Title: Drabbles of “Elle”

Author: kannachan27

Fandom: Original

Character/Pairings: Elle, Twitch, others

Warnings: insanity, violence, slight gore, etc

Chapter 11:

Somebody had called him a doll, once. He could no longer remember the name, or the exact words, but he remembered some.

“…nothing more than a doll..”

The moment those words had been uttered, he could not tell what went through his mind.

Elle would say, “pain” or “hurt.”

Twitch would say, “Kill.”

Neither would be far from the truth.

Always small and thin with blond-blond hair and green-green eyes, two colors of green, not one, with enormous irises and small pupils and a skin color that almost seemed to change from tan to near-while as he grew older. He could remember nothing from before the time he was, perhaps, five or six. Nobody could ever tell him his true age, not knowing him from that time, nor caring, so he based everything on “before” and “after.”

Before his first memory, before he awoke to a voice demanding him to answer, ordering him to respond and telling him with utmost certainty, “You are Elle.”

After he had struggled to think, tried to remember. After he had hearrd somebody tell him the words, after somebody else had made his mouth move and he had heard his own voice come out saying, “Yes, Master. I am Elle.”

Before that, he had no memories. He could not move, think, blink, talk, eat, he could not do anything. Not without help.

The voice was there, leading him and telling him what to do, how to answer, everything.

“His” voice and Master’s voice, and sometimes the voice of the Mistress was allowed to enter the haze of his mind.

Hers was always the sweetest. He wished to hear it again, more often. But it always came on too rare occasions and never when he needed it most.

Master, too, spoke to him sparingly. His voice was low and smooth, sometimes it was angry, but it was always subdued in a way. As if he was holding it back.

Master gave him orders, told him that he was to take lessons at his Lady’s insistence. Master informed him that he had no time, no will, nothing that was required to teach and train Elle, and that Mistress was no longer allowed to be near him, save a few rare occasions.

Elle did not know why, but he was forbidden to ask and ordered to follow this man’s instructions. He was going to gain the most important, most powerful thing that was known to man or animal. More powerful than strength or raw power.

Knowledge. He was to be given knowledge of this world and the things in it.

His most active voice, he learned later, when he could understand the meaning of the words on his own with only minimal help, was the one he never saw and could not give a name. It was the one he heard near-constantly, the thing that whispered to him and told him the he was allowed to question things, that is, to search for the meaning behind the words. Everyone but him, though. The only one he was not allowed to question was this voice.

“Question the others’ actions, not mine. I am a part of you, the only part that you should follow, no matter what. “I protect you. Everyone else will hurt you, but if you follow me, I shall be the one to save you.”

That was what Elle was told when he began to doubt, to think over, to wonder about the instructions he was given by it. And when he did not listen to him, and did everything wrong, the voice was silent.

One day. Two days. Five days. A week.

“I’m sorry! I’ll listen! I promise! Come back, please! D-don’t leave me!”

Master was angry at him and Mistress was no longer allowed to see him on the one Wednesday they were allowed. A punishment, Master had said, for disobeying and for doing everything wrong.

“One day may be overlooked,” he’d said, and Elle had to ask what “overlooked” meant, “But seven days is not a time period possible to be ignored.”

Elle did not need to be told the meaning of the word, “ignored,” but Master granted him the knowledge anyway. Elle had known ever since “He” had stopped speaking to him that he was being ignored, shunned, and punished.

He had gained more words from the maid’s mouths when he asked why the youngest son was sent to live in an empty house, smaller than a dog’s, and nobody visited the boy anymore. Words like “cruel” and “beast-like,” and “pity.”

“His” voice answered him after two weeks of this punishment, only when he had been told that another mistake would cost him his education.

The first thing that Elle had noticed was that “His” voice was cold. Colder than Master’s and more angry, too. “He” spoke very little, but the words that were said made Elle cry. Out of fear, pain, sadness, or gratitude, he was not sure.

But, oh, how he had missed that voice.

Two days later and the shaking stopped. He was able to hold a brush and not paint large, ugly, black marks onto the paper, table, skin and cloth and anywhere else it would reach because his hand was trembling and shaking so terribly that nothing anyone could do was enough to make it stop.

A day after the shaking stopped, he was able to remember the layout of the grounds, without the direction of a mostly-silent voice. Finally, he managed to make it to his lessons on time.

Elle cried out in the night, when “He” was the most open, when “Je” did not hold back. “He” made Elle cry, made him dig his nails into his arms, his face, clawing at his body, trying to make the itching, crawling, squirming feeling leave.

Elle begged, muffled his voice in the pillow he slept on, gnawing on his pale lips. He begged for a cure, for the squirming sensation to go away, for “Him” to forgive him, pity him, talk to him. To teach him once more.

The next day, he was told, the voice cold and hard, there was a task.

Somebody had called him a doll, he remembers.

A doll. A plaything, something that is useless unless being controlled by somebody else. Nothing more than a pretty face, nothing special about him. He was the doll named, “Ellie” because his looks were closer to that of a young girl than a boy, and “maybe he was a puppet, too?”

He didn’t know what had happened. But he opened his eyes and all he saw was red. All he could feel was the ground underneath his feet and the hair blowing into his eyes, and he thinks he could see some red in it, as well. He looks around and sees bodies, bodies, bodies. Nothing but bodies everywhere, with red red liquid everywhere, on him too, and he could even taste it.

“Congratulations,” the voice says, and it’s happy and pleased and all the things that Elle can’t describe. “You’ve passed your first test.”

And it laughs.

-End 11-