***
Gaining sentience is like... daybreak.
You're in darkness so dark that you never realized you were there. And then, all of a sudden, a huge burst of light. With the light comes colors: gold, peach, pink, and violet, in pastels and neons. It's so bright it hurts, but your eyes are forced to stay open as breath ruptures your chest. Breathing is a choice now. It's optional, but goodness, does it feel good. You rise and fall like oceans overtaking a mountain, overlapping it and drowning you in the sensation of life.
I was able to calm myself long enough to observe my body. I had wavy copper-colored hair, part of it done up in a braided halo. It was the kind of hair I always wanted to have. My eyes are bigger than I remember, my eyelashes thicker. My hands are smaller, and my skin is paler, plastic and unblemished. Years of age and experience washed away in a single resurrection.
If I wasn't supposed to be here, why did it feel so right?
I get the sense to look around at more than myself. I'm in a box. Half is translucent, bendy plastic. The other half is cardboard, patterned with dozens of white and brown birch trees. I'm not alone in the box, either. I'm sitting in a blue canoe, textured with stars, or maybe snowflakes? It was likely the latter, since a snowman with an enormous grin shared the boat with me. He was a delightful-looking character, but he had what I wanted. Behind him was a wall of accessories perfectly sized for someone like me. A dish, a teacup, and a lantern, but I was more interested in the sword. My hands were both bound to the sides of the boat, and if I was ever going to get to know what happened to me, I'd have to break free. If the snowman was also alive, I might be able to catch his attention.
I started whistling, something I remembered doing a lot for some reason, but I couldn't place a time or reason. It was a low, haunting whistle, one that mimicked the sound of wind through a tall field of grasses. I dipped my voice up and down, trying to strike the right tune. A shrill squeal caused the snowman to twitch once... twice. His movements exploded and I could almost see the lights that opened his eyes and brought him into the world.
"Hello?" I called carefully once the snowman had settled into a steady rhythm of breathing. My voice was more even now, more confident and sweet.
"Hello?" He echoed back, still too startled to look anywhere else but up.
"Are you okay?"
"I... I think so."
"Well whenever you're ready, can you reach and grab that sword for me? It's behind you."
"The blue one?"
I looked around quickly for a sword of any other color, but found none. "Yes."
The snowman, having sticks for arms, was easily able to remove one and hold it in the other, giving him more length to reach and grab the sword off the wall.
"What do you need it for?" He asked, his face twisting with suspicion.
"To cut my bonds," I explained. "I'm not going to use it against you. You can trust me."
He eased his expression and gave me the sword. The tool was unfamiliar in my hands but it was easy enough to sever my hands from the plastic ties around the canoe. Another one around my waist and head and I was now standing, free but still trapped. I started grabbing all the accessories off the wall. I tossed a sleeveless cape around my shoulders and fit the dishware and a compass into a brown satchel. I carried that as well as the lantern, already glowing with an unusual yellow light. The lantern illuminated a corner of the box closest to the snowman, shining on a small lizard-like creature. A salamander, mostly blue with reddish shapes on its back. I didn't see how it would be useful, but it was a certainly cute. I snatched it up, lifeless as it was, and used the sword to cut a hole in the box's plastic the right size for me to escape.
"Wait! I want to come with you." The snowman yelled.
I glanced behind my shoulder to see him with arms extended like a child begging to be held.
"I don't know where I'm going."
"That's okay. It's better than staying in here."
I couldn't blame him for saying that. A box was no place for someone with a life to be. I went over and began sawing through the wires that held his body into the canoe.
"What's your name?" He said.
I inhaled, searching for some ever-fading scrap of the past I could still grab onto. The name "Anna" kept getting pushed into my head, but I ignored it. That wasn't me. "Helen." I replied. Yes, that was right.
"That's a nice name. I'm Olaf." The snowman stuck out the stick-arm I had released to shake my hand, but I didn't take it.
"Is it really?" I said, not meaning to discourage him against that name, but it felt too... regular. Like he had been told to say that, too.
"Well- I guess- maybe it isn't."
"That's okay, take your time." I had time to spare now, since plastic swords and laminated cardboard were not the best of friends.
"It's Wendell Eugene," He nodded, cementing this as the truth. It was another unusual name, but I liked this one better. It felt more real to life. "Gene for short."
"I'm... Helen Louise."
Our eyes met and we both smiled in a way that gave me deja vu. I looked away, now sheepish, and continued working at the wires.
"Why do you want to leave?"
"Why do you?" I repeated.
"Because... we have to be somewhere."
I stopped. "You feel it, too?"
Gene nodded. "Yeah, it's like there's this calling. Not a voice, exactly, but I think it's best that I... I feel like we need to find out why we're here."
"I'm glad we're on the same page," I giggled lightly. "Let's get out of here while we're alone."
I pulled my arms back and thrust the sword forward, harder than I had yet, and let out a murmur of a war cry. I jiggled my hands around the hilt- it was stuck in the box.
Gene hobbled forward (his legs were so short and round, that was the only way he could walk), and wrapped his arms around my legs to allow more gravity. I jiggled the sword again. "Maybe pull this time?" He suggested.
I stuck out my chin and tugged, hard. The sword ripped away and we both fell back, me crushing Gene.
I leapt up immediately, hands to my mouth. "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry!" When I saw how disoriented he was, and how empty the box felt now, I felt sick to the stomach I no longer had. "Where's the canoe?"
Gene pointed down his throat and said hoarsely, "I swallowed it."
"You swallowed it? How?"
"I got a big mouth!"
Okay, maybe he did, but not nearly as big as that boat was. The thing was nearly four times his own height, and now it had completely disappeared.
"I'll use the sword," I said, approaching him with the sharp end cautiously. "Stay steady and it won't hurt."
"Wait!" Gene cried. He flailed his arms out, and I was worried he was choking or having a panic attack. His snowy-white eyelids went further and further back, until all parts of his pupil were visible. With a sudden popping noise, the canoe came whooshing back out, a millimeter away from decking me right in the head.
"Woah! Are you okay?"
"Yeah... I think I must have burped. That was weird, wasn't it?"
"Weird is an understatement," I murmured. "Maybe you're supposed to do that. Can you try it again?"
Gene sighed and pushed himself up, going back over to the canoe. He inhaled sharply, and the canoe went back into his mouth like he had sucked too hard on a straw.
I clapped. This was a circus act if I had ever seen one. And that reminded me of something. "Try the sword."
Gene titled his head skeptically. "Sword-swallowing?"
"Yeah! It's plastic and so are you. It shouldn't hurt."
With a raised brow, he inhaled that, too. This was amazing! "Is there anything else you can do?"
Gene nodded, unsure. I started handing him things from my satchel. The dinner plate, the teacup, and the compass, but even those they were much smaller, none of them passed.
"Maybe you have a capacity of two?"
"No, that makes no sense. I think they have to be made of that blue ice plastic."
I looked around the box. Everything had already been packed away by me or Gene. The only thing left out was the little blue salamander toy that didn't seem to fit in anywhere. "This?" I cupped the little creature in my hands. He was certainly blue and shimmery like the other icy items.
"Is it alive?"
"I haven't seen it move yet. Maybe it's too small to be sentient."
Gene poked it, and sensing no life, shrugged and had me hand it off to him. He pursed his lips and I felt the pull of air. My eyes sparkled with energy. Those eyes didn't expect to see the salamander burst to life, scuttle from Gene's hands, and yelp with fear.
It hopped onto me, where it crawled like a thousand bugs up my arm and under my sleeve, until it popped out the collar of my neck, where it nestled lovingly against my neck and sought shelter under my curtain of auburn hair. Both Gene and I were frozen and terrified the entire time.
"Now, are you okay?" Gene asked.
"Apparently... it is alive. Like us." I stated, unable to move in fear that it would, too.
"Let me see him. I think I'm good with animals."
"He's scared of you, you tried to ingest him!" I raised an eyebrow. "Wait, how do you know it's a he?"
Gene pointed to some hot pink text that was printed onto the birch tree pattern. "The set includes" and then went off to list all the accessories we had already gathered, "along with Anna, Olaf, and Bruni."
"Bruni is a traditional Norwegian name for boys."
"How do you know that?"
"How did we think these were our names before we even read this?"
Gene had a point. "Anna" wanted to be my name, and I had to look like an Anna now, but deep down, Helen was mine. Maybe remembering that was a curse.
"You're right. We're getting distracted. We need to leave this box," I picked up the sword and got back to sawing a hole big enough for us to squeeze through. "I should have... kept working on this... while you were... practicing... with the... boat." I grunted.
"Careful, Bruni's coming down."
Now that the salamander was calm, he tread much lighter and no longer reminded me of a bunch of creepy bugs. Using my arm as a bridge, he crept right to the edge of the sword, unbothered by its sharpness or icicle texture. His big blue eyes stared back at me as if asking permission. Half charmed, half confused, I smiled and nodded.
Bruni gurgled happily and dashed down the rest of the sword, becoming a brilliant red color as he charged forward. He burst through the tiny slit I'd stabbed into the box, and it blazed into a hole that grew larger and larger. It smoldered with an unearthly heat, then died down and blackened when it was big enough for Gene and I to step out with ease.
"Okay," I gasped, following the snowman and salamander. "You can swallow enormous things made of ice, he can literally set himself on fire, what can I do? Do I not have magic?"
Gene shrugged. "Magic is a strong word for it."
I looked back at the box that had been our home for, at most, a half an hour that I remembered. It may not be cozy, or preferable, but it was certain. Safe. I knew that I was a doll now, not knowing was I was in the past frightened me. As much as I wanted to find out who I'd been and where I was set to go, was I ready for the journey ahead? Surely it wouldn't hurt to stall a little longer.
"What else are you supposed to call this?" I asked, reaching back in for the canoe. "Think you can hold onto this until we have a use for it?"
"Yeah, I'll try not to get too excited. I think excitement makes me burp."
I laughed. "Thank you, Gene."
At first, it was hard to tell where we were. For a while it was all stumbling around in the dark, ducking rectangles and hopping over rectangles. Even the neon glow of the lantern I strung around my belt wasn't enough to light up this new area.
I whistled in the same way I had to wake Gene, hoping that would drawn Bruni's attention. He was content in the darkness and stomped around the room like he'd been out adventuring before us. But he did turn back at my call, and noticed we lacked direction. The little guy puffed up his cheeks, pretending to be angry, and filled once again with fire. His tiny footprints made blisters of blackness on the floor, and that lent me my first clue. This was carpet. Warehouses didn't have carpet.
Gene saw this, too. "Hey, are we in a-"
"Bedroom," I whispered, my voice as hot and tense as the amphibian we followed. "Bed. Right there."
A human, giant to us at six times my own height, turned around in their sleep and groaned. Even if there was no threat other than a nightmare, I knew that a living doll would be more than that in the eyes of a human. I pulled on Gene's arm and began to run, scooping Bruni up at the last second and suffering a burn I knew would never make my fingers look right again.
A closet door was straight ahead. It was one of those sliding closets, with a hole in place of a knob. I saw my chance and threw Bruni over my shoulder. He disappeared behind the hole. Gene looked at me in bewilderment, his mouth open in a silent gasp.
"He'll be fine." I muttered, and immediately regretted it whenever I heard the human moan again. If they woke up, we'd be caught, and although I didn't know the consequence, I didn't want that to happen.
I heaved Gene upwards, too. He was much heavier due to the boat and sword he carried, but he too, went through the hole in the door with ease. Now the two of them were safe, but what about me? Surely there was no way to open the closet from the inside. I pressed myself flat against the door and held my breath.
It gave way behind me, and I tumbled in.
I stared up into the face of my rescuer. And they weren't Gene or Bruni.
To be continued,
Helen
