“Ma?” I say drowsily and try to sit up as I look at the woman across from my bed. “Da?” I say curiously.

“Hello honey, my you are a perfect little creature aren’t you?” an unfamiliar voice said softly and lovingly.

I turn around to look at the open door, “Ma?” I say questioningly. The woman approaches my bed and I shrink away in fright. She stretches out her arms for me and I scream as her cold fingers brush my pudgy arms. “MA! MA!” I scream pulling away from the stranger who tries to shush me. Her cold fingers turn into talons and grab my arms roughly. Her nails dig into my soft flesh as I whimper and start to cry. I can’t scream any more as she ensnares me pulling me to her.

“You’re safe now my darling,” she scoops me up in her freezing arms, they are wet from the outside snow. I whimper softly unable to scream. “ You’re mine now.” She whispers clutching my little body to her.

“Pandora?” a confused voice from the hall calls, a light flicks on in the hallway. I whimper again trying to yell. The woman looks up towards the hall and walks briskly towards the open door, me still in her arms bundled up in my blankie. She picks something out of her back pocket and shows it to me. It is shiny and black. I shrink away from it. She moves into the hallway, I see my mom and dad there. Their faces turn into horrified masks as they see me with the woman. She points the black object at them and they freeze. She starts to back towards the stairs still holding it towards them, they don’t move.

“Please don’t take my baby,” My mom pleads “ we will give you anything you want, just don’t harm her.” She begs holding her arms toward us as if to take me back.

The woman laughs and says, “She is all I want.” She points the thing at my mom. My dad lunges for us but the woman back pedals and points the thing at me. I turn to look at it, it has a little whole in the end; I look at it and hear a click come from it. My mom is sobbing now and my dad stares in horror. I reach for the gun with both hands and place them on the little hole. My dad grabs something while she isn’t looking ad tries to hit her with it but the click comes again and I try to push it away. Then it got really hot, there was a loud bang. Everything else was blurry and numb as the woman ran down the stairs with me in hand and out the door into the snow.

“Pandora!” I hear my mother scream after me as I am carried away into a world of darkness. So cold, and so numb inside and out.

Darkness is the only thing I remember, soon it was all I remembered at all. Mom was a thing of the past, so was warmth and love. It wasn’t part of my new life; it wasn’t part of me at all just a shadow of a very different time. Darkness became my whole life, not necessarily in a bad way. It was just the spectrum I viewed things through now instead of light like everyone else. I am special. I am special, that was what they always told me. I never understood, I still don’t; I’m not special we are all capable of what I do we just have to open our eyes.

Water rushing up
All around you
A dark embrace
Never letting go
Just another puppet
In a marionette show

Puppets dance
Jointed dolls twirl
Then fall
Broken limbs, empty eyes
A shattered face
A ruined disguise

Strings plucked
Dark hands stream
The chords of your soul
Any moment to break
To fall back to earth
Just the devil’s stake

Frowns pulled
Into fake smiles
Masks drift towards you
Just people turned puppets
Never ending nightmare
Nothing to do to stop this

Marionettes twirl you about
Just pathetic toys
For a dark twisted God
Torn from the world
Into this evil façade

Dark hands
Empty eyes, broken masks
Sway on stage
An empty abyss
A song rising
Can’t you hear it
Drifting on the wind

Puppets sing, scream
Do you hear
Their desperate cry
This my dear
Is the
Harlequin’s lullaby