Coraline Sequel - Horrors at Night

Dinner

Coraline sat with a fist on her cheek at the cold table. Wybie sat on the steel chair beside her, trying to get his fork to stand without him touching it.

Lunch was to be served, and Coraline was determined to confront her parents about the new family moving in. They were about to make a huge mistake!

Coraline's mother, her real mother, took a seat at the end of the table, holding a large plate of chicken and salad. Her real father sat at the other end, holding a sticky pasta with flecks of green in a big white bowl in his left hand, and a plate of something looking like pastry in the other. They sat, gave their thanks, and dug in. Coraline made sure not to even look at the pasta her father had made.

"Daddy," she started cautiously.

"You've made a recipe," she said with a greedy distaste.

"Yes, Coraline," her father sighed. He could get so annoyed about his daughter's complaints sometimes.

"I have. Now, as always, you can either eat it or starve. Stop arguing."

And with that, the discussion was over. It had been such a brief conversation that Coraline had already begun to worry about her talk concerning the new neighbours.

She looked into her fathers face; his red beard had begun to grow, just little prickles, though, rather like a thorn bush. His kind blue/green eyes looked at her disapprovingly.

She spied the black buttons sewn onto his cotton shirt.

"Daddy!' she leaped back in her chair in surprise. Wybie's fork clattered onto the floor.

"What, what's the matter?" her father asked, worry spreading across his aging face like a rumor.

"Y-your s-shirt," she stammered, leaning as far away from her father as possible.

Coraline's father looked down at his chest, tiny hairs peeking up at him. It was then he noticed the infinite problem.

"Oh. Coraline, please sit down. Please - I really can't deal with this at the moment. We have guests," he gestured toward Wybie, who stared at his dinner plate meekly.

"Please, you know I don't like them." Coraline stated, looking away from the buttons on her father's shirt. Images of the Other Mother's black eyes loomed up at her, threatening to sneak through the door once again, steal the key that was so successfully hidden at the bottom of the secret well, snatch Coraline during her sleep...

The tears welled up in her eyes unwillingly. Coraline's father sighed in annoyance and got up from his chair that squealed against the old wooden floor. Coraline sat down slowly as her father left the room, hands clammering against her sides.

"Coraline," her mother said flatly, waving her fork in the air.

"You need to get over this obsession you have. It's not healthy! My - and to think this all happened over the hour I went grocery shopping."

"You don't understand," Coraline mumbled, pushing her plate away from her.

"Because it's silly!"

"I'm finished."

And with that, Coraline strode off to her room, Wybie hurrying in her wake with a quick 'thanks' to Mrs Jones.

Coraline slammed the bedroom door behind her, muttering under her breath. She remembered the perfectly polished walls It had created in the Other house, how every toy she had ever loved came to life within a single blink of her eyes. She shuddered, trying to suppress the thought out of her mind, hiding it over a blanket of terror. Who knew what her Other room looked like now? Covered in cob webs and cracked with the permanent scratches from the Other Mother's long spidery nails, trying to escape her world and enter this one.