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Lies Of P Pinocchio - Blog Posts
Fisrt painting using photoshop 2024, after years of using photoshop 2012 xb
A crunch beneath his boot stopped Pinocchio in his tracks, his curious gaze dropping down to see a small bloodied music box, a note or two of its chime playing as it was disturbed. The lid lay open, a mirror inside reflecting the edges of the clouds above, tinted in a multitude of dusky oranges and yellows during the last remains of daylight.
To the right stood a shelf full of similar music boxes lined together under a sign detailing how many tickets each would cost to own. Some were decorated with images of happy clowns, their strange colored hair and exaggerated faces a symbol of the eccentric entertainment the park offered. Others bore images of dogs and cats, graceful ballerinas and daring gymnasts.
This was just one of many collections of prizes he’d come across since entering the park. The further he’d explored, the more the upset from his previous battle with the Stalkers distanced from him.
He bent at the knees and grabbed the box he’d stepped on, slow to notice its frail condition, so willed an uncommon gentleness to his legion arm when a piece broke off and returned to the ground. The lid fell shut with a snap as the puppet held it up close to inspect, a pleased lift in his spirit when it revealed to sport a cat design. What a shame for the tabby’s face to be hidden by splatters of red though..
To rectify that disheartening find, he tugged the edge of his sleeve over the pad of his palm and gingerly wiped away what he could, none will notice the additional stain among copious amounts of blood covering his clothes anyhow, fresh and wet in a manner he attempted to believe didn’t bother him.
Dwelling on discomfort he’d prefer to rid himself of wouldn’t do, if for nothing else than a refusal to let it steal a second of passing leisure he seldom earned.
He worked his brain to remember how to make the song play. Lady Antonia once played a music box in her study for him, promising to locate sheet music she’d stashed away in a drawer somewhere to later teach him the piano rendition. He weaved through the memory until the part came where she’d turned a tiny crank in a circle, then shifted the trinket to repeat the motion himself.
His hand stilled at the empty hole where the crank should be, and his eyes flicked back to his feet, scanning for the missing piece in pebbles of gravel stone. Regrettably, it had either traveled too far or kept a strong wish to remain hidden. Pinocchio’s shoulders slumped just a bit.
Another, more intact box on the shelf could be chosen, but some part of him was reluctant to abandon the one he held. It was damaged, yes, and the white paint still clung to a faint shade of red, but it was resilient too. The puppet admired the devices eagerness to play when his shoe had stressed it, determined to incite joy despite the misfortune faced, and the striped cat on the lid didn’t seem affected by what it had been through either, pawing gleefully at a purple ball of yarn.
He did spare a thought that the sense he was meant to meet this specific one tread on irrationality, only a fleeting acknowledgement however, not enough to prevent him swiping a crank from one of the shelved trinkets and slotting it into the vacant space.
It clicked in perfectly, as if it were the original. He gave it a few delicate turns, his eyes sliding closed to listen while the song played out in full. There was no familiarity in what he heard, but the jolly tune claimed a spot for itself among the songs he’d come to enjoy the most. He turned it again to listen once more, then another when the notes tapered to an end.
The sky above grew darker as the warmth of sunset began to weaken, taking on a somber blue hue. Strings of lights on the distant Ferris wheel flickered with an effort to illuminate the oncoming nightfall, yet pitifully failed as a result of the destruction done to them, fading to a dull glow that did little to accomplish their purpose or going out completely and blending in with the rest of the dying day.
Pinocchio fantasized about what the park might’ve been like before the puppets tore the city to ruin, he’d only come to life after their attack was well into effect. But even with the carnage that marred the area it was clear it had once been beautiful, a place where one could be carefree and adventurous, take in the extravagant sights and try their hand at playing games for the chance of a memento to take home. Inwardly, he hoped when his task was completed and each attraction repaired he could visit again, to see for himself if the beauty his imagination conjured possessed any accuracy. 🎭🦋
// If you're interested in the song I had in mind, there's a video on YouTube by mrspuick titled: Porcelain Roses on a Music Box-plays "Everything is beautiful"
“Pinocchio, you are human..aren’t you?” Your whisper stirred the smog that crept through the air around you. Wide eyed, you observed him like a cornered lamb, curling a nervous hand into the fabric at your chest.
The question came as no surprise, if anything he’d anticipated it much sooner, which made it all the more disappointing for him to be so unprepared. His body flinched at its arrival as if it had raised to strike him.
Oh how he wished, for every breath he’s never taken, that he could tell you yes. And though it were in his best interest to deceive, Pinocchio refused to be named a liar. So he braced himself for the disgust that was sure to follow after he uttered the shamefaced reply, “No, but I look quite like one don’t I?”
The reveal shot down your spine, a quiet fear spreading through the branches of nerves.
He received not a huff of anger, nor a gasp of fright. Absent was that disgust he’d played over in his mind. He thought the silence to be worse somehow.
The puppet’s eyes narrowed, following your foot as it tucked behind the other. “Are you going to run now that you know I am not the same as you?” He didn’t sound hurt, accusatory seemed a better fit to place next to the sharpness of his stare. After the time spent in one another’s company, the only company that had entertained the word ‘safe’ thus far, perhaps he’d expected better.
Your muscles went rigid just as you’d shifted most of your weight onto that step, undecided if you were going to confirm his suspicion. The man wasn’t human, not like you in the slightest beneath the mask of human skin, he was the same as those who’d tried to sink their teeth into your bones as soon as they were offered.
If he wanted that too, however, he’d had ample opportunity to bare his jaws, and he hadn’t. Instead he’d protected you from his own kind, slaughtered them with a cold fury when they’d marked you as their next victim.
He’d saved your life many a time and never once turned around to undo it. Disgraceful, it would be, to write off the kindness he’s shown to you simply because a part of him strayed from your initial perception.
Your hand dropped from the front of your shirt to ease at your side, unsightly dents left behind where your fingertips had dug in. A tightness in your throat resisted swallowing the panic from the revelation about his being, but you let it pinch on the way down.
Then you saw it. The fragility behind that guarded stare of his, fixed on yours while he waited patiently for you to make up your mind, there was something human about it, even now that you knew otherwise.
It’s possible you were only seeing what you wanted to, but it’s difficult to argue with your eyes, unequivocally convinced it was there. Something as susceptible to hurt and wanting of connection as a real person would be. He wasn’t just different from you, he was different from the rest of these mindless puppets as well. A creature all his own.
That provided a semblance of comfort.
Though, one detail still bothered you enough. Apart from the prosthetic arm, his appearance was so convincingly opposite to the painted metal forms of his sibling creations and for that, it was true you hadn’t asked if he were a puppet, lacking the hunch to summon the need. But he never told you either. How naive to consider it would slip his mind.
Your step returned to line up with the other then, firm in place and standing you tall. “I’m not going to run,” Your voice held steadier than you’d imagined it able, far from the shaken whisper of before.
The tension in Pinocchio’s face fell away, his lips parting slight and that razors edge to his stare softening as you proved him so gladly wrong.
“I’m not going to run,” You repeated, before he had the chance to ask of your certainty. “But no more secrets. We have to trust each other, that means no keeping things from me anymore, alright?”
He regarded you for a moment at that, silent, as he usually was. But his eyes were loud and they didn’t shy from showing it, transparent in the relief that soothed inside his chest. You were going to stay. You’d learned what he was, what he was capable of, that he’d withheld it from you, and you’d chosen to stay.
Pinocchio nodded once, stepping closer with deliberate caution, in case your fear still kept a hand on your shoulder, until he came to stand before you. “No more secrets.” The puppet agreed. 🎭🦋
May my blighted soul be enough to end evil's reign, and may those shaped by the purity it desires be spared. 🦋
It had to be done. The masked man was given enough warning that he wouldn’t be permitted to harm Geppetto, sadly, warnings are not always considered.
The blood felt wrong on Pinocchio’s hands, viscous and warm before it began to cool in September’s night air. Made all the more unpleasant by the unease sinking into the pit of his gut like a jagged stone the longer he looked at it.
It’d never occurred to him that he might be required to end the life of a human in his quest to save the city of Krat, but it seems some have gone as mad as the barbarous puppets they so fiercely abhorred. No different in the ways they preyed upon innocents, therefore no different in the way they must be dealt with. However…
Killing humans, that is what the frenzied ones do. He isn’t like them, is he? Surely not, his actions were based in reason and he’d taken the steps to ensure they were a last resort, but his appearance after winning that fight diluted the sweetness of justice, smearing a film of acrid uncertainty to coat his tongue.
Bespattered with an iron scented crimson…Pinocchio appeared disconcertingly similar to those monsters responsible for the matching color on every brick and stone that was set in Krat, much of which he’d gotten an eyeful on the way to his fathers rescue.
Geppetto’s pride and gratitude as he stepped from his hiding place in the carriage made a grand try to relieve him of a smidgen of wrongness, as did the elder inventor’s certainty that should he have spared the man’s life there was little likelihood of the favor being returned to either of them. It was imperative he be subdued, and if Pinocchio had stopped after beating him within an inch, the brutality of the man’s death wouldn’t have been any less when left to be finished off by something else.
Pinocchio had granted the masked maniac the only mercy he’d allowed.
The puppet wanted to take the reassurance to heart, he really did, but the blood has since dried to a tight, itchy crust, different from the lasting slick of machine oil that typically covered him after he’s felled one of his own kind. And there was an unrest amongst the thoughts that brought to him, no longer calm and indifferent like they were after defeating the others.
He knew he didn’t like the blood on his skin, but lacked the comprehension to decipher whether that was limited to the physical aspect, and he’d yet to gain the emotional depth vital in telling if he felt strongly enough to consider it an active dislike. What a struggle to be so new to one’s emotions, so inexperienced in the ways of being, at least partially, a living thing.
Pinocchio lead his father back to hotel Krat with an ultimate understanding that disquiet wouldn’t stay a stranger.
Try as he did to pin the events of tonight as a necessary evil, throughout the return his mind forbade any stillness around the discomforting sensation on his hands, and most importantly, what it represented of him. 🎭🦋
// I have never enjoyed an exploration of any character’s psyche more than this one’s.
“Come back, have you? I was wondering where you’d ran off to.” 🎭🐈
The sound of muffled sobbing drew me to a bright, rainy windowpane, where a weeping woman hid herself behind a curtain. On broken breath she begged me to retrieve her baby for her, her cries growing in their violence while she told of the night her family had cruelly taken her daughter away. I nodded to her shadowed form and agreed to the task, hoping to spare her some of those bitter tears.
I set out to search near city hall as she instructed, the gears in my core quickened their turns at the puppets I found stalking the courtyard. Following an odd sense of urgency I dispatched them within a minutes time, the thought that I’d arrived too late to save her child from the gruesome ends the other humans had met loomed at the forefront of my mind.
Then, a flash of lightning exposed a fallen stroller close to a garden bush, and a small humanoid shape caught my eye amongst the wreckage. As I neared, there was something that could only be described as ‘fear’ in me, it gave a tremble to my fingers and I lost the grip around the sword I held, digging my fingernails into my empty palm without it there to stop me until a clearer picture came into view. My eyes narrowed at the discovery that was more welcome, but less expected.
No blood, no ivory bones stripped of their flesh. Tipped over onto the cold ground and halfway pulled from wet, lacy blankets…lay a plastic doll. The rain dripped into its painted blue eyes that reminded me briefly of my own, spilling down its expressionless face when another drop fell and caused an overflow.
Could this be her child? The way she had spoken of it implied it was real, did someone take the child and leave a doll as its trade? There were no other children here, anything once alive was long since slaughtered by mindless puppets and the consequent litter of remains consisted of adult humans.
I bit the inside of my lip as I pondered what next I should do. I didn’t want to disappoint the woman, although I stood alone her sobs returned to my ears and I made a choice then, this would be better than to leave with nothing. Gathering it up carefully, I pulled a damp blanket from the least sodden part of the stroller and tucked it tight around the dolls body. With it secure and warm like a real baby should be, I carried it back to the rainy window, still unsure if I had found the right one.
To my surprise, when the woman parted the curtains she looked relieved, crying tears of joy instead of sadness as she took it from my arms. “Thank you, kind one, my sweet Elena has come back to me, isn’t she beautiful?” The woman asked as she gazed at Elena with a fondness in her smile, petting the unmoving child with shaking, grey colored hands.
Though confused, I felt it wrong to inform her that this was only a doll, it seemed of such great importance to her.
So…I lied, “Yes, she is beautiful.”
The woman’s smile widened at my deceptive answer, stretching the bluish scales at her cheeks. She began to rock Elena back and forth, humming a tune in a wavery voice. I felt a strange pressure lift from my chest once her tears dried on her ashen face, as if I’d been weighed down by the small drops of water somehow.
Perplexity came forward to ensure my steps remained heavy and I left the window more troubled than when I’d happened upon it. The human woman clearly loved Elena despite that she wasn’t real. She was only a doll, much like me. The baby didn’t eat, didn’t breathe, didn’t smile, just like me. And yet the woman cared for her all the same.
How curious that someone could show affection so pure to inanimate beings, to love them as if they were the same as them.
I wonder of the difference in outcome should I have told her the truth, but the relief in her eyes appeared a rare gift to her. This time lying hadn’t been a necessity, not like the lie given to the doorman at hotel Krat that tricked him to let me in. I believe this lie was told as an act of kindness, and while I searched for it, I couldn’t find a trace of harm in that. 🎭🦋
//I just really liked this part of the game and wanted to write a scene from his pov, P is both a murder machine and a sweetheart.
“I wasn’t meant to ache, nor built to shed a single tear. Yet here I stand, appearing such a pitiful thing.” 🎭🦋
