. Their blood is a proclamation, proof of something I can never claim.

I only watch.

The curve of my wooden lips remains frozen, carved into an expression of eternal cheer. Under the painted smile lies silence - no heartbeat thuds within my chest, no sharp intake of breath catches in my throat. Though finely crafted, my limbs lack the soft weight of muscle and the pulsing warmth of life. The ache of emptiness digs deeper and heavier when I see what it means to truly feel and know I cannot.

When evening falls, the flickering glow of the workshop's hearth casts long, trembling shadows on the walls. Geppetto's hands, rough as sanded bark, envelop my wooden fingers. His calluses snag against the smooth, lacquered surface as he grips me with a tenderness that nearly breaks me. "You're my boy," he says, his voice roughened by years of labor and softened by a love I cannot echo.

I nod, moving my head in the mechanical way he taught me. I attempt to meet his gaze, trying to absorb the warmth in his eyes and carry it with me, but my hollowness engulfs it entirely. I pretend his words are enough. I pretend I believe him.

But when the fire's embers fade to a dull orange glow and Geppetto's breathing settles into the slow rhythm of sleep, the silence presses down like a weight. I slip from my corner of the workshop, my wooden joints creaking softly in the stillness. The window is cool beneath my palms, the glass smooth and unyielding as I press my forehead to it. Outside, the world stretches out under the velvet canopy of the night, a scattering of stars winking down at the earth below.

I kneel, my joints bending awkwardly, and the motion is unnatural. My breathless voice escapes, barely a whisper, yet carrying the weight of every unspoken hope. "Please." The single word trembles, a raw plea splintering with desperation. My painted smile falters as I glance upward, fixing my gaze on the brightest star, its light sharp and unyielding in the darkness.

"Make me real," I whisper, the words rasping like sandpaper over the edges of my hollow existence.

The night momentarily pauses. My voice seems to hang there, suspended, fragile, and fleeting. Then it dissolves, swallowed by the stillness, disappearing like never before.

And yet, I remain kneeling, my wooden fingers curling into fists against the cold floor, waiting for a reply I know will never come.

The scent comes first. It is subtle but insistent, seeping through the tiny cracks in the workshop's old, warped walls. Damp earth, rich and cloying, mingles with a faint sweetness - like flowers rotting in stagnant water. It clings to the air, thick and invasive, curling its way into my thoughts.

A whisper follows, so faint it's almost imagined. It brushes against the edge of my consciousness, deliberate and lingering, like a shadow with a voice.

I hear you.

The words send a chill skittering down my wooden spine. My gaze darts to the far corner of the room, where the dim light of the heart barely touches. The shadows there deepen unnaturally, pooling together as though drawn by some unseen force. They writhe and twist, a living inkblot staining the air, their movements sickly fluid.

Something takes shape. No, someone.

Her outline emerges, wavering and unsteady, but soon, the room is filled with her presence, undeniable and suffocating. Her wings shimmer, their jagged edges catching the faintest traces of light like shattered glass, each fragment reflecting splintered rainbows across the walls. The colors dance disjointed and unnatural, as though the light resists her.

Her gown flows around her in heavy, liquid folds, darker than midnight. It doesn't ripple or sway - it oozes, pooling at her feet before fading seamlessly into the shadows that birthed her. But it's her face that grips me, rooting me in place.

Her features are too sharp, every edge exaggerated as though carved from bone instead of flesh. Her smile stretches impossibly wide, the corners of her mouth curving unnaturally, exposing teeth too white and too many. Her eyes are the worst - vast, black voids that swallow the room's meager light. They seem endless, pulling everything toward their empty depths.

"You called to me, little puppet," she says, her voice a lullaby of silk and splinters. The words slide under my wooden skin, burrowing like splinters that splinter repeatedly.

I try to move, to step back, but my joints seize. My limbs feel stiff and frozen, as if her gaze has turned me into stone.

"I... didn't mean..."

"Oh, but you did," she interrupts, her voice slicing cleanly through mine. She steps forward, her movements gliding and precise, each deliberate, like a predator circling its prey. "A wish whispered into the night is a thread I cannot resist."

Her words knot themselves in my mind. I force myself to speak, though my voice cracks and splinters like dry wood. "Who… who are you?"

She tilted her head; the motion was eerily slow. Her glassy wings catch a faint glimmer of moonlight through the window. The light refracts, painting fractured lines across her face and distorting it further.

"I am the Blue Fairy," she says with a smile that could split the sky. "And I have come to grant your wish."

Her name tastes bitter as I form it in my thoughts. It feels wrong, like something jagged stuck in my throat, but before I can question it, she continues, her voice curling around the words like smoke.

"You want to be real," she says, her tone a soft mockery, each word dipped in honey and poison.

I nod, though it takes all my will to force the movement. My stiff joints creak audibly as I manage to whisper, "Yes, for Geppetto."

At this, her smile widens impossibly, her teeth gleaming like tiny daggers. She circles me slowly, her wings whispering against the air, their faint hum like a distant, unearthly melody.

"Such devotion," she murmurs, her pale hand brushing against my wooden chest. Her touch is ice, a shocking cold that doesn't fade but lingers, sinking into the grain of my carved surface. "Such longing."

She steps back, her gown trailing behind her like spilled ink, and with a graceful wave of her hand, something appears.

A box.

It's small, crafted of dark wood polished to a glassy sheen, but it writhes unnaturally. It is wrapped in threads that squirm and twist like living things. The threads twitch, curling toward the air as though tasting it.

She carefully places it on the workbench, her fingers lingering as though reluctant to part with it.

"This," she says, her voice dropping into something low and resonant, "is my gift to you. To become a real boy, you need a real heart."

Her words settle like lead in my hollow chest, heavy and unyielding.

"A real heart?" I whisper, unsure if it's a question or an echo of my growing dread.

Her gaze sharpens, her eyes glittering with a hunger that steals the air from the room. She steps closer, her smile curling higher as her voice drops to a murmur. "A heart filled with love. And who loves you more than Geppetto?"

The words hover between us, dense and suffocating. I feel them pressing down on me, each syllable cutting more profoundly into the emptiness where a heart should be.

"I don't understand," I say, yet the truth is relentlessly and coldly pushing its way to the surface.

She laughs softly, the sound vibrating through the room like a shiver. Her hand rises to brush under my chin, her touch impossibly light but cold enough to sting. “Oh, but you will," she says, her smile splitting wider, exposing teeth that glint unnaturally in the dim light.

The Blue Fairy hears the wishes that rise like smoke from the desperate, those whispered into the void when all hope has drained away. That is her nature. Her curse.

Once, she was radiant, a light that pierced the darkest corners of despair. She moved like a breeze through humanity's dreams, tenderly granting their hearts' desires, her wings shimmering like a morning sky after a storm. She was a guardian spirit of grace and kindness who mended hearts and rekindled hope.

But centuries are long, and humanity's longing is endless. Each wish she granted, each aching heart she answered, chipped away at her light. The purity of her purpose eroded under the ceaseless tide of yearning, the insatiable hunger for more. Wishes never stopped, never faded; they came in louder and more desperate waves, crashing against her until the weight was unbearable.

The centuries ground her down to something unrecognizable. Her shimmering wings dulled; their edges darkened as though dipped in ink. The gentle radiance that once defined her dimmed, corrupted by the endless demands of the broken and the lost. What was once an act of kindness became a cruel necessity - a compulsion. She no longer granted wishes to heal. She granted them to survive.

Her magic changed, twisted into something predatory. She learned to feed on the despair of those who called to her, drawing strength from their longing and anguish. The light that once sustained her had been replaced by shadow, and her purpose warped into a dark mockery of what it had been.

Now, she prowls the night threads, her essence attuned to the vibrations of despair. The air trembles when a soul breaks, when a voice whispers words of desperation into the quiet. That is her summons. She hears the wishes like a faint, fragile melody carried across the silence. They hum through the air like threads plucked taut, singing their sorrow.

And when she hears them, she answers.

That is how she finds me.

My voice, so small and raw, rises from the workshop's quiet, carried into the vast darkness beyond. The words I spoke - barely more than a breath - are no longer mine. They hang in the air, trembling, before dissolving into the night.

She feels them as I do: sharp, aching, jagged with yearning. The whisper cuts through the stillness, a thread of despair stretched taut, and I feel it pluck something unseen, reverberating into the depths of the world.

And she comes.

No crash, thunderclap, or gentle flutter of wings heralds her arrival. Instead, her presence seeps into the room like an invasive fog, damp and suffocating. The air grows colder and heavier, and the faintest scent of decayof - wet soil and withered flowers - creeps through the workshop.

It is her nature to come where despair calls. It is her curse to feed on those who ache the most. And I, who whispered my wish to the stars, have become her next feast.

The shadows ripple like black water, their edges jagged and alive, stretching across the dimly lit workshop toward Geppetto's sleeping form. They slither over the floor, creeping up the worn wood of his chair, curling like smoke around his chest.

"No!" The word tears from me, raw and jagged. My body moves before I can think, throwing itself into their path. My joints groan under the strain, splinters flying as my arms scrape against the edges of the living darkness. The cold bites into my carved limbs, freezing and splintering the wood with every desperate swipe.

"Take me instead!" I scream, clawing at the shadowy tendrils that twist and coil with a serpentine grace. My fingers scrape uselessly through their cold, insubstantial form.

The Blue Fairy tilts her head, her smile widening into something predatory. Her teeth gleam like shards of broken glass. Her wings flicker erratically, their once-glassy shimmer dimming like the final, guttering light of a dying flame.

"You have nothing to give me, little one," she purrs, her voice soft but razor sharp, cutting through my pleas.

The shadows tighten around Geppetto's chest, and his breathing falters. A thin, rattling wheeze fills the room as the air struggles to escape his lungs. I can hear it now - his heartbeat - faint, steady, but slow. The sound thuds in my ears - a fragile drumbeat that stumbles and falters with every passing second, fading toward silence.

"Stop!" I cry again, my voice cracking as I claw harder, my fingers splintering at the tips. The cold has seeped into me, hollowing out my little strength. "Please, stop!"

The Blue Fairy watches me from the shadows, her expression of distant amusement as if the scene before her is no more than a well-rehearsed play. Her void-like eyes glint with something dark and cruel, reflecting no light, only my desperation.

"This is what you wished for," she says, her voice mocking sweetness, soft and syrupy. "This is what it costs to be real."

A faint sound fills the room, rising with every heartbeat. I look down and see it - the box. The heart inside pulses, the glow from its dark veins illuminating the workshop with an unnatural light. Its beats are soft, rhythmic, and steady - a terrible echo of Geppetto's faltering heart. The sound is unbearable, the two rhythms syncing, one growing stronger as the other weakens.

My trembling fingers close around the box, and the warmth of it jolts through me, foreign and wrong. It pulses against my wooden hands as if alive, as if breathing. I want to throw it away, to crush it, to scream.

But I can't.

Geppetto's breath catches a faint, shallow gasp, and then he exhales one last time. His chest sinks, motionless. The shadows retreat, their task complete, leaving the room deathly still.

"No," I whisper, my voice barely audible and fractured with disbelief. My wooden knees hit the floor, and the box clutched against me like a curse.

The Blue Fairy steps closer, her wings trailing ghostly whispers behind her. Her gaze lingers on me, her smile sharp and triumphant.

"You wanted to be real," she says softly, her tone laced with dark satisfaction. "And now you can be."

When the light returns, the workshop feels pale and hollow, a weak imitation of what it once was. The dim glow of the moon spills through the cracked windows, illuminating the wreckage of what I've done.

The box sits heavy in my lap, its polished surface glinting faintly in the cold light. My wooden fingers tremble as I clutch it, the heart inside beating with a rhythmic, unrelenting thud. Each pulse seems to vibrate through me, filling the silence with a sound that doesn't belong - a heartbeat that isn't mine.

The warmth of the box seeps into my hands, but it feels wrong and unnatural. It isn't comforting warmth. It's cloying and oppressive, as if trying to seep into the hollow cavity of my chest where a heart should be. But there's nothing there to receive it.

I lift my gaze, my joints creaking with the motion. Geppetto lies on the floor, his body still, his chest hollow. The moon's soft glow outlines the emptiness carved into him, a cruel echo of mine. His face, once full of life and warmth, is now pale and waxen; his features slack in a way I've never seen before.

I reach out with trembling fingers and brush them against his hand. His skin is cold, unnaturally so, like the chill of stone left untouched for centuries. It doesn't respond to my touch, squeeze back, or offer the warmth that had once been my anchor.

The heart in the box beats louder, a steady, rhythmic pounding that fills the room like a mocking drumbeat. Each thud serves as a cruel reminder of the price I paid. This sound reverberates through the workshop, suffocating in its persistence.

My grip tightens on the box, and I want to scream to throw it away, to shatter it into pieces, and scatter its contents into the night. But I can't. My fingers won't obey, locked as if some invisible force keeps me tethered to this cursed object.

The shadows on the walls stretch and waver, faintly echoing the shape of wings that are no longer there. Her laughter lingers in the air, light and musical but twisted, like a lullaby sung in mockery.

"Be careful what you wish for, little puppet," the Blue Fairy's voice whispers, her words curling through the silence, leaving a jagged wound in their wake.

I glance toward the corner where she had stood moments ago, but the shadows are empty now. She is gone.

The room returns to silence, except for the heart's unwavering, steady rhythm. It pounds on relentlessly as if it knows it has won, as if it knows that nothing will ever be the same.

And I am alone.