A Horrific Fantasy

Chapter 47

Funny thing, once Alastor figured out how that glass eye and those mirrors worked, he became obsessed. First he looked at everyone he knew, his father, his neighbors, and classmates. That's all he did for the next two years. After that he started watching other people. Everyone who lived in town and attended the school, and he found a lot of their lives to be quite entertaining. Particularly that of Gina and her family. Which is why when poor Molly was lured over, he tried to warn her but one look at his face sent her screaming before he could even get a word out. That's when he started covering his face but it was already too late, Molly refused to trust him after Levana manipulated her.

It became a pattern. Watch people, learn what made them tick, all the while creating a new toy or device in order to provide an outlet for him. Then write down reminders about his old life with each passing year in order to keep himself from forgetting who he really was. That's how it was and nothing changed, until seven years after he had been trapped when he looked through a locker mirror and witnessed a new girl at school getting bullied by a mean girl and her gang after stealing her private journal and reading it.

"Give it back Helsa! That's private!" The girl said desperately reaching for the journal.

Alastor thought she was pretty but not at all that different from most girls her age. Though what peeked his interest was the way her peers treated her.

"Charlie you are such a loser!" Helsa said waving the book around. "I mean look at this guys! She actually thinks she's a real princess!"

"It's just something I wrote in my private time! What do you care?"

"Aww is the pretty princess going to cry? Maybe that will make your knight in shinning armor come faster. Although careful he doesn't see your face, he might just change his mind about rescuing you!"

Charlie had written and drawn up a fairy tale style story of her situation in order to cope with things. In the story she was a peasant girl who had lost her parents to the black plague and was then adopted by the king of the land who wanted a playmate for his young daughter, making her a princess. But this kingdom was at war with an evil sorceress and while he was gone, fighting in battle she stayed behind to protect the castle and the much younger princess, until her handsome knight would come and rescue them all.

A bit too sugary-sweet for Alastor's taste but he admired her creativity and he admired that she wasn't ashamed about taking a moment or two to immerse herself in fantasy and try to make her own. Though unfortunately, much like himself, she was surrounded by philistines who didn't recognize her gift. He wanted to keep watching this girl and learn more about her. He watched her as often as he could but always dismissed doing so whenever she slept, bathed, or changed her clothes. He was already creepy enough.

But watching her helped him feel less depressed and lonely. He loved seeing her smile and laugh whenever she read a story book or rehearsed a line from a popular play. He found it irresistibly adorable when she would let her guard down and spend time with her foster family, especially with Octavia. And it started to make his heart hurt like hell whenever he'd see her come running home into her bedroom, clutching her beloved toys Razzle and Dazzle, crying about getting bullied at school or about losing her mother and father. How well he could relate to her in moments like that. In fact he could relate to her in a lot of things and with each month, his fondness for her grew.

Then one evening after a year had passed, when he was watching her, and she was home alone because Stolas had taken Octavia to visit her mother, she started to wind up the music box her late mother had given her and she started to sing along with the tune and slowly dance in her room, letting her imagination take over.

"There's such a sad love,
Deep in your eyes a kind of pale jewel.
Open and closed,
Within your eyes.
I'll place the sky,
Within your eyes.