Bleeding stuffing

Daniel closes the bedroom door as softly as they can, they know its the night they need to run. The fighting, the comments, all of it has finally gotten too much. They need to leave, leave and try to find a way to live the life they need to live. With a silent, mournful, breath they stalk to the bed and reach underneath.

Clasping the handles of the large duffel bag, they sling the longer strap over their chest. They had everything packed, ready to bug out when it got too much and the guilt-ridden need to stay for their little sister was drowned out. As they step away, they step on a plush toy of a blue elephant, feeling its bulk push back against them.

The toy, something they had since they were a child, something that brought so much comfort in confusing times. It was something important to them but...it wasn't something they were going to take with them. They had to leave the past behind, with the rest of the action figures and trucks. The snapbacks and sports equipment, everything that once was so vital to their old life in this house. Yet this one toy, this one piece of their childhood, was the last good thing they still wanted to remain untouched. Picking up the plush, they give it one last hug before moving to the window and opening it out onto the roof.

Under the cover of the dark, they creep to the window of their little sister. They know her window is always unlocked because of a faulty system, making it easy to carefully push it open and carefully set down the toy elephant onto the sill. They know April will take care of SnuffnStuff, keeping the last good thing about their old self safe and whole. With one last look into the room at the sleeping girl, they blow a silent kiss before closing the window and disappears into the night.

Tonight, Daniel will be gone.

Tomorrow morning, Julie will look for a new job.

....

....

But tomorrow never came. In the time between the 'death' of Daniel and the 'birth' of Julie, the runaway disappears from the world in a flash of thorns and thread. They came too close to the abandoned over-grown shack on the side of the road. A place everyone avoided for one reason or another, an innate 'knowing' that the place was not to be trespassed. They got too close, now they are within the thread and needles, the fabrics of a mad dollmaker looking for a brand new toy.

Flesh stripped from bones, fabric tightly stitched in patches to the screaming mortal in their palm. More flesh removed, more replaced with cloth and plush, until even their bones were changed to give them a more plush flexibility. The Dollmaker has created their new toy, a new masterpiece to play with until the end of stars. A pretty little plush girl in a patchwork dress and yarn hair. Eyes removed and replaced with buttons, ignoring the bloody tears and pained whimpers of a dying thing that can't even die.

And in their place, stumbling by the abandoned shack, is a young Man with a dufflebag, traveling further into the city to find some new work to support himself. He is a strapping young man after all, he needs something to sustain him independently.

Perhaps a Bouncer.