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<br/>​</div>The attic with its low beams was made all the smaller by the heaps of dusty "gems." Each item had been stored in battered boxes and garbage bags for later use or enjoyment. In truth, the attic had become a graveyard for the Paine family's treasures, a place for their throwaways to quietly die buried under layers of dust until their sentimental value had faded. Cardboard boxes full of old clothing, furniture and other old antiques remained out of sight, out of mind-- with little hope of ever being useful again.<br/><br/>Cobwebs hung from the rafters and billowed in the breeze that stirred the dust in the attic. Even the spiders that once occupied the webs had long since forsaken them, and they hung like great sheets of hair from an ancient hag. Their dirty white strands were tangled across the frosted panes of the attic windows, obscuring the small amount of sun light that struggled to shine through the glass. Leaning against the wall was an old painting, dusty and unloved. Its  gold framing was dirty, the kind of grime that must have taken years to form a thick layer.<br/><br/>If there was such a thing as an island of misfit toys, the attic was the last stop before the trash can. Very few of Leonardo Paine and his brother, Maximus' toys survived a trip to the attic, more likely than not the final destination was the local landfill. But there was one special, and once beloved toy that Leonardo didn't have the heart to toss in the trash, it once had a name but lost it once discarded in the attic. Abandoned and alone for so long, the doll that was the little boy's inseparable best friend and ally, as it lie still under a pile of folded table linens.<br/><br/>The doll remembered being loved, and the warmth of human skin pressed against him. And all the conversations Leonardo spoke in soft whispers when they were alone together. He also remembered being loved for a very long time before that, once by his father, and his father before that. Kept in the Paine family and passed down from generation to generation, no one knew exactly where the doll had originated from.<br/><br/>No one in the Paine family ever really asked but thought it had been brought over from a great-great-great grandmother from Europe. The doll was a male doll with a pretty porcelain face that was ball jointed, his limbs bendable and able to flex at the knees, hips, elbows and neck, had bright green eyes framed with dark lashes, and the hair on its head matched it. Protected by the layer of old linens, its clothing was old, and a bit moth eaten, reeking of dust and age.<br/><br/>Leonardo's brother, Maximus, thought the doll was creepy. It couldn't help staring at the children as they ran around the house, they were growing so quickly and it knew that soon Leonardo would no longer be interested in playing with him any longer. Maximus had a nickname for him, it was Creepy Thing. That name was shortened to Thing 1, which was also the name of a character on Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat. Not too much longer after that, the doll lost its place on Leonardo's bed.<br/><br/>Their Nana got him a new Teddy Bear for Christmas, and it became his new favorite. He gravitated between the shelf, the toy chest and Maximus' rough hands. Whenever the boy needed something to punch, or roll over with his toy car in the pretense of playing an imaginary game with him as a casualty needing first aid. His arms and legs took a beating. Maximus drew with a permanent marker under his clothes when they weren't so moth eaten.<br/><br/>It said, "MINE."<br/><br/>The doll didn't seem to mind. At least someone was paying attention to him.<br/><br/>Then suddenly no one was. The boys found new things to interest them, and he wasn't needed. One day when they were cleaning their room, he was put in a box and brought up to the attic. Upstairs, the doll waited and waited for someone to come take him back downstairs, he wanted to see the boys and hear their voices. But he heard nothing but silence, he saw the dim light of the sun through the attic windows fade and then it was night.<br/><br/>Forever.<br/><br/>_________________________________<br/><br/>It took a long time, years and years passed and eventually the doll lost track of the days and nights. He forgot how the children's voices sounded, what their faces looked like, and gave up entirely on the hope that someone would remember him and want to hold him again and love him. He went to sleep, causing a tear to  fall from his eye.<br/><br/>But it wasn't a tear. The roof had a leak. And the rain dripped down on him from the eaves. It felt cold.<br/><br/>Usually he could feel nothing, but the tap-tap-tap of the water was becoming annoying, and a frisson of energy caused his hand to jerk. He moved! He tried it again, and could see his finger twitch. He found himself really tired after that, so the doll closed his glassy emerald eyes. Hours went by as he slept. But something strange had happened while he was asleep.<br/><br/>The box with the linens he'd been lying in, exploded outward as the once sixteen inch doll transformed into that of a 6'1" male in the blink of an eye, unable to handle the extra weight.<br/><br/><span style="font-family:Emilys Candy"><span style="font-size: 22px"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#4da6ff">BLAM!</span></span></span><br/><br/>When his eyes opened, he gazed down at himself. He had landed hard on the floor, and didn't know why. His little shirt and pants were in tatters, not just because they were grimy and moth eaten. His body was a hundred times bigger than it once was. He was life sized, and not only that, his legs were moving. The naked doll, looking very much like a young adult male also had another appendage he didn't notice before that was between his legs.<br/><br/>He touched it, and it had a life of its own  as it rose to attention.<br/><br/>The loud bang of something falling in the attic had brought someone to come investigate its source, and the doll was frightened. It didn't know what it was doing with its arms and legs, they were gangly and uncoordinated as he tried to half crawl and half stagger away to hide behind the antique mirror and old armoire near the window. Something was definitely not right here. He rose, and fell down upon his knees, and there was a burning in his chest that caused his mouth to open and gasp...<br/><br/>In an effort to take a breath of air, the first one he'd taken in several hundred years.<br/><br/><a class="username" data-user-id="2503" data-username="@vices and virtues" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" href="https://blackdahliaroleplaying.com/members/2503/">@vices and virtues</a>