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<br/>​</div><br/>The doll hadn't originally been constructed with voice activation, but in his new and improved form his lips, mouth and tongue moved and he had a voice box capable of speech that he'd never used before. He was making sounds, following the way the man's mouth was moving until a sound came out.<br/><br/><b>"Mm...m.aaakksss."</b>he said.<br/><br/><i>One. Simple. Word.</i><br/><br/>It was obvious then that the doll remembered and recognized him too, and his answer would provide the young man with the evidence he needed to make the connection all by himself. His language and vocabulary were limited to the few words he heard when he was with the children, and it had been so long since he heard someone speaking to him that he'd nearly forgotten the words.<br/><br/>He just didn't have enough of them to answer the questions when Max asked him. The next thing he knew, the impatient visitor to the attic reached for him and grabbed his wrist, in an uncompromising, vice-like grip. The doll tried to jerk free, but Max yanked him forward out of his hiding spot near the wall so that he nearly stumbled and fell down. His legs were wobbly, since he never was  meant to be a walking doll either.<br/><br/>Most of the time he was sitting or he was propped up, and now with human flesh, bone and sinew, he had to figure out how to walk on his own, as well as talk among other things. It also seemed that time had not changed Max's rough approach, as the doll was turned this way and that as Max looked most incredulous at his metamorphosis from toy size to man size.<br/><br/>It was obvious as the doll felt the weight of judgmental human eyes upon his flesh that Max had recognized that the toy sized version was no more and that he had shifted to his current form.<br/><br/><b>"D-daa.llll."</b>he parroted Max's use of the word<i> doll.</i>Max's hand gripped his jaw, and his green, watchful eyes met Max's for the first time.<br/><br/>When he was a smaller version, his eyes always seemed to watch, and maybe that was what unsettled Max the most. Just a little too real for his taste.<br/><br/>The doll remembered a lot of things, happy memories mostly of Leo Paine when he was a little boy. He remembered the day he met Leo for the first time--the moment the boy pulled him out of the darkness within the gift box at his 5th birthday party, and how brightly the little boy's eyes were shining. Thing still felt the warmth of his arms as they clutched the beloved doll while reading a book to him in bed.<br/><br/>Both the doll and the family dog watched Leo turning the pages – and with every page turned, he looked down at his doll, so very lovingly. So many holiday celebrations, sleep overs with friends, and summer nights on the front porch. Leo was gentle, and the doll longed for his touch over and over again.<br/><br/>The memories he had of Leo were unforgettable.  But there were other memories he tried to forget, but couldn't. After Leo received a new teddy bear from his grandmother and began losing interest in him, the doll received a different sort of attention from another source, Leo's older brother, Max.<br/><br/>On the rug in his bedroom, the boy had constructed a rooftop made out of heavy wooden blocks for the doll, roughly bending his arms up and out of the construction, while tossing a ragged, rainbow colored bear covered in band-aids on top of the structure so that it would topple over onto the doll.<br/><br/>While Max wasn't nearly the conversationalist that his little brother had been,  it was obvious that the “hospital” where his loved creatures would get better, was now full of mass casualties.  The doll hoped Leo would see him on his brother's side of the room, and take him back to his bed but it never happened.<br/><br/>On his side of the boys' bedroom, Leo sat on the floor in front of his bed, pretending to feed and clothe the brown bear, holding it close to his heart the way he once did with him. Leo blissfully ignored what Max was doing to his once beloved toy, and didn't seem bothered by it in the least. Max would drop him constantly, perhaps in the hopes of shattering his porcelain face.<br/><br/>Perhaps he was cruel just because he was Leo's. His version of pretend games, were much more violent and mean than anything Leo doled out. When Max was angry, he would grab the doll by the feet and swing him around until he struck something, or he'd smack and punch his ball jointed belly whenever he became mad at Leo.<br/><br/>Marks were left behind after each encounter with Max, but none were as bad as the blue marker. Permanent and indelible, once the word<br/><i>M I N E </i>was inscribed on his hip in blue marker, there was no removing it. That night, Max took off his outfit, and took a bath with him. It might have even been fun, had the child not submerged him under the soapy water more than once. Max made the doll swim down between his legs towards the nakedness there. If he had lungs and breathed air like he did now, he probably would have perished. He wrote on him to make it clear he was a possession of Max's, and nothing more than that.<br/><br/>It was fortuitous that after playing with and torturing him for a year and half, Max soon lost interest in him, and the doll wound up being placed in a box destined for the attic during their mother's seasonal spring cleaning ritual.<br/><br/>And the attic had been the doll's quiet home ever since. At least, until now.