Her lips trembled and her eyes burned as she tried to keep her tears at bay. Covering her mouth with one hand and tugging on the now disemboweled body of her beloved friend with the other. The deafening sound of chains being dragged through the corridor followed by the rapid footsteps of a man that would soon end her miserable life. The thought of him tearing her limb from limb petrified her, she wanted to run but found herself unable to move.

Her heart sank at the sight of the abhorrent hunched man, the corner of his lips jumped upward at the sight of her, “I found you,” he sauntered into the room filled with hooks, his smile becoming disfigured, his arms elongated almost in contact with the floor, his size increasing enormously, and his stomach appeared undernourished. He paused in front of her motionless friend, listening to her uncontrolled breathing, “There is nothing to fear,” he spoke in a discomforting, gravelly monotone voice. His, slender, skeletal fingers gripped the little girls’ entire face, elevating her off the ground. Through   the little opening in between the fingers she looked at his empty eye sockets, the abomination wasn’t facing   her, he was facing her deceased comrade. He sighed,” Claire, if you were allowed a second opportunity, what would you alter?” he asked, glaring at her, his shark like teeth grinding cantankerously. She heard something rolling in his left eye socket, the blue hue made her anxious, there was only one object, that she has seen, that had a blue hue, The Devils Eye. 

Claire noticed the blue eye, the eye that got them into the appalling, culminating adventure that welcomed lunacy and bereavement upon them. Her pupils dilated, she inaudibly cried,   palms trembling, face reddening, jaw felling uncomfortable, her hands tightening right below his hand.

With her voice shaking she threatened,” I would gouge your eye out, thmash it, and hook your empty eye thocket and watch you get thawed   in half to prevent any of thith from happening.” “So, you want my eye?” He corners of his lips became wider, his scrawny fingers tightened around the eye gradually pulling it out, he didn’t express any emotion it was just his usual Cheshire smile, snapping the optic nerve and presenting her the eye   now on his blood-stained palm. “Ask and you shall receive,” he said stepping on the corpse and hooking Claire’s shoulder, her scream made his   smile unsettling wider, she held onto the hook to ease the excruciating pain while the Toymaker played with the eye. Her breathing became heavy, groaning, quivering, unable to move, the Toymaker pushed her closer to a machine he called the shredder,” I think I answered an enquiry that has troubled me for the past century, do you want to know the question?” he inquired, her eyebrows were pulled down together, eyelids raised in a stare,” The question was, are humans better at creation or obliteration?” his smile melted into a frown, he moved closer to her, inches away from her face,” obliteration, your species can’t obtain harmony, there will constantly be an oppressor who’ll declare more of everything.” He furiously answered   pushing Claire further into the hook causing her to scream again,” Your species will never obtain peace! I’ve seen you go to battle for miniscule problems like slavery, only for it to reappear in prison, it’s absurd,” he finished sounding perplexed with how   humanity could be the dominant species.

“Claire, do you know what this eye is?” he asked, turning on the shredder, and lifting the deceased body onto his shoulder.

“It’th the devilth eye,” she hissed as he ambled past her and towards the saw, she swung her feet to veer towards the whirling blades.

“The Eye of Truth,” he corrected her, tossing the cadaver into the rotating blades. She cursed, swinging violently, he turned off the shredder and continued, ignoring her, “This blue eye sees all things conjoined. The   past, the future, the present.” He pierced the area where the optic nerve   was, and the eye opened from the back revealing a drill, as big as the iris, inside, “Everything flows and all is connected.” He forced opened Claire’s   right eye, “This eye has not merely perceived reality. “He faced the drill towards her eye, “It is touching the truth,” she struggled to get away, but it was too late, the eye drilled into her emerald eye, rapidly entering her socket, her body became tense, squirming around, using her right hand to try and take out the eye only cutting her fingers. her ear-piercing cries pleased the blind Toymaker, the eye finally snapped shut and discharged a white liquid presumed to   be Claire’s old eye.

“What do you desire the most?” he asked

“I want to go home, I want to go back to my birthday, where my friendth were alive, tho full of joy, without having to worry about the perilth of the world...” she cried, bloody tears running down her right cheek, the Toymaker stopped her, he heard exactly what he wanted to hear. He sliced the hook not bothering to save Claire from the 9-foot fall. Falling on her knees, she glared at the disfigured demon who started to melt,   like an ice cube, from toe to head, skin to bone. He lit a cigarette as the petit girl limbed towards him, “Till next time Iliaki,” he bid farewell, his cigarette fell as his face melted.

Unaccompanied, anxious, incensed, the hooks reflecting the moons light as they rattled, her turquoise dress tattered, she thought back at the time when her friends were still alive, a time where she was still deaf, where she was still innocent, blissful, peaceful. Dissipated, everyone she knew and loved were either left for dead, or sacrificed themselves. Lifeless, she toddled towards the lever beside the shredder, gripping it tightly,   with her only functioning arm, and pulled downward with all her might.

The lever shattered like glass, the ground quaked and creaked, the stone floor cracked and shattered into a wooden floor. The walls and roof exploded, debris frozen in mid-air. She   limped, as fast as she could, towards the door, her hair flowing around as if she was underwater, the door slammed shut and morphed into her bedroom door, violet with tulips painted on the door. Bemused at everything that was happening in front of her, the hooks transformed into the hanging paper stars that she drew with her friends. the debris moved from left to right, until she was back in her room, and her curly auburn hair back to normal. 

She looked out the window, the birds chirping as they flew by, but she couldn’t hear it, everything was silent, she was deaf, her broken bones and wounds healed. A hand rested on her shoulder, she looked at the hand, the index finger painted green, she turned   and was filled with contentment.

The corner of her lips jumped upward at the sight of him, and her eyes sparkled in the light. She could not believe it... she was back home.