Ragged Doll P

Step. Step. Step went my feet as I walked down Camino Ruiz, a route I was more than familiar with. I had taken this same route so often that I could navigate it with my eyes closed if I really wanted to. Things never ended well in the times that I did try to walk the road blind though. At best, I would stumble on a protruding block of concrete beneath my feet that I had forgotten about. At worst, I would cause a 42 car pileup requiring 15 medical vehicles and presidential attention.

Regardless, I probably knew this route better than I know most of my family members. The pale white trees to the right of the sidewalk with pale bark that flaked and peeled like old paint, the woofs and ruffs from an unseen dog greeting me from behind a fence bordering the street, the severed leg stupidly hidden behind a bush near the intersection of Camino Ruiz and Westmore Road. I knew every secret and every story that this road had to offer simply because I walked the same path every day to and from school. No detours. No shortcuts. Just Camino Ruiz.

I lived my life the same way that I chose my paths. I would find the safest, most comfortable approach, and repeat it endlessly, never daring to change even a single step. Of course, that meant that my life was often boring and cyclic. At times, I didn’t mind the monotony, but sometimes, the faintest desire for a thrilling, fast-paced adventure would spark deep within my pinkish-red internal organs, a spark that never completely engulfed me because of my reluctance to change. But thankfully, one day, change took control. And slapped me right in the face.

I walked down Camino Ruiz as if it were any other day, turning at specific corners like clockwork, with a specific stride length designed to maximize time spent under the shade of trees, away from the unforgiving sun. Eventually, I stood in front of my home. The end to another day, I thought. But as I stepped in, I would quickly discover that this was the beginning of a new life.

I entered my front door and was immediately given a warm welcome by my dearly beloved grandfather.

“Kanye, get in my beddie-room, your grandpappy needs his bi-daily insulin fix, stat!” he yodeled. I don’t know how he has so much ferocity in his voice even at the ripe old age of 129. I sighed, put down my backpack, picked up a tray of syringes and walked towards my grandfather’s room.

“Here, grandpa, bon appeti-” I started as I sat at his bedside when without warning he sat up, seized me by the neck and pulled me close. Our faces were five, six inches apart and I could smell his aged crypt breath oozing out of his mouth. His wrinkled, boney hands had an iron grip around my throat, his strength completely catching me by surprise. I gagged and instinctively dropped the plate of syringes to the floor, sending glass and needles and fluid everywhere. My limbs flailed chaotically, as if I were a salmon attempting to escape a fisher’s hook, but I had already taken the bait and my grandfather was already reeling me in.

Death by psychotic grandfather. What a way to go, huh?

He pulled me closer and forcefully turned me so that my ear was the closest part to his face. Then, he gently whispered with a raspy voice.

“I’m gonna die, Jimmy. Like, in five minutes.” And he released his grip and fell back on the bed as I dropped to the ground, taking colossal gasps of air. I struggled to get back on my feet, but when I did I felt like screaming at my grandfather for attempting to murder his own flesh and blood. I was about to let him have it when he started talking again.

“Before I die, I gotta tell you some things, Fred.” He could never remember my real name. “Do you know what your grand pappy used to do for a living?” Hmm… now that I thought about it, I had no idea. I just thought his job was to be old.

He beckoned me closer with two scarred, wrinkled fingers. I leaned in as he continued, staring at an invisible point in the ceiling.

“I used to be an adventurer,” he whispered. He returned to normal speaking volume. “Back in my day, they called me ‘Iron Leg Greg.’ Probably because I could walk for days without stopping. And boy, lemee tell you, if I was on a really big adventure, then I would walk for months, never stopping until my quest was done.” Iron Leg Greg, huh? Not bad. Can’t say I’ve had better nicknames.

Grandpa laughed to himself. “Oh, I remember some of my better adventures. I conquered the legendary fury bull of Flanders Drive. That’s where they got the name ‘Maddox Park’ did you know that? Oh yes, I did that.”

My grandfather was insane.

“But my only regret…” he started, wiping tears in his eyes, “was never finishing the quest of the Ragged Doll.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. And frankly, I didn’t want to know. Grandpa had lost his marbles. Did he really expect me to believe that he was a suburban adventurer?

And then he reached under his sheets. He pulled his leg out, literally ripping his entire leg from the socket. And with it, he slapped me in the face.

“I had lost my real legs in the Scripps-Mira Mesa war of 1815,” he said as I rubbed my cheek, attempting to nullify the stinging pain from being slapped by my uncle’s leg. “Used prosthetics ever since. Had an old metal one made out of a titanium carbon alloy. But then… I heard about the Ragged Doll.” This was the first time he told me that he had prosthetic legs. I thought both of his legs were perfectly intact, so the sight of my own grandpa holding his own fleshy leg in front of me was shocking, to say the least.

“I can’t remember how I learned about the Ragged Doll parts, but seeing as you’re already 34 and fast becoming an explorer yourself, I think it’s about time that I tell you about them.” I was 16.

And so, my grandfather told me the tale of the Ragged Doll parts. Seven magical body parts scattered all around Mira Mesa: a head, two arms, two legs, a torso, and a human heart. Legend has it that when the seven parts are combined back into the shape of a human being, then the parts come to life and the magical Ragged Doll will grant you one wish before rising to the heavens in a glowing aura and scattering his parts throughout Mira Mesa once more.

Yep. Grandpa was definitely crazy.

“Rick,” he said, looking at me. “I want you to have these.” He gave me the white severed leg. I wondered why he used the plural form of “this” when he only gave me one body part.

“These are the two parts I’ve managed to find. To hide them from my wife, I used them as prosthetics so she wouldn’t find out and send me back to the mental health clinic. I would have found the rest of them too, but as you can probably tell, I’m old and dying.” He wasn’t dying. “So now, I leave the quest to you.” He gave me a two-finger salute, a thin smile, and stared off into the distance of the ceiling.

“Godspeed, Annie,” he said.

And he spontaneously combusted.

When the fire cleared, all that remained of my grandfather were black ashes, his bones, and… a head? I wondered why of all the things that would survive the fire, why his head?

Oh.

The next day, I walked to school, taking the same familiar route as always, eventually arriving at the blue front gates, iron and steel doors that separated school from the real world. I stepped through and immediately ran into my best friend, Timn.

“Hey, Timn, what’s up?” I started. I was tempted to tell him about the ridiculous things that my grandpa told me yesterday when he turned around holding a dismembered human torso. He had a crazed look in his eyes and a feral, foaming smile. He gave an evil laugh akin to that of a murderous clown.

I froze in fear. He was psychotic. And the first words that seeped from his throat sent shivers down my arthritic spine.

“I found it… I found another Ragged Doll part!”

Oh no. Not him too.

“Seriously? First my grandpa was talking about this garbage and now you? I don’t believe it.”

“Oh, you’re grandfather’s looking for them too?!”

“Was looking for them. He just died.” My friend frowned.

“Oh. Sad to hear old Iron Leg Greg ran out of steam. He was a great adventurer. My role model.”

Unbelievable. So either my grandfather was telling the truth, or my best friend, whom I’ve known for six years, had caught the crazy at exactly the same time that my grandpa did. Both were equally implausible, equally ridiculous. But one of them had to be true. My head throbbed in pain and I felt dizzy. My legs wobbled and I was a skyscraper on the island of perceived normality, about to be toppled by an earthquake of reality.

Suddenly, Timn slapped me in the face with the pale white torso. Actually, it was less like a slap and more like a swing across my face, sending me on the ground.

“Stop it! Why is everything slapping me today?” I cried.

“Sorry, I needed to drive the plot forward.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“No, not never mind, do you have any idea what I’m going through right now? I’m going through more conflicted emotions than a high school girl before Sadies! You better-”

“Shh,” Timn said as he placed his index finger on my lips, as if shushing me. The sudden unwanted contact made me reel my head back. To my left and to my right, a few people turned their heads in our directions, wondering what the commotion was about. The foot-long torso Timn held in his hands didn’t exactly diffuse attention either.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” he started, “It’s normal. Everyone goes through it when they first hear about the Ragged Doll parts, or as we call them, ‘Ragged Doll P’s.” There are more people that know about this? Oh god.

I took deep breaths in attempt to calm myself and reduce my mile-high blood pressure. I realized that unless I humored them, I would never be at peace again. And if I’m not at peace, then that means I’ll have a thousand wrinkles on my forehead. And that’s bad.

“Okay,” I said between calm, deep inhales and exhales. “So what do we do?”

“Find the rest of the parts, of course!” Of course. “And I already know what I’m gonna wish for when I find the rest of them!”

“Excuse me? What you’re gonna wish for? Don’t I deserve something for going on this quest?” A seagull squawked overhead as the bell for the beginning of class rang. Suddenly, stagnant students became mobile and started walking to their first period.

“Oh yeah. Right,” Timn said, sheepishly. “I guess I could wish for infinite money for both of us.” Wow. I never knew I was best friends with someone with the mind of a third grader.

“Fine, whatever. So since you have the torso, and I have a leg and a head, that means there’s only four parts left, scattered across all of Mira Mesa. Doesn’t sound too hard. Plus, I think I know where the other leg is, I see it all the time in Camino Rui-”

“Actually, Shelby, I… I actually have the other leg at home…” Timn said. I paused, confused.

And slowly, the realization of the truth made my eyes widen as the school’s late bell rang.

We sped out of school, taking care to avoid the attention of the staff members in golf carts that typically guarded the perimeter of the school, and went to our own houses to pick up the Ragged Doll P’s that we had already obtained, along with some other things we thought we would need. Then, we met back at a street intersection.

Timn pulled out two small metal sticks from his backpack, akin to dowsing rods. A black wire connected to the base of the rods led to the inside of a pouch on his backpack, probably leading to some sort of complex technology. Timn had always been good with circuits.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s a self-contained organ-uncovering terrestrial element receptor. SCOUTER for short. You see, the Ragged Doll P’s emit a sort of electromagnetic radiation because of a previously unknown element that I’ve discovered in the parts in trace amounts. What this machine does i-”

“English please.”

“I point this thing at places and it tells me where the Ragged Doll P’s are.”

“Oh. That’s convenient. So where to?”

“Well, Ronnie, a signal seems to be coming from… there!” Timn said, pointing West, towards Mira Mesa Boulevard. We started walking.

After about half an hour of travel through white concrete and black asphalt, following the SCOUTER’s directions, we finally arrived to…

“Maddox Park!” Timn exclaimed. “Did you know they named this park after the fury bull that used to terrorize the people that lived here?” I sighed, still unable to believe that my grandpa had been telling the truth.

“Yeah. I did. Now quick, where exactly is it?”

“Well, strange thing is with the Ragged Doll P’s is that the radiation they emit doesn’t get gradually stronger as you get closer to it. It has a sort of… for lack of a better word, event horizon, where it suddenly emits a lot of radiation at a certain radius from the RDP. Like say… fifteen, twenty meters?”

“So…”

“So, this radiation’s too strong to give accurate readings from the SCOUTER,” he said, dropping his backpack to the ground. He cracked his knuckles, stretched his neck, and brushed dirt from his pant legs.

“So…”

“So we’re gonna have to do a little bit of searching.”

So we started looking around Maddox Park. Inside hard, concrete trash cans, atop brown, solitary trees, and beneath the pale, powdery sand, but still no sign of a body part. As the minutes quickly accumulated and the heat of the overhead sun pounded against us, I felt less and less motivation to find the Ragged Doll P.

Four hours of non-stop searching later, I collapsed on the desert that was the sand pit stomach first, surrounded by the noise of boisterous kids playing and throwing sand around me. But as I lay there, I realized that my stomach hit something solid, something harder than the fluidlike sand.

I quickly got up and pushed the sand away. And I found it.

“FINALLY!” I roared, yanking a severed arm from beneath the sand as if it were Excalibur. I held the arm high above my head with one outstretched, victorious arm and beat my chest in pride. In the distance, I saw Timn turn his head, squatting over an overturned trash can, looking very much like a homeless man. He grinned a big toothy smile and started screaming in excitement as he stood up and sprinted towards me, pushing other kids aside. I howled a victory howl and my spirit animal completely took over me. A chupacabra.

The children shrieked in horror and ran to the safety of their parents upon seeing a man pull a severed arm out from the playground. Within minutes, the entire park had evacuated.

Later, the SCOUTER detected another Ragged Doll P. It had led us back to Mira Mesa High at around 12:30, and we couldn’t risk being seen by school staff, so we waited at the nearby Carl’s Jr until school had been dismissed before scaling the side of the 600 building using pickaxes that Timn had conveniently brought with him.

Eventually, I reached the top of the box-like building, much faster than Timn did. While I waited for him, I looked around to observe the beautiful scenery around me. Beside the building stood pine trees coated in yellow pollen, ready to be dispersed at the wind’s beckoning. In the center of the quad sat grassy green hills surrounding a gentle curved depression in the ground. The tops of the buildings around me were coated in dark blue solar panels that sparkled in the angled afternoon sun. I was in awe.

But enough sightseeing. I had a mission to complete. Where was that other RDP? I looked around at the school carefully, but no sign of any severed limbs. Not atop the trees, not inside the classrooms, bathrooms, or closets, we already checked each one.

       

As Timn finally heaved himself onto the roof of the 600 building, I spotted a severed arm atop the main office building. But something was different from that arm. The other Ragged Doll P’s had all been peach colored, whereas the arm on top of the office was a dark brown color.

            

“Hey Timn, are all the RDP’s the same color?” I asked. Apparently, he hadn’t heard me as he was too busy taking rapid, exhausted breaths.

            

“Hey look, Fabio!” He managed to say in between gasps for air, “It’s the other part!” I turned around and saw that before us, in front of a metal spinning roof vent, sat a peach-colored severed arm atop the 600 building, guarded by an army of seagulls. I did a double take, first at the arm on the roof, then at the arm on the 600 building.

            

“Wh…what the..?” I managed to say. But I had no time to deliberate on the mystery of the second arm. The gang of seagulls in front of us stared right at us, with fiery rage in their tiny little seagull eyes. A few ruffled their feathers, ready for a scrap.

            

Suddenly, the lead seagull spoke.

            

“Welcome, human” it said with a deep, booming voice and a devilish sneer that shocked me. The seagull ahead of all the other seagulls, the “Seagull King,” had a scar running down the side of its seagull face. It slowly walked towards us with a hobble on its left side, probably because its left leg wasn’t a leg at all, but a spork with its handle attached to the lead seagull’s body. The head of the spork was bent at a 90 degree angle, made to look like its webbed feet.

            

“Since when could seagulls talk?” I asked, glancing at Timn.

            

“The RDP radiation boosts the intelligence of animals immediately around it. They must have guarded it for weeks ever since they figured out that it made them smarter.”

            

“Exactly!” The Seagull King interrupted, with an evil grin, “This, what you call, ‘RDP,’ this… Master Arm will bring forth a new age! A seagull age! We have used it to study you puny humans. We have learned your ‘bell’ communication system and we know when to feed, when to gather resources. We have slowly been accumulating enough resources to build a weapon of MASS DESTRUCTION. It will bring forth the end of the human race!” The Seagull King screamed and raised its wing as it gave an evil, evil laugh, accompanied by the approving squawks of the seagulls behind him.

            

“No! I won’t let you!” I shouted back. The other seagulls fell into eerie silence.

            

“It is already too late! We have already built the weapon! And thank you for climbing up all this way to… volunteer yourselves to be its first victims!” The Seagull King cackled manically.

            

“Weapon ready, sir!” a seagull cawed from behind the metal vent.

            

“Bring it out! Release… GOOSENECK.” The Seagull King said as an overdramatic bolt of lightning hit an unknown area in the background. Several people, and even a few of the seagulls were quite startled by the sudden lightning strike, especially since it was a bright and sunny day without a single cloud in the sky.

            

Slowly, a lone seagull pulled a horrific mass of everyday luncheon items from behind the vent. An abomination of brown cardboard eating trays, black plastic bowls, and orange peels, wrapped together with leaves, feathers, and the occasional staple. It was monstrous, and upon first glance I knew of its dark purpose. It was going to… going to…

           

Actually, I didn’t know what it was supposed to do. It really just looked like a pile of garbage that the seagulls managed to collect from the high school after lunch.

            

“I see the weapon has left you at a loss for words,” the Seagull King said smugly, “Are you not awe-struck by its raw power?!”

            

“What does it do?” Timn asked.

            

“Allow me to show you,” the Seagull King said with an ominous low laugh. The Seagull King kicked a black bowl on the outside of the pile and the pile came to life, emitting yellow light from its nucleus, which seeped out in yellow beams from gaps in the pile. A mechanical whir started, first slow and quiet but quickly gaining speed and increasing in volume until it was as loud as a jet engine. Timn and I covered our ears and assumed the fetal position, not knowing what to expect, but anticipating pain. Lots of it.

            

And it fired a small white and black blob of seagull poop at Timn’s right arm. Immediately, the machine’s noise and light died. Timn, slightly startled at the poop, gave a quick “ouch” before rubbing the white and black spot off his arm with the body of a seagull that he picked up.

            

The Seagull King cheered loudly, putting both wings in the air. The other seagulls were stoic. Silent. Unimpressed.

            

“It worked!” The Seagull King exclaimed, “It really worked!” The Seagull King continued laughing and hugged the nearest seagull to him, who stood awkwardly, not hugging back. He patted the seagull in the back a few times with his wing and his laughter slowly turned into cries of joy.

            

“I can’t believe it, man, it actually worked! All our hard work and it worked!” The Seagull King said as it pushed the seagull he was hugging away from him and turned back to face Timn and I. Sniffling and wiping tears of seagull joy from his seagull eyes, he looked at Timn, who looked down at the Seagull King, unamused.

            

“That’s it?” Timn said.

            

“That’s it?” The Seagull King started. His happiness quickly drained out of him. “What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? Do you not realize the scientific implications of this? We, seagulls, have figured out a way to harness the energy of cardboard! With this power, we shall rule the world!”

            

Timn slowly walked through the crowd of seagulls and tipped Gooseneck over with his foot. Gooseneck collapsed, spreading its parts across the roof of the 600 building. It fizzled with electricity and died.

            

The Seagull King cawed a caw of pure agony.

            

“NO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, DEMON?!” the Seagull King screamed. Quickly, he waddled over to the pile of rubble that was Gooseneck. He picked up a few parts, and started whimpering, which quickly gave way to silent weeping. The seagull he had hugged just moments before approached the Seagull King and gave him a few comforting pats on the back.

“Goooseneckkk!” the Seagull King cawed at the sky, as if looking at the Seagull God in the sky, as if asking the Seagull God why it had to end like this. I actually felt really sorry for the Seagull King.

            

But we had a mission. So we took the RDP, climbed back down the building, and went on our merry way.

            

It was getting late. The sun was going down.

            

“Can we continue tomorrow?” I asked Timn, “My legs ache.”

            

“Pathetic!” he responded, not even bothering to take his eyes off of the SCOUTER, “Your old man would still be considering this a warm-up! And besides, the batteries on the SCOUTER only last a day and they take three months to recharge, so unless you want to continue this during summer, you’ll have to go with me.”

            

“Fine, fine. So where’s the last part anyway?”

            

Timn looked up from the SCOUTER to see where we had been walking this whole time. Upon realization, he dropped the SCOUTER rods. He gulped in fear and shook in place. Sweat began to drip from his head.

            

“What? Where’s the last part?”

            

“Montongo.”

            

The sky was a midnight blue color. There was no illumination save for the dim blue moonlight and the pocket flashlight that I held in my hands, which only lit the areas directly in front of us. Apart from what I shined my flashlight on, the trail around us was black with silhouettes, making it impossible to tell if objects were near or far. Dead, or alive.

            

We walked through Los Penasquitos Canyon, beside Montongo Street, pushing aside the various brush and twigs that got in our way. Timn led the way, following the SCOUTER’s directions. I walked behind him, illuminating the way.

            

Suddenly, he stopped walking.

            

“This is it. It’s nearby. SCOUTER can’t get a reading anymore.” Timn put the backpack down. “Do you have an extra flashlight on you, Raymond?”

            

“Yeah. And my name’s not Raymond.” I threw him the spare flashlight I kept in my school backpack and wondered why everyone was getting my name wrong. He turned the flashlight on.

            

“We should probably split up to cover more ground. Otherwise, we’ll be here all night.” The idea of being in Montongo alone, at night was unnerving, but Timn was right.

            

So we split up and started searching. The foliage was dense, and despite both of us having flashlights, it didn’t take long before the various plants made it impossible for me to see Timn’s light anymore.

            

I was suddenly alone. Very much alone.

            

I pushed and hacked through more and more layers of shrubs and branches, looking for a heart, the last RDP. I stopped, to catch my breath.

            

And a second later, the rustling behind me stopped as well. There was something following me.

            

“Who’s there?” No response. I turned around to shine my light at whatever might be following me, but all that was behind me were branches and sticks. I couldn’t see anyone.

            

I took slow, deep breaths, trying to calm my nerves which were already making my palms sweat and my grip on my flashlight shake. The Montongo Ghost was just a myth, everyone knew that. It wasn’t real.

            

Then, suddenly, Timn screamed in the distance, startling me. I dropped my flashlight and it switched off, plunging the world into darkness momentarily. Quickly, I picked it back up, turned it on, and ran through the canyon towards the general direction of his voice. The trees and bushes reached out towards me with outstretched twigs and limbs as if trying to stop me from getting to Timn. The wood and shrubs quickly cutting my arms and legs, but I kept running. Timn was in danger.

            

Eventually, I came to a clearing, which was without a doubt the source of Timn’s scream. He was nowhere to be found.

            

“Timn!” I shouted, shining my light sporadically around the area. A brief reflection of an object in the distance hit my eye and I directed my light back to the source of the reflection. I ran towards it, wondering what it was.

            

It was Timn’s flashlight. Its lens was cracked. A few drops of blood beside it.

            

Oh god. Timn was killed. Killed by the Montongo Ghost which I thought was just a myth. I collapsed on my knees and mourned, mourned for the passing of my best friend.

            

I stood up, still sniffling. And I couldn’t believe what I saw.

            

In front of me, wedged between the branches of a tall tree, was a human heart. The last Ragged Doll P we needed.

            

Quickly, I pulled the other pieces from the duffel bag that we had brought to carry all the parts. I assembled the Ragged Doll P’s into their proper order. It resembled a peachy department store mannequin, but with a much more detailed head. In the center of its torso was a hollow area, where the heart should be.

            

I placed the heart in the socket and immediately the heart started beating, faster and faster, until the beating of its heart sounded like mechanical whirring. Beams of bright yellow light shot out from the torso to the other five limbs, forming joints between the body parts. The body levitated a few feet from the ground, chest first, and the Ragged Doll slowly planted its feet on the ground and looked directly at me with button eyes and a mouth sewn shut with black thread.

            

“What is your wish,” it said without moving its lips. Its voice sounded like a mixture of thousands of other voices of varying age, gender, and ethnicity. I swore that I could hear my grandfather’s voice among one of the voices.

            

“I wish for my friend to return,” I said just as I heard rustling behind me. I quickly looked behind me and saw…

            

Timn, walking out of the brush, with a smile on his face. He waved casually at me.

            

“Wish granted,” the Ragged Doll said. And Timn teleported literally an inch closer to me than he was before.

            

“Wait, no, I take it back!” I screamed in panic at the Ragged Doll, but it was already too late. The Ragged Doll levitated up and up, ascending into the clouds in a glowing ball of light. Then, a sonic explosion, and seven smaller balls of light shot out of the ball in different directions. The shockwave from the sonic boom sent a few car alarms off in the distance. The light from nearby houses quickly turned on as newly awoken, curious residents wanted to know what caused the sound.

            

“Woah.” Timn said. I turned around and faced him. I balled my hand into a fist, ready to unleash my newfound anger on him.

            

“WHERE WERE YOU. I THOUGH YOU WERE DEAD.” I screamed, startling Timn.

            

“Bathroom, man. I’ve been holding it in ever since I left my house.”

            

“WHAT WAS WITH THE BLOOD?! AND THE FLASHLIGHT?!”

            

“Oh. I pricked my foot on a thorn and panic-dropped my flashlight. Sorry, I’ll buy you a new one,” Timn said, completely oblivious at the emotional turmoil that had taken over me moments prior.

            

I sighed. I couldn’t stay mad at him. He was too stupid to stay mad at.

            

“So… I guess… adventure over?”

            

“Yep!” He smiled, “Adventure over.”

            
I collapsed on my back, exhausted. Timn laughed at me and picked up his backpack and the SCOUTER on the ground.

            

The sun was just coming up, painting the sky a vivid mosaic of orange and purple. Caws of morning songbirds were just starting, as if singing a duet with the last song of the midnight crickets, who were about to sleep for the day. We walked home.

            

Ever since that day, my life’s never been the same. Sure, I went back to normal, high school life, but ever since the Ragged Doll P’s, I’ve had a strange desire rooted inside of me. A desire to see what the world has to offer, a desire to break out of the boring loop that was my life, a desire to be… a suburban adventurer.

            

And since that day, I’ve never walked the same route home twice.

            

A few weeks later, Timn and I sat at the picnic table where we ate lunch every day. We looked up at the seagulls atop the 600 building, waving at the Seagull King who still had his prosthetic leg.

            

“A few things I’m still confused about,” I started, “What was up with all the other severed body parts in Mira Mesa?”

            

“Decoys. The Ragged Doll P’s make fakes so that it’s harder for the real parts to get in the wrong hands.”

            

“Oh, okay. And how come the parts only stay in Mira Mesa? Why not the entire world, or the whole universe?”

            

“Because it’s nice here,” he smiled, “I mean, the climate’s great, the people are friendly. I think before Mira Mesa, it used to live in Texas. Soon as all its parts were collected, it got outta there lickety-split.” I laughed.

            

“And one last thing. How come you kept getting my name wrong? My grandpa did the same thing ever since I could remember.”

            

“Remember what I said about RDP radiation, and how it boosts the intelligence of animals?” Timn said. He quickly ate a spoonful of yogurt. “Well, I kind of lied. It doesn’t purely boost their intelligence, it just brings the intelligence level of every living creature around them to the same level, which is around the level of a person with an IQ of 60.”

            

“Ah, gotcha. No wonder Mrs. Addleman’s classes are so hard, they used to be right under that thing.” We laughed.

            

“You’re so funny, Linda,” Timn said. My name’s not Linda. Quickly, our eyes widened with the realization. We stood up, and looked around.

            

And there it was. A severed arm, pinned between a forked branch of a pine tree beside the school.

Author's Note: I originally wrote this on Word, not Blogger, so apologies if there's anomalies in the typical format. Tell me if there's anything that feels like its missing from the story, or if there's a typo or formatting error and I'll be more than happy to fix it.

Anyway, this started out as a school assignment that I had to do on the hero cycle (hence I put it under "Request"). I liked it so much, I felt inclined to post it here. I know it's way longer than most of my other stories. Probably because I worked on this for about two weeks, probably because I needed a lot of stuff to flesh out a decent adventure tale.

Write in the comments if you understand what I'm parodying. The story title itself should be a dead giveaway.

This was pretty fun to write. Being a shut-in all the time, I had to do a lot of research on my own neighborhood, and I wrote about a lot of places that I hadn't even been to, so apologies if anyone happens to live around the area and sees that my descriptions aren't exactly accurate. All of my setting information's based on stuff I saw from Street View on Google Maps, so yeah.

Uh, news, news, news. Still working on the script for my short film. Didn't have as much time as I'd like to work on it because of this English assignment, but don't worry, it's getting done. Probably be finished with it before the end of March.

Also, if you like my stories, feel free to share it with your friends! I don't mind if you don't, I appreciate if you do, but either way, just taking the time to read these makes me happy enough. Look forward to April 10, when I'll be posting a pretty special story!