Dinner Is Served

Kynga tried to open her eyes but failed. She felt empty. Starving. Master hadn’t fed them in so long. Perhaps, tonight…

Kynga pulled one of her arms up with a loud screech of the joints. Her tattered white fingers reluctantly found closed eyes on her face. They struggled to pull the eyelids apart. Kynga let out an exhausted moan as she felt her broken nails get inside the eye socket – and forced her left eye open.

The House was dark, even more dead than Kynga. She looked around. There should be two of them. Shouldn’t it?

“Qendra?” Kynga whispered. She couldn’t think straight without food. She couldn’t remember what her sister looked like.

There was no reply.

“K… Clem?”

The third one, wasn’t he? Kynga recalled his white painted face and a bloody swollen nose. Yes, that was Clem, always sneaking around in a box with his music.

Silence.

Kynga couldn’t have imagined Qendra and Clem, could she? There was no imagination left in her. Had she had any, she wouldn’t be starving.

“Food… Find food…” She had to check the dining room. Guests always arrived there.

Kynga tried to stand up, but couldn’t feel her legs.

“Silly...”

Kynga fell forward, groping under her seat, searching.

“There…”

She grasped her shoe and pulled it from under the seat. The leg, in full, was still in it. It grazed against something else with a sharp CLINK. Her other leg, from the knee down, rolled out as well.

“Hate… falling… apart…” Kynga could barely hear herself – if only she had even the tiniest bit of imagination to help her!

Painfully slow, Kynga attached her beautiful limbs to her body. They were white once, glossy once, but now… She was all cracked and dirty, not a nice sight at all. She lost a few fingers in the process and had to pocket them into her skirt. There was no way she would be able to fix herself in such an unimaginative state. At least, her skirt and blouse still looked pleasant, even though camellias embroidered on the rim had faded.

Kynga managed to pull herself up. She heard commotion outside the House. It was coming from the Big Chamber.

Kynga shrieked like an old door and wobbled towards the window.

“Master! It’s past dinner time! Please!”

Her voice was so faint, it wouldn’t reach the Big Chamber.

“LET ME GO, YOU, FREAK!” A future guest shouted outside.

Kynga stumbled on something on the floor. She peered at a dislocated white arm, just like her own, still hanging in a puff sleeve of a blouse. Confused, Kynga raised one arm forward, than the other, to make sure hers were still intact.

“Qendra?” Kynga asked.

The House shook, Kynga lost balance and fell over the limp body of her sister, never reaching the window. She hit the floor. With a CLACK her head broke apart and rolled into the farther corner of the bedroom, blond curls all over her face.

“Let… me… g–”

“DIE!”

Abrupt silence.

Kynga’s bedside lamp turned on. The dinner bell rang. The House awoke.

Kynga opened her right eye.

“Hello?..” A guest called from deeper inside the House in his small childish voice.

Kynga felt a shiver run down her spine. Imagination. Just a pinch of it – but almost palpable already.

“How mighty unfortunate to lose your head just as dinner is served!” Kynga complained loudly.

“Is anyone there?..”

“I’ll be right with you, darling!”

Kynga had her body crawl towards her. Without a head on its shoulders, it moved like a mindless clockwork toy. By the time the body reached the head, her skirt was ruined, and her lovely blouse was ripped to pieces.

“Oh, I simply can’t meet our new guest looking like a drudge!”

Kynga grabbed her head and placed it on her neck. As she let go, it careened to the side and almost fell off again. Something must’ve broken inside when she fell.

Kynga was too hungry to fix it properly now. The guest’s arrival only teased her insides. She took a few steps into the room, and ran head-first into the wall. On the hit, something CLICK’ed in the neck. She felt the head sit lower than she would like it.

“Wh-what was that?” The guest yelped from the dining room.

“Don’t you mind that, darling! Wait for me!”

Kynga tried to turn her head slowly. It was stuck and didn’t tilt. She had to turn her whole torso to look to the side.

“Just a little nuisance!” Kynga said and smiled. She touched the wall to steady herself and felt a faint wave of imagination. Just a glimpse of a cow on butterfly wings. For one as weakened as she was, it felt like a feast.

Kynga hurried to her sister.

“Qendra? Qendra! Dinner is served, don’t you feel? Wake up, my dearest!”

Qendra, spread on the floor chest down eyes up, looked like a lifeless puppet. There wasn’t enough imagination for her yet.

“You are all but making me go and have fun by myself!” Kynga wailed.

Qendra stared back at her emptily.

“I’m scared…” She heard the guest cry.

Kynga sighed and pulled the nice blouse off Qendra’s body. She changed into it, discarding her own rags, and rushed outside.

“Coming!” She sang in a high-pitched trill. She scratched nails on the wall as she was passing, accompanied by colourful illusions of purple pigs dancing next to her. More of delightful imagination!

The House was breathing stronger. Kynga could tell from the warm flickering of lights, paintings on the walls following her with their gazes, and delicious smell of freshly brewed tea that was coming from the empty kitchen.

“I am so sorry to have kept you waiting!” Kynga said warmly as the doors to the dining room swung open for her.

What a beauty was awaiting inside! The guest shrieked and hid his angel-like baby face in his hands. He OUCH’ed – one of his wrists seemed to hurt.

Kynga funnelled in imagination from the dining room, catching a glimpse of a giggling round-faced girl kissing the teen version of the guest in an empty corridor behind her. She chuckled at the fantasy.

“Don’t be afraid, little one!” She said as she approached the guest slowly.

“Wh-ho are you? Who am I?..”

They never remembered.

“Ah, my darling, don’t you worry your pretty little head over it! Make yourself comfortable, your tea will be served any minute now!”

The guest was sitting, animated horror frozen on his pale face.

“What’s the matter, my dearest?” Kynga asked.

“Y-you are…”

“Ah, yes, how rude of me! Let me introduce myself – my name is Kynga, I am Master’s first doll!” She said proudly. “And you are, little one?”

“Master?..” The guest asked, confused.

“Oh, you have met him, my darling! He is the kind man who has greeted you outside, in the Big Chamber, and welcomed you into our House!”

The guest crouched on the chair, caressing his hand. Even without a touch Kynga knew he was in shock and couldn’t remember details of his arrival.

“You poor thing!”

Kynga put a hand on the guest’s shoulder and squeezed it. He cried out in pain. Kynga closed her eyes in delight.

He was soft to touch, imagination crunchy on his skin. Kynga scratched some under her nails, released the boy and smeared it on her neck and face. The touch created a myriad of interchanging fantasies, infusing Kynga with power. The young ones were always a delight, living and breathing imaginations! Kynga silently thanked Master for preparing guests to this delicious age for dinner. They would be way too stiff and pragmatic were they to continue being adults.

The guest scurried off to the doors, away from Kynga. But the House was alive now. With a BANG, the doors slammed closed, and the windows locked themselves shut.

The dinner bell rang its sweet melody again. The boy shrieked and hid under the table.

“It’s just your tea, silly!” Kynga chuckled. She turned her whole torso to the wall and opened the dumbwaiter. Inside, a tray with a steaming teapot and two cups was waiting for them.

“I want out!” The guest cried from under the dining table.

Kynga carefully lifted the tray and put it on the table. She poured sizzling tea into both cups. The dumbwaiter door closed by itself behind her back.

“Young man, where are your manners? It would be most rude of you to leave now when I have just poured us tea!”

Kynga leaned under the table. The guest’s imagination formed black nightmarish images of flesh-eating flowers, much like camellias on her dress. Kynga smiled, touched by the comparison.

The black image twirled and turned into two dark figures, one in a top hat, another – in a long coat, chatting over a cup of tea.

“I– I’m not afraid of you?”

“You shouldn’t be, little one, after all – you are my guest!”

Kynga walked slowly along the table. CLIP-CLOP, her heels sang. The guest was crawling farther away until he reached the end of the table. There was nowhere else to run.

Imaginary figures, always in the corner of Kynga’s eye now, rose and started a fight, going at each other like two frenzied dogs. Their heads transformed into muzzles. The taller hound in a hat bit into the neck of the other, ink-black blood spilling all over the image. The guest looked at them with disgust. Could he see his imagination? How odd!

“Come, now,” Kynga asked softly, “join me, let us sip some tea and talk! I’ll hold your hand and–”

“No!”

The boy dashed from under the table to the doors. He pulled out a key from his pocket. Most curious! Where would he have got it from? Guests were never able to use imaginary items – only masters of the House had this power.

The boy’s tiny fingers were trembling. He couldn’t even get the key into the keyhole. Kynga bathed in his sweet terror.

“No! NO! I won’t be eaten!”

The guest darted to the side, past Kynga, to the dumbwaiter. Kynga continued following him at a leisurely pace, smiling. He wouldn’t have energy to move for much longer.

The boy grabbed his cup. KSSHHRK – he shattered it, arming his good hand with a broken piece.

Kynga cocked her head, intrigued. What a resourceful guest! An image of a stout shadowy figure in a coat walked past them and slammed the door closed, never meeting the other once-hound silhouette from the previous fantasy.

“You… you are a doll! You’ll o-obey me!”

“Hmmm, now, would I?” Kynga asked in a sweet screeching voice. She let one of her eyeballs fall out of its socket – guests simply loved it!

The boy shrieked. Blood started dripping from his fist holding the improvised weapon. Kynga didn’t care for blood. She sucked in a fantasy the guest created – of huge masculine arms grabbing her by the throat and stabbing her with needles through her face.

Kynga closed the distance, eye dangling on its spiral. She couldn’t hold herself back. She’d been starving for so long…

“Just let me… caress you…”

The guest couldn’t protect himself from Kynga. DRIP, DRIP… The bloodstain on the carpet was only growing bigger.

Kynga reached out and stroke the boy’s cheek. She drank the endless scene of the two shadowy figures fighting, rolling on the floor of the Big Chamber, the one at the top overpowering the one at the bottom.

Tears ran down the guest’s face as he watched the same scene as Kynga.

“Do not wish things happened differently, little one,” Kynga whispered in his ear. “Do understand, we must eat. Master would never let us crumble to pieces!”

The food could no longer speak. He mumbled something, swallowing tears. Kynga stepped into the puddle of blood, staining her lovely pink shoes. She’d have to clean them after the meal.

“My dearest, drop that sharp thing, or you will expire too early!”

Kynga playfully flicked his nose and grabbed the guest, channelling his imagination into herself, the House, Qendra, Clem… The boy was a heavy weight in Kynga’s imagination-powered grasp. He was almost all emptied.

When the House trembled. Kynga gasped as she saw past nightmarish fantasies – into memories.

Two men entered the Big Chamber, talking casually. Master, a tall handsome man with a top hat on his slick blond hair, offered a cup of tea to the guest – a slightly shorter burly man in a long coat. The newcomer refused. Master patted him on the back, like one would a friend, sneakily pulling a syringe with the special elixir behind his back. Kynga saw its reflection in the mirror on the Big Chamber’s wall – as did the guest.

The guest toppled the table over into Master. The top hat flew off his head and landed by the mirror. The House shook. The fight started.

They were rolling on the floor, like two frenzied hounds, the syringe with silvery substance flashing menacingly in dull lighting of the Big Chamber. Master was a strong tall man, but he wasn’t able to puncture the guest’s skin, not while the muscular guest was pushing Master’s wrist back with both hands. CRACK – the wrist broke.

Master cried out in pain and dropped the syringe. The guest scrambled for it–

Master jumped and stomped down on the guest with both feet. The sound of fractured bones overwhelmed Kynga. The guest’s eyes rolled back. He was dying. His arm fell on the carpet with a dull THUD. But the empty syringe remained stuck from Master’s ankle.

“No… No! Master?” Kynga shrieked, peering at the guest’s childlike face.

He was as white as Kynga now, numb, staring helplessly at her. There were no more tears left in his body. But in his eyes, Kynga saw recognition.

She had almost drained Master of imagination.

“No, not Master, I won’t!”

It was too late.

The House shook, and a shiver went down Kynga’s spine. She tried to let go of Master’s limp body, but it was as if her stiff fingers were glued to him. Memories – of Master sewing Kynga’s first dress, braiding her hair, making her a sister – flooded Kynga’s mind, drowning her, until they felt like her own.

Kynga fell on the floor of the dining room. Master’s tiny lifeless body was spread on the floor next to her.

The House shook the last time.

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP… Kynga stirred on the floor, suddenly aware of her skin being fragile. She coughed, the annoying thumping in her chest making her nauseous, until she started suffocating, no air left in her.

Kynga took her first breath.

She sat up, slowly, looking around as if she’d never seen the dining room before. Was everything more vivid around, or was it just… imagination?

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, her body kept mumbling, powered by a steady flow of imagination.

“Would you stop already?” Kynga asked, annoyed. She flinched at the sound of her own voice resonating from the walls of the House.

Kynga placed a palm on her chest where humans had their hearts. Her hands were still white and glossy, her torso – of the same soft stuffed fabric as before. But could it be–

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…

Kynga suddenly felt hot, as if a fire was burning inside her chest – when she realised she forgot to breathe. Focused on exhaling and inhaling, she stood up, shook the dust of her dress and cleared her throat. Her chest no longer burnt. The House sang with her.

“Qendra? Clem!” Kynga called, loud enough to fill the Big Chamber. “I am afraid Master is no longer with us. I must then take the role of the Mistress of the House upon myself!”