Page 34 of Dollface

“Iamthe Boogeyman!” he snaps in a tone I know is meant to strike fear in me, but it doesn’t. I don’t fear him. Maybe that’s foolish of me, to not fear someone so obviously deadly, but I don’t care. This man cut my lips free. He saved my rat, watches over me while I sleep, and he was even willing to kill the closest thing he has to a friend for me. He can be the mean old Boogeyman out there in Nightmare or Dreadmoor, but not with me. With me, he’s Firefly. And I don’t fear my Firefly.

I rush to stand on my tiptoes as I stare up at him, forcing him to face me. “Not with me, you aren’t,” I whisper softly, my voice almost a snarl as I stare into his eyes, the green specks flickering around his dark irises, burning with hesitation and pain. “Never with me.” I press my lips to his, gripping his neck, refusing to let him go.

He groans, trying to pull away. “Blue,” he whimpers.

“Stop,” I breathe into him. “Stop fighting. Stop resisting. Just be with me.” I kiss him harder, begging him to surrender to me.

“I—” He stops kissing me back, his hands holding my face firmly. “I can’t resist you,” he whispers. “Fuck, Blue. I—” He pulls away, stepping back as his head hangs low, his dark hair hiding his eyes. Pain seeps from his being, filling the cave with sorrow.

I step towards him, gently lifting his face as his eyes look at me. “Nothing can change how I see you, Firefly.Nothing.”

He gently touches my hand, removing it with a heavy sigh. “Fine,” he relents while he studies me. I wonder what he sees in my face that fascinates him so. He does this from time to time, where he’ll just stare at me; his eyes will look so deep, like he’s searching for something. “She was lonely, wanted a—companion. So, she made me, customized just to her liking. No button eyes, no little switch inside that forces me to want to serve her. All those doll-like details were for creations after me. Her whole purpose for making me, my purpose for existing, was to be by her side, to be something that loved her while she did as she pleased. A mindless whore.” I shudder as his hand reaches out and touches a lock of my hair.

“A-And?” I manage, my mouth feeling dry. I don’t like this feeling bubbling inside me; a mix of anger and sadness.Is this... jealousy?No. Me, jealous of my Creator for wanting Firefly to love her? I look at him, examining every detail closely.Is that why I’m so attracted to him? Because she is? Because I’m an extension of her? But I didn’t obey her?—

He drops his hand, watching me closely. “Think about it, Blue. No one capable of free will could love such a monster as her. I fought her advances, resisted her tricks, seeing straight through her lies and evil. I refused to be what she wanted. Like you, I was banished, sent here to Nightmare to rot. That is, until the game started.” He continues to twirl my hair absently, his eyes now focused on his hand in my hair.

“Game?”

“The game she and I have been playing for a long time. She tries to keep me here, sending her Nightmares and creations to hunt me down and kill me. I try to get there, to Dreadmoor, to kill her myself and end this sick game once and for all. Just imagine, Blue, if I could do it. I’ll be able to take over Dreadmoor and end the madness of it all.” He grins lightly, tapping my nose. “Very poetic, if you ask me. The creator’s first creation being her end.”

“Did you ever love her?” I manage over the hard lump in my throat, focusing only on that single fact: he was created forher.

Firefly studies me again before shaking his head. “No, never. I’ll admit, there was a time in my infancy of creation where Iwasn’t filled with an absolute hatred for her like I am now, but that was short-lived.”

“Why?” He flinches at my poking. I know reliving his past is hard, that this is the part of the story he doesn’t want to talk about, but I needed to know.

“The kids,” he whispers softly as his hand drops from my hair. “I never got over the kids.” I nod softly, understanding completely.

“I broke one of her portals and sent a little boy home,” I confess while leaning closer to him. “I was always trying to save them, helping them escape her and her toys. I never did fall in line and do as I was told. I always thought there was something wrong with me for it, but I guess I just never fully fell under her spell. She always hated me. For looking different, being imperfect, not behaving. Breaking the portal was the final straw. That's why she sent me here. It was my death sentence, I guess. To think, when I first arrived, I feared running into you, hearing the stories of the Boogeyman.” I laugh dryly.

Firefly releases a long breath. “You should’ve listened to those stories.” He pauses, tilting his head ever so lightly. “I wish I had been as heroic as you.”Heroic? Me?I feel my cheeks burn at his words as his eyes darken.

“Adam.” He says the name like it pains him. “He was twelve. His parents moved to a new house and left him home a lot. You know how it is: their loneliness calls to her, like blood in the water.” I nod, knowing all too well how these stories end. “Adam came over, and no matter what I said or how hard I tried to convince him it was all a trick, I couldn’t get him to stay away. He’d always come back, saying how he’d rather be there than go back home alone. Because he had me. Adam and I would sit in his other room there in Dreadmoor at night, playing games. He had this pair of dice.” Firefly pulls out the same pair I had stolen from Dreadmoor. “We would sit there and play with dice whileI tried to convince him to go home and lock the portal. Every night, he’d say he’d think about it, but he always came back.”

“What happened?” I ask cautiously, already knowing how this story ends.

Firefly sighs as he runs his hand through his hair, tugging at the ends. “He left these in a bag on his nightstand, and he went to get his button eyes sewn on. I never saw him again.”

I reach my hand out to cover his and squeeze softly. “I’m sorry, Firefly. I know that must’ve been hard.”

“It was a long time ago,” he whispers, his thumb running over my knuckles. “It was shortly after Adam’s disappearance, when the Spinster came to my room and crawled into my bed while I slept. She grabbed my cock and—” I watch him shift uncomfortably and move away, shame and embarrassment covering his face.

“Did she?—”

“I didn’t want to be with her, Blue, I swear, but she wouldn’t stop. I was barely awake, barely able to resist. I-I got hard, though, so obviously—” I stop him from continuing that preposterous reasoning by covering his mouth with my hand.

“Don’t you dare say that.” The sentence burns in my throat, my anger and hatred for our creator seething within me. “Youknowthat’s not true. You can’t control that.” How dare she do such a thing to him? His gaze avoids mine, and I feel his jaw setting like stone. He gently grabs my wrist and pulls my hand from his mouth, shame and hurt consuming him more than I thought possible.

“After that night, she started her nightly visits. Sometimes, I’d fight her, try to tell her no and force her from my bed, failing as I always did. But other times... I don’t know. I was so mentally beat that I just didn’t care. I eventually stopped fighting, retreating in on myself as a darkness took hold of me and hollowed my body into this shell, a puppet for her tocontrol. It was only when I felt like dying, ending my torment, that I started rolling the dice. Odds, I fought, even, I laid there, letting her do as she pleased until there was nothing left of me to use. One night, I was rolling the dice, and they both ended up catching in this crack in the floor. My roll was stuck, and I felt so much panic. But I took it as a sign, one that I was done being this monster's sex toy. So, I hid, and when she came into the room, I fought her. I ripped out one of her button eyes and ran. I knew it didn’t matter where I ran; she would find me. Dreadmoor is her world, after all, but it didn’t stop me from running. Even the smallest glimmer of hope was all I needed. And so I ran until she eventually found me. Instead of killing me on the spot, she gave me an option: return her eye and stay with her,loveher, and rule Dreadmoor forever by her side, or be banished to the Nightmare world and live a never-ending life of fear.”

“You chose here, I’m assuming.”

He chuckles as his fingers run over the dice. “I rolled for it. Odd, I stay, even, I go. Rolled snake eyes and thought I was finally free. She didn’t like that outcome. She stole my dice and had her toys strap me down, chained for days as they covered me in these tattoos. Their needles dug deep, covering every inch of my skin, bleeding me out in the process. The pain was excruciating, far worse than any I’d ever experienced. Once they finished marking me, she forced me to walk behind her, chained like a dog as the metal rubbed the fresh ink, dragging me to the portal. She asked me one last time if I wanted to stay.” He smirks. “I spat at her feet and ran through the blinding light. Couldn’t leave her fast enough. Unfortunately, I nearly died getting through. It took forever for my tattoos to heal, not to mention the constant fight to survive.”

“How long ago was that?” I ask softly while running my fingers over his knuckles.

“A lot longer than you’d believe, dollface. You know how it is—us creations, we don’t age. We live or die, whichever she chooses.” I nod. I was nearly half a century old myself, a baby amongst the creations, having heard the tales of the Boogeyman since the day I was created. Stories of him have been spoken for centuries, detailing him as an old, cryptic monster. I could only imagine his true age, being the first.

---