The curly white mohair that was sewn into his scalp glistened in the morning sun along with the crimson blood on his pale wooden frame. He walked the cobbled street wedged between a row of colorfully painted houses that loomed over him. The tiles on the roofs blushed with the orange sunlight, banishing the little wooden boy to the shadows. Eyes aglow with wonder, he looked up with awe at the blueness of the sky smeared with faint clouds. In that moment, his sensitivity for the world evaporated as his heart transmigrated to the heavens, finding his home in the azure that dyed his mind.

Gaining control over the wooden body was still a strange experience to Pinocchio. Descending from the stairs proved a lot more difficult than repeatedly swinging his hand back and forth into someone’s neck. With each stumble, tiny droplets of blood decorated the stairs with black stars until a constellation of death fell on the stone path. After a while he got used to it and ran so fast that his pearly hair swam in the air. He ran so fast and so far that he ended up in the heart of the town. There, he took in his first breath, encouraging the clockwork inside of him to vigorously move in order to take in more of the surroundings.

A flood of sensations enveloped him there, from the scent of fresh fruits and spices to the laughter of jovial folk that meandered through the square. The unfiltered euphoria of life enveloped him like warm water, embracing every corner of his being. He lifted his head up to gaze at the many faces, astounded by the abundance and concentration of life in the place. But after bumping into a man holding a crate of vibrant fruits, the first pair of eyes looked down at him. A palpable horror twisted his countenance as he let out a shriek that would permanently stain his ghost.

From a pleasant flow to a crashing wave, people scrambled and screamed as they all ran in different directions. The pandemonium of panic frightened the doll, whose cogs were too frozen to move him. He stood there and watched the mayhem unfold around him as he absorbed their hysteria, awakening a different mayhem within himself. In an instant, the harmonious music of life revealed its true colors under the light of death, ripping the doll’s heart from every possible direction. The excitation of the folk was but one droplet in the sea of Gepetto’s madness, which Pinocchio knew all too well, for his entire existence was molded in its terrible image. A dark sense of familiarity overcame him as he floated in the liminality of connection and severance.

Pinocchio began to move strangely once again, trying to control the sudden clashing of emotions. He tried to whisper, speak, shout, roar, anything. But nothing came out, only the haphazard ticking of his internal machinations gently echoed from his wooden mouth. The fury of his clockwork had no room for the ocean of rage surrounding him, dancing in tune with a song he knew all too well yet would pulverize him if he were to properly dance along. Only in rebellion could the doll prosper, and only in being deserted by life could the doll understand the wisdom of death. Its umbral wisdom blossomed in the flowers buried in the peoples’ garden of hearts, yet none dared to appreciate its beauty. So they ran, screamed, roared, cried and escaped the doll, who carried the sublimity of life and death in his turquoise heart.

Suddenly, a powerful force propelled him into the air, leaving him to helplessly flail his arms and legs around. A gruff voice pierced the roaring panic that they were drowned in, creating a vacuum where nightmares dwelt. The grinding of rusty cogs from within the automaton’s throat was heard right next to Pinocchio’s ear, creating a deep sense of fright in the doll. The hand wrapped around the doll’s head twisted to show the doll that he was not alone, but that he was lonelier than ever.

A part of the automaton’s face was an amalgam of molten metals while the other side still covered his face with a pristine porcelain mask. Mixed feelings of fear and intrigue melted into amazement and awe as he saw the head twitch with the popping of the automaton’s inner workings. Only one absurdly blue eye stared at the doll from the pearly mask, for there was nothing but an abyss nestled in the other, disturbing side of its face. In the lactescent blue of his eye, Pinocchio could only see the richness of the azure above imbued with a vastness not even the sky contained. If it did, the earth would shatter under the weight of such celestial verdancy.

“I’ve never seen you before,” he suddenly spoke with a distinct grating tone. “You poor, poor creature. You seem so new, yet you’re already sullied. What a pity… If only you weren't at the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe then you’d still be worthy enough to bask in life’s glory. I’ll tell you one thing, from one puppet to another: Broken dolls are treated without mercy.”

His tattered sleeve veiled a brass arm with a collection of studded cylinders and keyholes. A key winder emerged from his bifurcated fingertip, fitting perfectly in one of his arm’s many compartments. Pinocchio’s large turquoise eyes sparkled with fear as the automaton slowly turned the music box in his arm, glancing down at the doll to give him a haunting grin. Gentle melodies slowed down the cogs that rolled around from anxiety in Pinocchio’s body, going from a relentless whirl that rattled his whole wooden frame to movements so quiet that not even silence can hear them. The large cage that was on the guardsman’s back rattled as it hit the floor. The doll looked so beautifully made, with such love and detail, that the guardsman almost didn’t have the heart to recklessly toss him in there. Yet that’s exactly what he did, for his rusty heart was lacquered in life’s cruel wisdom.

This was the first time Pinocchio fell into darkness after awakening. This was also the first time that his mind was able to form dreams. His inner music box’s song of innocence screeched its melody in a mocking manner, dying the dreams in a foreign but primal dread. The cogs in his head repeated the shrieks of the folks and the unrepressed disgust directed towards him. A disgust the flesh couldn’t fully convey, yet its most raw essence still radiated to a degree that the wooden doll’s sensitive heart received in all its nauseating horror.

But amidst the dream-woven dismay, an ethereal figure stood out amongst the turbulent stream of people. A fairy with turquoise hair looked at the wooden boy with the turquoise eyes and smiled, like a mother smiling at the accomplishments of their son, knowing she has done a good job. It was like the sun came down from the heavens to give Pinocchio a kiss of reassurance, affirming his hope and annihilating all doubts. That saccharine feeling left him as quickly as it came and escaped him like the single tear that rolled down his smooth wooden face when he woke up. The weight of his heart fell on the cold floor after scraping across the doll’s face.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Silver moonlight peaked through the small bars from the wall and colored the damp prison with a pale hue. Pinocchio thought that the cell was another dream, but a strange voice quickly cut off that trail of thought. Another puppet, one with a large body and four arms sat at the other side of the humid cell and spoke as its strange head twitched with every word.

“That must’ve been quite an awful nightmare, huh? I’ve never heard a doll moan with such dread in their music box. You must have quite the heart; I can hear it so clearly. But be wary now: with a great heart comes great sorrow. That’s just the way of the world, my wooden friend.”

“Where am I?” were the first words to play from Pinocchio’s vocal box, which held the innocence of the music animating him.

“Ah, you poor thing. You’ve just been at the wrong place at the wrong time. It happens to the best of us.”

Pinocchio’s turquoise eyes glowed like stars as he studied the wicked form of the doll. Compared to the humans he saw wandering the square and the two corpses in the house, it was impossible for him to fathom how, or rather why, such a form should ever be conceived. Every segment of that doll’s body had an oddly pointy shape, adding to the impression that that design could only come from the darker dimensions of the mind. The two long, drooping antenna-like parts on the large doll bounced as it spoke. No life could be seen in its obsidian, abyssal eyes.

“Oh,” he suddenly and enthusiastically started, “let me introduce myself. I am Celso Nicchi, the wandering cricket. I travel the world to let my voice be heard by those who need it the most, but none of them want to hear it. Such a tragic conundrum… That, too, is just the way of the world I guess. People who need a conscience abandon it to protect themselves from themselves. You, wooden child, you don’t need to fear what’s inside of you, for it is brimming with light. But when the time comes that the darkness in hearts seeps into yours, you must listen to your conscience and let it guide you the right way. Come, I’ve had it trying to achieve that pipedream with this brute of a being I’m in. Let me do something that might actually bear fruit this time.”

The cricket fumbled around the wires and cogs in its shell of a puppet and crawled out of it, revealing to the wooden boy how similar the design of the doll was to the cricket’s. In a few hops, he landed inside of Pinnochio’s internal workings via his mouth.

“You’ll have to excuse me for that uncomfortable intrusion, but it was the only way. Let me help you grease these pristine wheels of yours.”

With a few twists and pulls, Pinocchio’s body jerked around until he finally got a hold of his senses again.

“Have no fear, I won’t touch your freedom in any way. I’ll be right here in your head to keep your heart aligned with the laws of light. You are the only doll I’ve come across that is perfect for this role; it’s like a dream come true! I can even tell you all about my stories of my time in distant lands!-”

The loud clashing of metal on metal ceased the crickets’ excitement. A piercing blue eye penetrated Pinocchio’s turquoise eyes, snuffing their lights out. His cracked lips creaked to form a chilling smile.

“It’s almost time for blood, Celso! Get your wooden ass up!” The guardsman barked as he shook the loose metal bars that grated on the sandy stone, creating an awful rattling noise. A moment of deafening silence emerged as the wooden boy and the guardsman both intently stared at the strange puppet Celso once inhabited that lay completely still. A shock stabbed Pinocchio’s senses as he saw the Celso’ll old doll move on its own this time, eyes aglow with a darkness as sickly warm as blood.

“I’m ready. And for the last time, my name isn’t Celso. It’s Martino.”

“Ah, perfect! Just the guy we needed.”

The doll was so tall when it stood up that it had to bend a bit in order to get out of the prison door. Before Martino exited the cell, he gave Pinocchio a quick glance with a pity in his eyes the wooden boy couldn’t fathom.

As he stepped out of the cell, Pinocchio noticed how there were a pair of glass-like wings on Martino’s back, iridescent under the candlelight in the hallway. The poor state of the clothes the large doll wore became clear under that same light, containing traces of an attire that at one point radiated with respect. Now the clothes were only tattered rags and their illustrious nature became only an echo of past fullness like an autumn leaf. An invisible history oozed out of Martino, a history so dense yet so distant that only the periphery of Pinocchio’s psyche could receive and grow intoxicated by.

A rusty hand grabbed the smooth surface of the wooden boys’ arm and tugged it, reeling him out of the cell. Celso’s wings sang like a fiery violin.

“No! A child shouldn’t see such vile things! Keep him here for his own good.”

The guardsman paused for a moment, realizing that the cricket finally gave up on saving that poor doll’s blackened soul. A cruel sense of amusement tickled his heart, urging him to burst out laughing. His ear grating cackle echoed through the dungeon, staining the silence with his ugly heart. To see such a hope-filled heart succumb to despair was just too much for the guardsman to digest. With a vile sneer, the rusty automaton’s eye landed on Celso’s new project.

“No, he’ll feel right at home. Isn’t that right, bloodstained boy?”

Pinocchio’s eyes darted to analyze every corner of his body to see that the blood was all gone. In spite of its physical absence, he still felt its warmth cling to him, as if Gepetto’s death throes immortalized itself within him like an undying fire. Icy thorns pierced his clockwork heart, cementing the fact that everything that transpired was real. One half of the guardsman’s mask fluttered like a flag in the hinges with excitement as he giddily guided them through the dimly lit halls.

“Your confusion is palpable, so let me explain.” The cricket chirped in a tone that abandoned the physical plain of existence, only to be heard by Pinocchio’s heartstrings.

“The reason why I’m able to communicate to you like this is also the reason why I can let that seemingly masterless marionette move around. I have a very powerful ghost that I can wield well to give life to inanimate objects. Those inanimate objects get attracted by other souls that swim in the ether and decide to possess the object I imbued with my ghost. That’s why that doll sometimes has a will of its own; the will of a man called Martino, if you can even call that a man. He’s quite different from me, so don’t base any of his actions on my character. You will see the kind of… vehicle he is.”