The street lamps shed light on the hospital windows. One window was part of a spacious birth room with children in beds and incubators. That September night, the biggest joy of the Krik family was born – a tiny Rick. He was born prematurely, so he needed to spend some time in the incubator. On the side of that life-giving box of the little baby, there were neatly in line put stuffed animals – a lion, zebra, an elephant, and a parrot–all bought by the parents as a birthday gift for their little-handed treasure.
Eight years passed in a blink of an eye, and little Rick hadn’t stopped playing and spending a lot of his happy-go-lucky time with his non-animate animals. He had been through a phase of a zookeeper, an exotic-animals farmer, a cowboy on the zebra, and a savannah explorer with his lion pet, so as through a phase of a fearless pirate with his loyal parrot on his shoulder. Currently, he was in a circus-performer role in his world-known circus “Little Lagoon,” and he was just about to do a breath-taking performance–a handstand on his little elephant Misha.
A call for lunch from his mom interrupted his playing, which gathered all his focus in a whirlpool of fun. Surely, the stuffed toys weren’t left alone this time, as any other time, for that matter. He took them with him and placed them onto special chairs next to him. On the table were potatoes with chicken, a favorite dish of his father, George the Lion, and himself. The whole family enjoyed the meal with big smiles on their faces.
Years passed, and problems naturally arose. Rick’s dad had found a mistress and held the relationship in secret. The secret didn’t last very long because the wife had smelled the mistress’ perfume and the fighting had started since then. The mother had been quarreling with the father for weeks, but he continued with his affair because he didn’t have any feelings for her anymore. One wintery night, the wife fell asleep waiting for him to return from her, and, having drunk an entire bottle of wine, she had forgotten to turn off the room heater.
Her vest was hanging from the chair and it was so close that it caught the flame. She slept soundly and burned in the flames. Rick was asleep, too, but the parrot fell on his face in the middle of the night, and he woke up; he smelled the smoke from the hallway and rushed outside in his jammies, bracing his stuffed friends all the time. The firefighters, who had been called by a neighbor, were comforting the boy after having told him that his mother had died in the fire. The father returned early in the morning, and a horrifying sight of the police cars and fire engines that were before the burned-down house befell him.
The very next day, his father forsook him and went to live with the mistress, while Rick was left to be a case for social workers who were in search of an appropriate foster family. That day hadn’t seen its end, but a family adopted Rick. It was a couple that couldn’t have had kids when they were young, and they were now in their later years; so if a person would observe them, they would say they were Rick’s grandparents, not parents. But, not considering their age, they treated the boy like he was their own child. The years passed by very quickly, and puberty came. Rick was neglecting his stuffed friends more often than usual because girls occupied his attention now.
One night, he asked his stepfather for some money so he could ask out the girl he really liked on a date at the fair. With a beating heart and a wide smile on his face, he ran out that night and headed toward a flower shop. The watch hands on his wristwatch were sliding incredibly fast, and he was now near the end of his adrenaline night, completely submerged in a love bubble. He kissed the soft cheek of his future girlfriend and casually strolled to his house.
He spent the evenings playing eight-ball and foosball with his friends, sometimes table tennis or darts; the fun was in various forms nonstop. After all those nights of laughs and hanging out, he would gladly lay his head on the pillow and fall asleep. He wouldn’t think about the exciting days full of action because he couldn’t wait for the sun to be born again the next day above the roof of his house.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
After a few weeks characterized by exciting and passionate dates in parks and cafés, the moment had come for him to invite her to sleep over at his place. They were both blushful and had their faces covered with a thin layer of embarrassment during that conversation, but the love craziness surely wasn’t lacking. The moon was glowing with a white, chubby shimmer that was shining from its round sphere, spilling the light onto the footsteps of his girl. She found herself in front of a set of wooden stairs of Rick's porch. She knocked at the door, at which sound Rick tumbled down the spiral stairs while shouting to his stepparents that he would answer the door.
That night he would remember as a passionate whirl that swallowed and left them both sweaty on the bedsheet. However, already early in the morning, one totally different sight forever would be engraved in Rick’s memory, not letting him be peaceful even during the most peaceful nights of his life. Namely, the moment he opened his eyes that morning and started to caress the hair of his girlfriend, he was terror-stricken by the touch of the congealed bedsheet at the spot where she had been lying. It was soaked in coagulated blood, and the girl’s body was lying lifelessly on the floor beside the bed. She was lying with bruised-looking skin color in a puddle of blood, and from the nose and mouth, the long-ago-congealed blood was seen.
The police did a minute investigation, yet they weren’t able to find the culprit, and the polygraph vouched for Rick that he was clean. After having carried the body from the room, and while Rick was in an incessant panic and disbelief due to the current bloody reality, when he returned to the room with a dreadful expression on his face 'cause of the unpleasant accident and the long inquiry, there was no end to his shock.
He fainted and slid against the door after having seen his favorite stuffed friends circled around the puddle of blood at the murder spot with an ominous grin on their faces that he had never seen before until that night.
The girl had numerous bruises all over her body, especially around her belly. The autopsy showed that all of her organs had burst from some unknown inner force. She had been dying a martyr’s slow death, feeling the whole time her organs fail one by one.
26th of August, the year of Rick’s birth
The father was looking at a sign of an antique shop that read "Blue Royal." Searching for some trinket that would kill his time, he set his eyes on a chest with black imprinted letters "Needs Care and Proper Attachment to Work Nice" that for some reason he seemed to like. The salesman discouraged him from buying it, but the man insisted on finding out what was inside. Inside were stuffed animals, orderly arranged in red velvet–a lion, zebra, an elephant, and a parrot, with a cute smile and soft fur. But looks can be deceiving.
Regardless of their cuteness and the good prospect of playing with them, those stuffed animals had been cursed by an evil spirit, Elvis, that had an affinity for a person who looked at him on the first day of that person’s life, that is after the birth of a child. At that moment, this spirit would link to his little master with an indestructible and invisible bond of its own universe, and he would be quite protective of that person. That was the reason why he had killed his master’s girlfriend; he had a sense of foreboding that she might separate him from Rick in the future.
"Hmmm," after having had a good look at the little stuffed friends and having gotten butterflies in his stomach that could hint at a happy future with them, he said, "Those will be an excellent occupation for my future boy... How much are they, sir?"
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