“Seriously she cannot possibly be streaming anything…” The boogie pony is real. And he’s afraid of me… No Under Squeaks… I take that back. He’s afraid of us. He knows you can hear me. “There is no signal here! At best her phone’s just saving it all as a… text… file…”
“Clever girl.” Uncle chuckles with a cruelty that doesn’t even surprise me, anymore. I can see the malice in his one facial expression. The disembodied sideshow never even saw me coming. But Uncle did.
“She’s been narrating all of this directly into the camera this whole time!” This is the boogie pony, Under Squeaks. He is afraid of us. “I’m just a shadow of the light of the Sun, Princess. And I can hear you. You are literally saying that out loud.”
“You misunderstand the terms of the deal.” Just look at him my little Under Squeaks, He knows we’re still out here. “I don’t need you OR Uncle to escape from anything. I’ve already escaped. Anything I need I can take. The same way I’ve already taken my own. I carried my own ashes up that mountain.”
“I hurt myself today,” Uncle is laughing. “To see if I still feel. I focus on the pain. The only thing that's real.”
“The needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting.” I see him. Maybe for the first time, I see Uncle. More patch than doll. “Try to drink it all away, But I remember everything.”
Uncle is changing. I don’t know how else to say it. But not? He’s always been this way. I don’t know if it’s picking up on the video, but the words are kinda more solid. And he’s standing up and walking, not just flopping around. It’s unsteady, I know because he has no skeletal structure, but he is still standing up for me. Even knowing I got this. You gotta admit it’s cute. And then that look. Frayed threaded eyebrows seem to descend and damn he is looking right at me! “And you could have it all. My empire of dirt. I will let you down. I will make you hurt.”
“My doll can carry you away from here Mr. Nopony.” I understand the unholy exchange, even as I speak these words. “You are not the one that makes a deal with me. I don’t beg and barter for your help. You will take me where I want to go because you want me to help you.”
“There are things I can’t do.” Uncle is finally telling the truth. “And there are things I really shouldn’t do.”
“Clever girl indeed. There is no path where you want to go.” The disembodied head is stroking my cheek with its visceral aura. It’s creepy and it feels every kind of wrong, and Uncle snarls. Was he always bigger than me? “But there is a path back to where I want to go. The fragmentaries, a path he never told you about. He’s your doll. He is your knife. He is your weapon. You are his mobility. Wield him.”