curiously_cora | Daddy's Little Girl

Leading Trisha to the empty flat, Coraline pushed opened the stiff door and held Trisha's hand. Coraline didn't want to go down into the dark but she knew that was where the other mother would have put him and she needed to talk to him. She knew her other mother would have given him something to keep because she knew how much Cora hated the dark.

"I don't want to go down there," Coraline told Trisha. She was scared but they had to be brave. They still had three more souls to find, three more objects were hidden in the house and they had to find them so they could escape. "I don't but sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do or are too scared to do. That's what being brave really means. Being scared and doing it anyway."

Coraline pulled on the trapdoor with all her might and slowly it came free and opened. The smell was worse than she remembered. It smelled of urine and stale wine and uncooked dough and death and decay. The smell alone made Coraline gag. And the darkness down there was overwhelming. Coraline pulled out the torch from her pocket and turned it on.

"I'll go first," Coraline said descending down the stairs slowly, turning the light around the room so she could try and find him in the darkness.

A voice groaned low in the dark. Eerie notes played from an out of tune piano as the voice stuttered along to the music.

"M-making up a song about Coraline. She's a peach, she's a doll, she's a pal of mine. She's as cute as the button in the eyes of everyone who ever laid their eyes on Coraline. When she comes around exploring mum and I will never make it boring, our eyes will be on Coraline."

Coraline turned the torch to the sound of the music and stared at the mishapen man before her.

"Hello Daddy," Coraline said simply at the gross figure before them. The dough like creature turned its head towards the sound and smiled at her. Even without his button eyes, the other father still terrified her.

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"I'm not scared of the dark," Trisha said and squeezed Coraline's hand. She wasn't, but looking down into that darkness and seeing Coraline's hesitation, she was afraid to know what was down there, to know what sort of monster lurked in a place where nothing and no one seemed friendly at all. "Besides," she said, "we have to." And that was true too.

She followed Coraline down the stairs, eyes straining to see something, anything in the light or beyond it.

When the creepy music started, worthy of the scariest haunted house she'd ever been inside, Trisha nearly shrieked, the sound bubbling up out of her throat to be caught and smothered behind her teeth. She grabbed for Coraline's arm and finding it started to calm down. Don't freak out. Don't you dare freak out she thought fiercely to herself to get a handle on things.

Finally seeing the thing that was or had been Coraline's other father, Trisha shuddered, but she didn't look away from it's doughy countenance. "What did she do to him?" she whispered.

Trisha might not have been scared of the dark but Coraline was. Even now back at hom- on the island she wished she had a nightlight and tried to keep a light going in her room for as long as possible. But just because she was scared didn't mean that she couldn't do this. She had to face him.

"Hello Coooraline," Her Other Father said in a long weirdly musical voice. He sounded like a broken record that was warped and playing in slow motion. He sounded hollow and broken and Coraline wanted to pity him and hug him but she was so scared.

"She punished him, didn't she daddy? For helping me or trying to," Coraline said keeping her eyes on him. She felt sorry for him but she knew what he was capable of. It was all she could do not to scream.

"C-can't fight her Coraline," He said smiling at her as a blob of dough like skin fell to the floor.

"I know you can't but please try for me," Coraline said looking around in the dark frantically as she tried to stay away from the blind man. "We need to find the soul and fast. He won't stay this way forever. She'll get him, she always does."

"But we can," she whispered so quietly that she didn't think either of them heard her. They hadn't turned at least, and Coraline was still talking to him.

When her friend turned, shifting her gaze around, Trisha nodded. For a second though, she couldn't take her eyes away from Coraline's diminished other father, watching in horror as his skin melted to the floor like cookie batter in the summer heat.

The sound of it made her break away from it. "How can we find it if we can't see?" she said, not even considering that Coraline might take the light away from the Other Father.

Coraline heard Trisha but part of her knew that even if they did fight the Other Mother that they might not win. They had no friends here, no one but themselves and it would be hard. They might not succeed. They might be trapped here for ever in the dark.

That thought made Coraline shiver.

Coraline turned the light looking around the room in the dark. As soon as the light moved from the Other Father, she heard his glooping shuffling in the dark. Turning the light back on him, she almost screamed when she realised he was closer to Trisha. And closer to her.

"Do you know where it is?" Coraline asked, watching as the man who had been her other father broke into a wide smile.

"Of course I do C-Coraline," The Other Father said, his hand trembling as he struggled to contain himself. Coraline knew he wouldn't last long. He wasn't like her father. Not her real one. Her real one was brave, a fighter like his daughter.

"Where is it?" Coraline asked, dreading the answer. She knew where the Other Mother would put it, she knew exactly where but she didn't want to touch him. Didn't want to go near him.

"Inside me," Her Other Father said proudly pushing his hand inside his chest and pulling out the marble that oozed with a goo that smelled foul.

Trisha caught a shriek behind her teeth as she saw The Other Father so much closer to her than he had been before the light had moved. She shivered and shrank back a step but forced herself not to take another.

"You do?" she said, watching in terrified fascination as the once-man moved and dribbled.

She looked on with horror as The Other Father pulled out the marble. Oh God, don't make me touch him. Don't make me. I don't want to she thought sending a plea up to absolutely no one.

"Gross," she squeaked and then remembered herself and addressed the Other Father. "Will you give it to us?" she asked.

"Of course Cora-ah-line's friend but only if you take it." The Other Father said, holding it out invitingly for Trisha to try and take.

Coraline reached into her pocket pulling out the seeing stone to check that it really was a soul. It lit up brightly in her gaze.

"It's real," Coraline said looking at Trisha. "Can't you just give it to us?"

The Other Father shook his head, holding his hand out for Trisha.

"My name is Patricia," said Trisha, somehow finding a little strength in that statement.

"It's real," she repeated, looked to Coraline, and then back to the Other Father. Hesitantly, she lifted her hand and reached out to take the marble from him, watching him carefully. Her hand shook.

Oh my God, don't do anything. Don't do anything gross.

Daddy's Little Girl

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