Jason The Toymaker

## Jason The Toymaker's Origins by Krisantyl

(Note: this story has been translated from Italian to English. Light editing has been done to the origin story to make it easier to read.)

The sharp scent of blood pinched his nostrils, but the most unpleasant thing was her slender body, which wasn’t moving anymore. Her last breath has already dissolved in the air several minutes ago, while that thick red color slowly spread on the floor. It had all happened so quickly: she tried to lie, to make a fool of him and when they got into a little argument, a tug on her arm had changed the course of their lives. The loss of stability, the edge of the furniture and finally...silence.

*It wasn’t my fault*, Jason thought. *It was a terrible accident!*

He was standing in front of that little girl’s corpse, breathless. In the shop there were only him and the corpse, the only witnesses to the incident the toys he built that surrounded them. When Jason’s blood started to circulate again, he realized he should find a solution. He couldn’t just stand there not doing anything. But the situation was too complicated.

*They’ll put me behind bars and throw away the key!* he thought desperately. *I... I’m not an assassin! I just wanted to scold her! She tried to trick me into giving her a new toy by pretending the old one was defective!* He turned around and looked back at the corpse, but this time he gave an accusatory stare. “It was all your fault!” he screamed, enraged. “You made all of this happen!”.

He decided to hide the accident. The first thing he did was close his shop to prevent anybody else from entering. He took the little girl into his workshop, where he created the toys that everyone acclaimed as works of art, and he put her on his work table. In that room there was a sharp scent of paint, but it wasn’t enough to cover either the smell of blood or the horror that was going to happen next.

Jason put his hands on his head and pushed himself to find a solution. His stare stopped on a purple snake-shaped puppet laying on the floor. It was one of his first creations. As if by magic, everything was clear to him. He *didn’t* have to worry.

He grabbed his hand saw and got closer to the body. He used that object to cut the wooden pieces he needed for creating toys, but not that day.

Jason took a deep breath; his body was trembling and his heart beat so fast it was almost painful. He lifted the hand saw and closed his eyes, refusing to see the horror that was going to happen.

Four hours later, the purple snake was still laying down on the floor, but it now looked inflated. Jason was silently sitting on a chair in front of the blood-soaked table. In that moment he was just stunned, and his big ember-colored eyes seemed to become blackened and slit. The corpse was gone, laying in the snake’s mouth, and together with-it Jason’s last piece of humanity too.

“How could something like this happen? How did I arrive at this point?”.

And the answer was just a name: Amelia.

*Oh, Amelia, his childhood friend. The one and only!* Before her arrival, Jason Meyer had always been a child locked in his silence. Locked in his own world.

His parents were strict and wanted to see him studying all day. In the house where he lived, toys were forbidden. His mom and dad weren’t bad people, he knew they loved him, but they weren’t able to show their affection. Like every parent, they wanted their son to be perfect and with a brilliant future, but all that pressure was too much for a 9-year-old child. As for Jason, he did everything he could to make them feel proud of him: he was a model student at school and obedient at home. Despite his great dedication, it had never been enough.

Because he couldn’t have any toys at home, Jason had built some little wooden figurines that he kept in the school garden. Away from his parents’ reach, he could play with them without being punished. He kept them hidden underground, just like a priceless treasure, until the day a child named Amelia noticed him.

To tell you the truth, it was because the teacher asked Amelia to go to him. She was a sunny and friendly child, while he had been bashful and shy. Every attempt to make him approach other children failed and over time his peers started to make fun of him. Jason wasn’t weak. On the contrary, he was a perfect manipulator and master of deception. He was like a wolf hiding behind the mask of the lamb, however he became attached to little Amelia.

He never did any harm to her. Actually, he wanted to be a good friend and protect her. Could this be considered a normal relationship? A nice friendship among children? Absolutely not.

What Jason himself couldn’t understand, was that the lack of any relationship with his parents created a severe affective addiction. He always wanted to be of primary importance to Amelia. He liked saying he was the only friend she needed, and he made her feel unsure. Jason wasn’t looking for love and maybe not even affection, he just wanted to be praised. He wanted to be important for somebody and this made him feel... alive. He felt like he existed, and it felt great. He wanted to feel it again and again, so he made Amelia believe that the world is a place full of bad people and whoever dared to interfere with them would pay for it.

The affective addiction and the manipulations often made Jason do bad things. Like with Lucy, Amelia’s friend, who wanted to go first on the swing. He pushed her so fast that she fell down, causing her a broken wrist. Or with Jonathan, who always asked Amelia for colored pencils, when he got pushed down the school stairs. Jason pushed him when his back was turned, like a coward, because he knew no one would blame him. Like every other "intruder" in Jason and Amelia's friendship, Jonathan suddenly stopped talking to Amelia after this "accident".

The more Jason grew, the more dangerously and spitefully he acted. In the meantime, the poor and naive Amelia, stunned by Jason’s kindness and his nice words, seemed oblivious to all these awkward incidents happening around the two of them. Or maybe, in other words, she just didn’t want to see it.

Once grown up, Jason had decided to open up a toy shop. His parents kicked him out of the house due to that decision. *What a disappointment! After years of hard work, in the end, their son had chosen such a stupid and disgraceful job*, they thought. In contrast to what they imagined however, Jason was happy and became a talented toymaker. He had no lack of fantasy, people of every age bought his creations and, moreover, he had his faithful friend by his side. It would’ve been wonderful if the story has ended here, but the perfect world Jason built wouldn’t last forever.

Like every evening, Amelia visited her friend when the shop closed to keep company with him. Jason had to settle the chaos done by those *stupid children*, so he took off his beige vest to feel more comfortable and pulled up the sleeves of his white shirt. Amelia looked around and gave a nostalgic smile. “Think about it, Jason. You started from simple wooden figurines, and now you've gotten to the point where you're able to do all of this. You *are* happy, aren’t you?”, she said.

“I might say yes, even though I'm starting to hate children.” he replied. “They ruin everything they touch."

“Get used to it, they are your most faithful customers!” she replied.

“I know, it’s awkward. A toymaker who hates children.” said Jason. Amelia didn’t answer, but from her little amused smile it wasn’t difficult to surmise that she agreed with him. “I decided to become a toymaker because I liked shaping my fantasy...You were the first one to tell me that”.

“You were good at creating wooden figurines, so I suggested you become a toymaker or something like that. I’m glad you listened to me." she recalled.

“Good friends do this.” the toymaker replied. “But good friends, at times, must also do... other things”.

Amelia looked puzzled at her friend. “What do you mean?”.

Jason shrugged it off and looked at her smiling. "Do you remember the pink letter?”.

Oh, of course Amelia remembered it! It was one of the most unpleasant days of her life. When she was 15, Amelia fell in love with a boy from the class next to hers. She didn’t have the courage to confess her feelings and Jason scared her, as usual. “If people find out your weaknesses it’s the end. I don’t think it’s a good idea." he had said to her, but Amelia’s other friend disagreed with him. She encouraged Amelia and told her to write her crush a letter... but something went wrong.

The letter disappeared from Amelia’s backpack and was found attached to the backboard in the class of the boy she liked. She saw the letter getting passed hand by hand, the boys reading her confession with a scornful tone. She heard the laughter, the not-so-funny jokes ... but the name on the signature wasn’t hers. It was the name of the friend that encouraged her.

They made fun of her the entire school year and in the end, she decided to change schools. Amelia never saw her again. She thought she acted like a coward doing that, but now she realized it was Jason's fault all along.

“How could you do that to me? Why?” she screamed.

“I protected you, like I’ve always done.” replied the toymaker. In Jason’s face there wasn’t a single trace of repentance.

“You've never "protected" anybody!” shouted Amelia. She was angry not just at her friend's betrayal, but at his shallow attitude. “I can’t forgive you for this, Jason." she proclaimed, before quickly leaving the shop and slamming the door behind her with all of her strength.

Jason followed her, but he didn’t make take a step over the main entrance, “Why are you so angry?”.

Obviously, his friend didn’t reply and went straight home. She was so angry that whoever got in her sight, she would’ve stepped on them like a brakeless train. However when she got home, she locked herself in her room and soundly started to cry. Amelia cried not only for that letter but for all the people Jason removed from her life. It was like waking up suddenly from a long sleep. For years she didn’t mind it, because she was afraid to lose him and couldn’t really understand the reason why. Maybe she was just a fool, or maybe she just enjoyed feeling important in those rare occasions when Jason complimented her. She had just let all those friends walk out of her life, believing they were unfaithful, but the only one who should 've really disappeared from her life was the "magnificent" and "innocent" Jason!

On the other hand, the toymaker just stayed in his shop. After finishing his affairs, he closed up his little workshop. He settled the sheets on the sofa and laid down. The next day, when Amelia came back to visit him, he decided that he would try to calm her down. Contrary to what he was expecting however, the following day Amelia didn’t show up at the shop. Or the day after. Or the day after that...

A month later Jason had no news at all about his friend. His man’s pride prevented him from going to ring the doorbell at her house, but all that time helped him think about a way to be forgiven. He didn’t manage to understand what was bad about what he had done, but he thought he knew Amelia perfectly. She needed nothing more than a gift to make her forget her anger. A toy would be enough, but Jason had made something very special: a music box. But that wasn’t the only surprise. The most important part of that gift, the most precious of all, was a little puppet resembling him in an astonishing way, hidden inside the music box. A surprise contained inside another surprise!

The puppet was as big as the palm of a hand, dressed just like Jason, with the same hair color as him and two black buttons used as eyes.

*“It’s not as handsome as the original but she is going to like it!”.* thought Jason.

His hope was stored inside that puppet, but also the deep fear and anguish that Jason always obsessed over. He just wanted someone in his life who'd appreciate him and who wouldn’t need anything else but his company. He wanted to be looked up to, to be someone who mattered, because it was so beautiful feeling like somebody needed his help. This made Jason feel like he really existed and not like an object.

That puppet should’ve been a sort of lucky charm for him, but after what he created for her, everything started to go wrong.

For Jason, this was just the beginning.

Three days after creating his two gifts, Jason hadn’t managed to even come out of his workshop. It was Monday and people waited in front of the store, asking themselves why it hadn’t opened yet. Jason wasn’t feeling well. He had a terrible headache and had gotten cold feet. Finally, he decided didn’t want to wait anymore, so he left out the back of the shop and went to Amelia’s house, ignoring his aching body. When he knocked on her door, he thought he would see her face, with that chocolate hair and those blue eyes of hers. Instead, he faced her mother, whose look gave him the impression of a happy visit.

Jason cleared his voice. “Good morning, madam, is your...”

In that very moment, Amelia stood by her mother’s side and looked out the door. “Hi, Amelia." said Jason.

She looked down and her cheeks turned red. “Hi...”.

“Why did you come here?” her mother asked, interrupting that embarrassing silence.

Jason’s lips curled into a smile and he showed his precious music box, “I brought Amelia this present to make up. I built it with my own hands and inside of it, there’s another surprise!”.

For a brief moment Amelia’s eyes sparkled. She was almost convinced of accepting his present and forgiving him... but that smile of his didn’t bewitch her mother. It never did, not even when Jason was just a apparently innocent child. She always thought his attitude was nasty, especially since the day that little incident happened...

She remembered going to make the snacks and little Amelia following her to give her a hand. Meanwhile Jason was left alone with her daughter’s canary. It was her first pet and Amelia got attached to it. Then Jason appeared and stated that the canary wasn’t moving anymore. The three of them went into the living room and poor Amelia started to cry. While Jason was by her side, he caressed her back and told her not to worry, that everything was going to be alright. In that sentence there was nothing wrong, but her mother couldn’t ignore that almost invisible smile. Many times, the woman told her daughter there was something wrong with him, but the little girl always refused to listen to her.

But now, the woman's patience was gone. “Amelia doesn’t want to be friends with you anymore, Jason. It’s better this way, trust me”.

Jason raised his eyebrows. “What?”, he asked. Astounded, he turned to look at Amelia. “But... Why? I’ve always been by your side, you could always count on me!” he said. Amelia said nothing and just kept looking down like a beaten dog. “I made this present for you, please!”.

Jason gave the music box to Amelia, but she rejected it almost reluctantly. With that gesture, in that very moment, he felt an aching pain, like a strong grip to his heart, make him lose stability.

“Are you alright?” Amelia asked, noticing this reaction of his and finally looking the boy in the eyes.

“How... how can I be alright? I’ve always been by your side, and now you do this to me?” What is it? A punishment? revenge? I don’t care anymore!” said Jason as he gathered his strength and looked at Amelia. “I thought you were a smart person. Apparently this was the only mistake I made!”, he continued. Satisfied with his friend getting teary eyed, Jason turned around and went back to this shop.

For several weeks Jason wasn’t the same anymore. His anger was almost constant and his health conditions were getting worse. He just wanted to go on with his life, but then the accident with that little girl happened...

Sitting on that chair, staring at the blank space with his hands coated in blood, Jason felt something in him change forever. He didn’t feel anything anymore and his body was changing. He didn’t let the depression take control and he wasn’t sad.

He didn’t like that reality anymore.

While he was busy thinking about leaving that little town, he heard Amelia’s voice calling his name from outside the store

Without hesitation, he opened the door for her.

Amelia immediately noticed his emotionless face and after staying silent for a moment, spoke first. “Can I come in?”.

Jason let the girl go through and silently closed the door behind her, exposing the "CLOSED" sign.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, I just wanted to know how you're feeling. I think we should talk...” said Amelia. She could tell there was something odd about Jason, but it wasn’t only that... there was a strange scent in the air too.

“There’s nothing more to say and honestly this isn’t a good time for me." replied the toymaker.

“Are you alright? You’re sweating.”, she asked. Jason looked around, feeling like a fish out of water, and Amelia put her hand on his shoulder. “Tell me what’s up with you. Are you feeling ill?”. He took a deep breath and said:

“I...I killed a little girl.”

Amelia widened her eyes and, overwhelmed, slowly parted her hand from Jason. “I swear it was just an accident, I didn’t want to go to jail for this and... I...”.

“Go on.", said Amelia. She was afraid of what she was going to hear next, but Jason’s stuttering made room for her imagination, and that was even worse.

“I cut the corpse into pieces and hid them inside a puppet.”

*Maybe yes, it was better to make room for my imagination and not listen to those horrible words coming out of Jason’s mouth. He was really able to do such a thing?,* thought Amelia*.* He was never innocent, she knew that, but she never thought he would be able to kill someone.

One must keep calm in these situations. There was only one solution*...*

“Jason, you must confess."

The toymaker, who until that moment looked like a trapped mouse, took the hands off his temples and stared at Amelia. His look was surprised, like if he was suddenly stabbed im his back.

“Do you... do you really want me to confess the accident? You know very well how it will end up!”.

“You have to try, Jason. You can’t act like nothing happened. They will start to look for her and sooner or later they will find her!”.

“I can’t do it, Amelia!” the toymaker snarled.

“Fine, then I’ll do it for you!”.

Jason quieted immediately and looked at the girl with his eyes opened wide. “Have you got the nerve to do something like that to me?”.

“It’s for your own sake!" shouted Amelia.

He laughed hysterically. “Don’t make me laugh! You’ve always been stupid!” screamed the toymaker as he started to come closer to the girl. Amelia began slowly walking away backwards, “Don’t you know? I’ve always tried to make you a better person, but I now understood you aren’t worthy. I suggest you stop trying to provoke me with your bullshit, Amelia!"

“Do you think I’m not going to do it? Just watch me!”, she replied, before turning over to the exit. Unfortunately, Jason stopped her by grabbing her by the hair. The two started a fight and Amelia realized that if Jason had killed once, then he could do it again. She feared that she would be next. Indeed, she *would’ve* been next.

She should’ve acted differently and maybe pretended to support him, but like many other times she has made the wrong decision. Maybe Jason was right and she really was stupid, or maybe he had just made her feel inferior so many times that by then she started to believe him. Who knows?

To protect herself, Amelia managed to steal a screwdriver on the balcony. Unfortunately, she hadn’t the chance to use it yet. She couldn’t do anything against Jason’s body and when the latter slammed her on the wall, the impact was so violent that Amelia’s strength run out immediately. She fell on the floor and her head started to ache terribly... but Jason stopped. She looked up and saw the screwdriver stuck in the toymaker’s heart. He was standing still and looking, overwhelmed, at the object stuck, while the blood stain on his vest was getting bigger.

“You damn...bitch!” he shrieked. Jason grabbed the screwdriver and removed it from his chest, throwing it violently on the floor. “That wasn't very nice of you, Amelia!” he continued, before he came closer to her and kicked her face. The impact stunned her, but not enough to make her faint, and she stood reclined.

“I’m sorry it all ended like this, my dear Amelia.” then he chuckled, “No, just kidding. To be honest, I don’t care.” The girl’s sight was becoming blurry, but the object the toymaker was holding was easily identifiable to her: a hand saw.

She knew. Her time to die had come. Her eyes began shedding tears. Would she suffer a lot? How long it would take her to die? Would she die from the blood loss or from the aching pain?

Despite the terror she felt, Amelia still tried to run away but her body was too slow. She tripped and fell before Jason stepped on her shoulder and dislocated it.

The girl’s tired eyes stared at the toymaker, and she saw him caressing with his finger the iron teeth of the saw. She could swear he was enjoying the moment before the massacre started. To her surprise, Jason lowered the hand saw and sighed. “There are many things incomprehensible to humans. Some can be and other ones cannot. We believe we know every secret in the world we live in, but the truth is we don’t know shit."

“What... What are you saying?” Amelia asked, even if that action was really hard for her to understand.

Jason bothered and resigned shook his head, “You’re too naïve, you don’t understand” and slowly started to move back parting from her, “You don’t need a stupid wish upon a star to make your wish come true when it’s truly intense. We are the ones who make possible the impossible things”.

Maybe it was that bump that caused her to hallucinate, but after Jason speaking the wall behind him started to inflate. The wall crumbled and a blue door with a golden knob popped out.

“I don’t know why, but this doll became my heart” Jason had the music box opened in his hands and looked at it with a more confused expression, “The only place in which I can guard it is inside the music box, but this was meant to be a gift and I want to give it anyway to someone who will take your place. Someone smarter and who can stand up to me: a chosen one”.

“Nobody...” already tired Amelia whispered, “Nobody will want a monster like you!”.

Jason, who in the meantime opened the blue door, turned over the girl and smiled, “My name is Jason and it means “the one who heals”. Did you know? Of course not” his expression was arrogant, “Anyone will replace you, if they are not going to be able to understand my good intentions I will fix them up. After all, a broken toy can always be fixed up too”.

“What? You’re crazy! People aren’t like your stupid puppets” Amelia shouted, “Where will you go? You... you aren’t going to run away!”.

“I’m not running away, idiot, but don’t worry. I’ll be back”.

Amelia’s body trembled, staring at that fake smile, and she felt powerless when she saw him disappear behind the door.

The wood crumpled on itself, the chips turned into small pieces on the floor and the wall was intact again, like nothing had ever been there.

Amelia spent the rest of her life believing Jason would be back at any moment to hurt her, but the truth is Jason decided to spare her life.

She never even realized how lucky she was, because no one else after her would see his mercy...

Like those wax dolls, of every age, which always seemed to fill more and more of that terrible games room.

And those puppets, which were able to come to life, the only silent witnesses in the splendid yet horrible world of Jason the Toymaker.

## Jason The Toymaker by Kristantyl

I don’t have many memories left from my past. The faces of my real parents were like faded masks in my mind. I only had some remains of my childhood, faceless names and total darkness. At the age of nine, something happened to my family. The trauma was so deep that it made me forget most of my life. I only had the shred of a memory related to my best friend. He was the only one who was there for me my whole life. It was an image stuck in my mind along with the melody from a music box. Among the black holes of my amnesia, I caught a glimpse of his honey-colored eyes and his dark mahogany hair. I remembered his friendly smile… but nothing else. All the rest disappeared in the dark, so did he.

The memories went back to the orphanage where I was born. Some awesome parents, Maddalena and Steven, who adopted me and gave me a feeling which I had forgotten, the warm feeling of having a family. They raised me in their house until I turned fifteen. My amnesia led me to examinations and psychological check-ups, which year after year were slowly starting to fail. It looked like I wouldn’t ever get my memory back. This fact left me distraught. On one hand, I wanted to know what happened, but on the other… an odd feeling of anxiety suggested I shouldn't wish for it. Obviously, there were some unpleasant consequences to my trauma. It was some sort of paranoia, as if I was being persecuted by something. The specialists told my parents it must have been linked to a particular memory, which was continuously blocked from my mind. Neither the cause, nor what happened was exactly clear but despite my efforts, I couldn’t focus on it.

I felt like I was being observed, not by people, but by the stuffed toys in my room. It was stupid, I know. At the beginning, they were simply toys, but time and time again, their big round eyes seemed to stare at me. Since I was little, I thought the stuffed toys in my room were alive and sometimes I tried to prove it: I spied on my room from the hall with the door ajar, I then turn away and suddenly turn back and never took my eyes off them, not until I felt a burning sensation from not blinking my eyes.

Time after time, the stuffed toys were the ones staring at me. It almost looked like they wanted to test me, and I couldn’t bare it anymore. The thought stuck in my mind at times, it seemed to me that they moved their heads turning their little faces towards me. At other times, they made noises in my room. This couldn’t be true, obviously. Why did this thought persecute me? Why did I hate those stuffed toys? In spite of everything, why didn’t I get rid of them? I could have presented them to other children or thrown them in the rubbish. One day I tried, really, I did, but when I took one of them in my arms, a strong sense of anxiety and terror stopped me. I always ended up putting them back in their places, on the furniture, my bed, and the shelves. This caused me to have to take tranquillizers.

There was only one toy I took with me at night, despite my age, I couldn’t separate myself from him and felt a familiar affection from him that started long before my amnesia. I found him in my wardrobe at the orphanage and from there on out we became in separable. It was a sweet bunny with ears as long as him, on one side it was red, and the other side was a caramel color. He wore a black waistcoat, with two long sleeves that draped down to the point of his feet and dashed an elegant collar that dawned pointed tips at every edge of the fabric, a black button donned the center and wore a stylish frilly eyepatch over his little left beaded eye. It was funny, but he looked like the only stuffed toy that was harmless. Ever since I was little when I would slip under the sheets and fall asleep almost instantly among the creaking old walls, he's slept by my side just like that night.

I was standing still in the darkness, unable to move and couldn’t understand how I ended up there, surrounded only by the distilled silence. Something slimy grabbed my wrist and held me so tightly that instant pain shot right through me. A set of white nails slowly penetrated my flesh. I watch them cutting through my skin, making me bleed. I screamed and cried, but a laugh bellowed out, covering my desperate pleas. “She belongs to me,” a voice whispered to me. Within that dark abyss, two green sparkling eyes appeared before me, they were a few inches away from my face. “You are only a hindrance to me”. He laughed amused by my pain while he pierced the flesh under my nails with needles. He ruined my body with rusty tools...on the contrary; he said he was going to fix me all up.

I noticed an open door, the only thing I could distinguish from the darkness. My eyes blurred by the pain. I saw a glimpse of people standing still gazing down at me. The image of that door got closer, in order to show me their vacant expression, despite the grimaces plastered on their faces. I saw that they were not real people. They were dolls and, in some way, I felt a strong sense of nausea overcome me just by staring at them. There was something about them, that made my stomach, maybe it was their extraordinary and macabre resemblance to real people. “She belongs to me!”.

With that, I woke up, my eyes wide-open my heart beating so hard I could feel it pounding in my head. I stood up then sat back down when I couldn’t breathe. I rubbed my eyes and realized that I was sweating. The bunny fell, landing upside down. I leaned down for him and put him back on the bed. My breathing returned to normal, but the image of those needles, dirty with blood and those terrifying dolls remained embedded in my mind. I never had such a nightmare like that before. The feelings were so terribly real. I still felt those claws making a hole in my flesh, but I was relieved that I woke up. The door squeaked; it was my mother coming in the room. As soon as she saw my exhausted face, the smile on her face faded away. “Honey, are you okay?” “Yes, I only had a nightmare. Now everything is alright”. “Well ok, Daisy came to visit you, I told her to wait for you in the living room”.

With that, I got out from bed. I was dressed poorly, and I didn’t want my best friend to see me that way. While my mother closed the door, I ran over to my wardrobe and took out an ordinary dress. In the space of a few minutes, I came out of my room neat and ready. In my haste, I was out of breath. “Finally!” exclaimed Daisy smiling. I met Daisy at middle school and ever since then we were inseparable. She was a kind and generous person; she was always welcome in our family. My parents appreciated her good manners, but what I loved bout her especially was that; she never asked me anything about my past.

I was able to tell her about my amnesia in complete confidence. The day was nice and sunny, so we laid down in the garden, under an old tupelo tree. We talked while sheltering from the sun in the shade of the tree. I brought some colored pencils and blank sheets of paper and we both started drawing. Daisy felt tired immediately. She started picking daisies; put them in her blond braid while she gossiped about Luisa, a girl who lived for being the center of people’s attention. While my friend was talking, I listened to her and kept on drawing without taking my eyes off the sheet of paper. “Who’s that?” she asked me suddenly, noticing the drawing. It was as if I fell asleep in that exact moment, I battered my eyelids in front of the sheet of paper and felt rather confused about seeing a drawing repeated several times on the same character. “I don’t know”.

I did not have the slightest idea of who he was. The clearest drawing showed a man wearing a black jacket with an extravagant and voluminous fur on his shoulders. He had a beautiful, happy smile and two yellow eyes that was covered a bit by his fringe. He wore dark clothing and, in his hands, he was holding a little blue case resembling a music box. “Maybe I saw him in an illustration book”. “Oh ok, let’s have an ice cream,” said Daisy, changing the subject of our conversation, seemingly not very interested. "Ants are coming under my skirt!” On that same night, I had another nightmare, and this was worse than the previous one I had before. I dreamt about that dark figure again, who brutally tortured me and kept saying the same phrase over and over again: “She’s mine”. I woke up at 2 a.m. breathing rapidly; I curled up feeling the wall behind my back. I put my hands over my face and breathed in deeply. “It was a dream, just a dream,” I whispered.

Then I looked over at the bunny next to me, which was looking back at me with his black eye and with an irritated glance, I threw it on the floor. Since the moment, I started sleeping with that thing. My dreams had turned into meaningless nightmares! I turned around to rest my legs and, in that moment, I touched something with my foot. I elevated my gaze and noticed a doll sitting on my bed. At first, I was frozen in place, all I could do was stare at her; I didn’t understand how she had appeared there. My mind started thinking back to my parents, who had given her to me as a present. Perhaps, I didn’t have a real thing for dolls, and to tell the truth, her presence in my room bothered me. It was a peculiar doll made of wax with unusual characteristics. She had a headdress of flowers flowing through her hair and only few locks caressed her cheeks. She wore an embroidered white laced dress with a black ribbon tied to her waist. Her arms were unusually long; she had long tapering fingers that were not normal.

What caught most my attention was a rose in the center of her mouth as if it was supposed to silence her. I looked at her closer and scanned her under the moonlight. I touched her face and realized there was something wrong. I kneeled down and tried to get an even closer look at her, then I heard something. A sort of subdued sound… like a wheeze. It was coming from the doll. I began screaming and let her fall to the floor while standing up in horror, trembling violently, pushing myself to the wall, screaming for my parents. Suddenly everything turned surreal. The wall next to the door enlarged, like there was a bubble between the paint and the cement. Slowly some cracks appeared and increased in number. The paint fell in pieces, landing on the floor and revealing a blue door.

I hadn’t the slightest idea of what was happening. These things exist only in books, or in our imagination, but in my astonishment, I felt something was going to come out that door. From the door, I see the same black hands I had witnessed in my nightmares. “Aren’t you happy about Daisy coming to visit you?” said the monster, standing on the threshold of the door, “I didn’t like her either, you know? She screamed a lot”. Daisy? What had she had to do with it? I looked around confused, looking for the presence of my friend that obviously was not there anymore. My eyes landed on the doll. That blond hair and face made of wax looked strangely familiar. I held my breath, a nightmare; it must’ve been another nightmare. I rushed over to the doll and turned her face in my trembling hands. I put my ear over her chest and heard another sound along with that horrible wheeze, the pounding of a heart. “Daisy! Daisy!” I cried desperately. It had to be a nightmare. Something like this could not have been happening.

I realized my parents were next to my room according to the sounds I heard, they must have heard me screaming, but the monster blocked the entrance. He pulled the door shut, blocking it in its setting, deforming the wood. My parents started punching on the other side, and I didn’t know what to do. It did not look like a dream; it was perfectly clear; it was more real than those nightmares of darkness and torture. My heart was beating so fast that it started to hurt, I felt the sweat on my forehead and the doll trembling in my hands, which I couldn’t keep still.

The monster stood at the entrance, not moving from it. In the half-light, I could see his evil smirk, as if he was waiting for my reaction. I unbuttoned Daisy’s dress, who looked imprisoned under the tons of wax, and I started to dig, trying to set her free. I dug, and dug and dug, while her moans became more intense… until I felt something wet under my nails. I looked at my hands, covered with blood. Her skin must have been mixed with the wax, and the digging was not helping her at all. That thing that supposed to be Daisy was suffering, her wheezes were bloodcurdling, but her expression was still that of an impassive doll. I trembled with horror. I had to repress a retch, and suddenly I felt my arm being grabbed.

“My splendid Maggie, you’ve ruined your doll!” Exclaimed the monster his whitish eyes sparked with a pale green light. “You even threw Mr. Bunny on the floor, but I forgive you. You must return to the place where you belong: By my side!” “Who the hell are you?!” I shook like mad trying to set myself free, while my parents were trying to break down the door. The expression of that creature was filled with astonishment. “I am Jason the Toy Maker” he exclaimed, “Your faithful friend, the only one you could trust!” At hearing that name something moved in my memories, like an electric shock had run through my body. My father succeeded in breaking down the door and turned on the light. When I finally saw him, his face primed a bomb that exploded, setting my memories that were buried deep in the corners of my mind all those years free.

I remembered the day we met for the first time. The toys that seemed to bloom from his hands, I remembered his friendly smile… that gradually turned into a sharp and sadistic smirk. That day he showered me with his exasperation, he expected me to give him more attention because in his arrogance he believed he deserved everything from me. When he grew tired of me, he showed me what he really was. He revealed he eliminated all the people that surrounded me. He kidnapped my friends turning them into his ‘Toy Dolls’ and I was bluntly stupid to always admire them! Rushing home was useless, because the blue door reappeared at the center of the living room. He massacred my parents; he took his revenge by taking them away from me, and almost got me too. I managed to escape his clutches running as far from him as I could. No matter how far I ran the smell of blood and that of decomposed flesh still lingered in the air.

“It was you!” I was possessed by anger, and I started hitting him, “You killed them!" I kept hitting him, but Jason was smiling, as if it was tickling him. He didn’t have any remorse for ruining my life! He was a possessive beast who concealed himself from my childish eyes behind an angel’s face. He was able to give me everything and at the same time terminate everyone around me. He was fiendish! “Of course, it was me, my splendid creature! Mr. Bunny even showed it to you” he smiled with self-evident truth, “I made many toys for you, and I can’t wait to introduce you to Maranda, but you can call her Mandy if you like”. Suddenly something hit him in the head shattering it into pieces.

My father had a wooden club, he aimed a blow at the monster’s head, but it was the wood that broke. Jason’s smile turned into an infuriated scowl, and he increased his grip on my wrist. He turned around and when my father saw Jason’s face, he opened his eyes wide, and my mother covered her mouth to conceal her screams. My father didn’t waste time, trying again to set me free. The club broke in half with one blow to the toy maker’s face causing him to let me go. We ran out the room and quickly rushed to the entrance. My father opened the door, but instead of the garden path in front of us, there was Jason’s workshop. “Maggie, I give you one last chance” Jason said calmly, walking down the stairs, “After which I’ll dye the walls with the blood of all who surround you."

We run to the kitchen, hearing that monster’s laugh follow us and once we were in, we could still see through the windows, the toy maker’s little factory. Now I was desperately sure it wasn’t a nightmare. The terror overwhelmed me, and Daisy’s blood on my fingers was more real than anything else I have felt. I turned around, “Where’s dad?” My mother grabbed a knife and got closer to me holding me tightly in her arms. She called out to him with a trembling voice, “Steven!” and with a sigh of with relief we saw him coming into the kitchen, “Hurry up, before –”. My mother’s voice blocked. Just like me, she stared at dad’s pale face. He was walking slowly, with a fixed look at and his eyes wide-open. Suddenly he fell on the floor and behind him appeared Jason’s frozen smile. The toy maker looked at me with crazed eyes. “Dad’s battery decreased; it should be recharged!”

Jason revealed a giant mechanical key and drove it into my father’s back, already stained with blood; he turned it with force and twisted my father’s backbone. At the second turn, I shouted, covering my ears to block out the sound of the breaking bones, but I couldn’t take my eyes off my father’s body contorting itself like a snake. “Go away, be gone! Leave my child alone!” My mother held me tight to her chest and despite the terror and the tears, she shed; her face resembled one of those lionesses shielding her cub. “Silence, woman! It’s not you who I want to talk to!” growled the furious toy maker and in the end, he pointed his white claw at me, “Come with me, my sweet friend. We will have fun together; we will be back laughing like we did before.” “No, you’re just an insane psychopath! I don’t know what kind of monster you are; I really don’t have any idea how you could exist in this world, but one thing is for sure! You must disappear forever from my life!” At the sound of my refusal, Jason’s face clouded over, and his eyes sparkled with fury. He started to rave, to contort himself and jerk his head as if he went over the brink because of me.

“I don’t understand…” he growled quietly, “I don’t understand!” he screamed, grinding his teeth, his face became more terrifying, “I was the only one who stayed by your side when your parents preferred working rather than staying with you! I was a loyal friend, while the ones surrounding you only looked for you when they needed you! ” He came closer, “I gave you all my attention, gave you loads of toys and never made you lack for anything! I always aimed for your own good, and that’s why I destroyed everything hurting you!” His screams were so loud they resounded off the walls, while my body shook in horror at every sound. “I got rid of all the people that saddened you, because I wanted you to be happy and to be my side. I looked for you for so long. You even forgot me?! I was a true friend, but you turned your back on me!” Suddenly his furious face relaxed, but not his previous insane smile, “After doing everything for you, there isn’t another explanation, there is really something wrong with you.” He instilled it on me with an accusatory look, “You really were a very bad little girl, so I have to fix you up…” “W-what?” I trembled with my voice.

“You heard me well, you ungrateful little bitch! I will fix you up, so you’ll be good.” He sniggered, “You’ll become a very beautiful toy doll!” My mother, who was paralyzed by Jason’s tirade, suddenly awoke and pointed a knife at him, “If you even dare graze Maggie, I swear I will kill you!” Jason looked at my mother with a challenging gaze and slowly came closer. The knife was trembling in my mother’s hand while the toy maker gave an inexpressive guise. She couldn’t stand the tension. She pushed me behind her and hurled herself on him. My mother stabbed him in the heart and the monster opened his eyes wide, he made a contortion of pain, corrugating his dark eyebrows and my mother smiled triumphant. “Just kidding!”

In that, moment a smirk reappeared on Jason’s face. He opened his arms with nonchalance, without even taking out the knife from his chest. My mother was shocked and stood still for a few seconds, but she was possessed by exasperation and started stabbing him again several times, trying desperately to make him react somehow. The disgusting sound of the flesh pierced by the knife could be heard clearly, while the shirt was ripping but Jason kept his balance perfect. “That’s enough now” he commented bored and straight after he hit my mother in the face making her fall violently to the floor, “I’ll be in trouble if you scratched it.” I quickly went to my mother helping her to her knees; the side of her face was already swollen. My eyes leaped to the Toy Maker, I was waiting for his immediate revenge, but was petrified when I glimpsed what he was doing.

He unbuttoned his shirt and drove his nails into his chest, close to the injuries he received from the knife. He sank his claws into his flesh and slowly started pulling on the opposite side. The wound appeared as a little rip in the center, which enlarged as the flesh shredded like paper. A thick, black liquid dripped to the floor. It was not blood. Even if it was, it must have been something rotten. Something sparkled in his exposed rib cage. “Probably you forget how much I care for my splendid music box…but luckily, everything is alright.” He took his hands off his exposed chest and covered the hole with his shirt, hiding the music box that started to play from inside him. He then came closer, and I wanted to scream, to beg, but the horror I had witnessed left me completely paralyzed unable to do anything which left me squeezing up with my mother. It only took a yank from the toy maker to tear her out of my arms. He took her up without effort and pushed her into his chest to prevent her from wiggling out of him. He clenched his arm around her neck, while the other arm broke the hand that stabbed him.

“Now I’ll show you what happens to those that try to hinder me, mom”. He slowly bent her arm in the opposite direction. She cried from pain, trying to get herself free, but that monster was strong enough to bend her limb and make the bone come out. My mother sank her nails in his blackish flesh, which flaked apart producing a nauseating smell, but she could not set herself free since his grip was wrapped so tightly. “Alright, I’ll come with you!” I shouted with all the voice I had in my body. Jason raised his stare and gave me a serious look. My mother was becoming paler due to the pain and blood loss. She needed my help, but there was nothing I could do, but hand myself to the toy maker.

“You can take me with you, but leave my mother alone,” I said with my trembling voice, “After all we’re friends, right?” I tried to smile convincingly, despite the fact I was trembling from head to toe, and my eyes were filled with tears. Jason smirked he was downright satisfied and pleased with his victory. “Excellent choice, Maggie” At that moment, his arms took back their usual color. His lacerations cauterized in a few seconds, and he was back to his usual appearance. His face returned to its normal state… but I already knew what he concealed behind those amber-colored eyes.

It seems Jason accepted my surrender, but before leaving my mother, he took a little red mouse out of his pocket. It was unmistakably a toy, one of those with a winding key. He grabbed my mother by her jaw and pushed it into her mouth. “What’s wrong, mom? Did the mouse take your tongue?” he laughed amused, pushing her away from his body. I suddenly saw my mother’s eyes, they were wide and full of fright then there was a light followed by an explosion. She fell on her knees, her jaw, nose and eyes beat into a bloody pulp. She fell to the ground a stain of blood spilling from beneath her body. Blood and pieces of flesh landed on me, but I was paralyzed in front of my mother’s corpse, while Jason couldn't stop laughing. “W-Why did you do that?”. The toy maker’s overwhelming shadow covered me as he bent down to me, his face, spoiled by a rift in his flesh wrought by the club. “Because I’m not your friend anymore, you little shit. Now I’m your creator” he then grasped me by my arm and dragged me towards him.

“Now… Let me fix you up”.