I found Callista Woods Body

It was around noontime when Elara Gray finally got up, throwing her white duvet over the metal

railings of her bed as she swung her pale legs over the edge and onto her cold floor. She was in

a slump, as per usual, and her mom and dad were gone, also as per usual. Elara had finished

all of her homework, except her therapist’s, which wasn’t technically homework but, she still had

to do it. Dr. Levine wouldn’t have let her off the hook again. She picked up the slip of paper Dr.

Levine had written on.

Elara, please try to get out and do something new this weekend! See

you at 5:00 on Monday for our next session.

Tugging on a comfortable lace-trim camisole and her trusty Doc Marten platform loafers, she

sighed and headed to the front door. She wasn’t hungry and rarely was anymore. Eating was

merely just an inconvenience, and why eat if you can just rot in bed? I need to find a hobby,

Elara thought to herself.

She decided to leave the house for the first time in three days and shut the family’s old

mahogany door behind her. She opened the picket fence gate and slipped out, starting down

the barren street, gritting her teeth as she finally entered the outside world. The streetlights cast

stubby, gloomy shadows and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Fog blanketed her neighborhood

stubbornly. The trees seemed to bend down towards her, caving in, and the branches were

twisted at awkward and grotesque angles, the bark an unhealthy ashy gray. Results from the

raging cigarette fire lit two years ago by some dumb smoker with blonde hair, a lanky stance,

bad manners, and ugly teeth (she had dated said smoker and if she didn’t hate him enough to

force him to leave, her small town of old pot-bellied men and middle-aged PTA moms at the

local elementary school sure did the job.)

Do something new this weekend, Dr. Levine’s words echoed in her already messed up

head, sending more words into a mind that didn’t need more. Elara, just go on the stupid walk,

she berated herself. After much deliberation (she actually had no idea where she was going so

there was no deliberation, just clueless wandering), she reached a part of the street with a

ravine off the side of it, which tapered off into the forest. Something about the little hollow had

something attractive to it, something magnetic. So she stepped in and continued her

exploration. Her feet squished against the muddy ground, occasionally hitting rocks and

shrubbery. She admired the wildflowers that had bloomed after the rampaging blaze: pink,

white, yellow. A moth flitted past her ear and she shrieked and swiped at it quickly, then realized

it wasn’t harmful. Embarrassing!

Finally, she made it to a clearing with a small, light pink cottage. It wasn’t huge, but it

wasn’t shabby. The paint was peeling and there was a big first aid cross symbol attached to the

brown slanted roof. Cobwebs had laced the entire place and it looked like at least a couple

hundred birds had used the chimney as a toilet. An abandoned white medical cot sat right on

the left of the white door. In faded cursive lettering, the sign on the door read “Open!” Odd.

Shouldn’t this place have burned down in the fire? It looked very, very old— abandoned— how

was it still standing?

She cautiously knocked on the door, and surprisingly, no scary witch opened the door

and asked her if she wanted some candy. So, she thought, maybe my hobby could be

investigating abandoned places. She was not properly dressed for urban exploring, but she

entered cautiously, pushing her fears to the back of her head (they could decay her cerebrum

later.)

The floorboards creaked under her rubber heels and the air smelled of mildew, sugar, and

honey— and a bit of metallic blood lingered as well, which concerned her. The layout of the

building was very much like a medical clinic. The front desk had papers stacked on top and

plastic pink waiting chairs topped with torn, yellowing polyurethane peeling revealing the foam

underneath. Elara checked the dust-coated front desk. A bouquet of dried-out, dead roses lay

on the black cherry wood surface, untouched. There were dusty and crumpled paper sheets

stacked atop each other, water-stained and sun-faded, and she read the first one. Callista

Woods. Fixed on December 2, 1998.

About half a year ago. What did “fixed” mean? Elara examined the photo. She was

starting to get goosebumps, and her hair seemed to stand up as a chill racked her body.

Although the photo was a bit washed out, the girl’s fiery red hair and esoteric gaze were

unmistakable. Elara recognized her immediately and gasped. Callista Woods had gone missing

the exact day the photo was taken, she remembered from a police report. She didn’t like this

place, she wanted to sprint into the forest and never come back. But, her feet seemed to be

glued to the ground when behind her, a voice cooed in a gentle monotone.

“Ms. Gray, we’ll be with you shortly. Please take a seat and relax while we prepare for

your big day.” Elara turned and almost jumped out of her lacy socks. It was a doll. A life-sized

doll wearing a light pink nurse’s uniform and holding a clipboard. Her eyes were glazed over, her

eyelashes were sewn in, and her blonde hair was seamed into her plastic scalp like extensions.

Her skin was smooth and shiny, a pale plasticky tan. Her joints were visible and she moved

stiffly. As she opened her soft pink lips, a dusty voice box was in view

“Take a seat and relax,” Elara repeated, her own voice a trembling whisper.

“I know you’re scared, but I can fix you. Fix your head. Fix all your thoughts. You only

need me.” There was that word again— “fix.”

Maybe I do need fixing.

“I- I don’t know.”

“Mmm, I don’t like doubt. Ms. Gray, cooperate or I’ll make you,” the doll nurse

threatened. Elara almost whimpered, so mortified and confused and lost in her head and

wanting to be okay again but also ready to accept that heaven’s pearly gates were wide open.

So she sprinted.

Run.

GO GO GO GO GO!

She heard the rapid, incessant clicking of plastic on the floorboards right behind her.

Run.

Run.

Runrunrunrunrun.

Elara smelled the scent of aged phthalates breathing on the nape of her neck and

suddenly felt the tight, violent grasp of the nurse’s hands which was undoubtedly inescapable.

“Tsk tsk. Naughty girl, I told you to cooperate.” As Elara turned, an enormous silver

syringe filled to the brim with shimmery white liquid entered her peripheral view as it plunged

directly into her heart. She felt an ache in her aorta, and the sedative seemed to spread through

her arteries and veins rapidly. Her eyes fluttered slowly, creating a dark haze as she succumbed

to the spiral into an unlit void of oblivion.

The doll nurse carried the limp and unconscious Elara onto an old, ratty gurney which

she rolled through stained chalky swinging double doors. Once she entered the

fluorescent-illuminated operating room, she set Elara down on the cold metal table. She started

with the skin and the base layer, which was the first step to the ideal “fixed” lady. Grabbing some

scissors, she peeled off Elara’s skin and replaced her lungs and larynx with a voice box and

other internal organs and skeletal parts with cotton stuffing and dried tuberose. Now that there

was a blank slate for her face, she carefully stitched in Elara’s new cognac brown eyes and

filaments of long, perfect eyelashes. She attached the lips and finished the other details to

polish up her face, adding powder blush and blue eyeshadow— it seemed like the right fit for

Elara’s alabaster complexion. Her scalp was punctured several times to make room for her new

honey-blonde implants, a better rendition of her past self that still showed resemblance. Limbs

were fixed and attached and any remaining trace of disgusting humanness removed— et voila:

Elara Gray. Fixed on May 30, 1999.

Injected with another liquid by the doll nurse, Elara opened her mechanical eyes,

struggling to lift her heavy and rigid eyelids. Seeing that she woke up, the nurse sighed and

clucked her tongue.

“Now, dear. You were misbehaving earlier, so I’m afraid you’ve lost your voice box

privileges.” With that, in one swift, abrupt movement, the doll nurse tore out Elara’s voice box

from her plastic esophagus and let it drop to the ground with a clank.

“Into the closet, you go,” the nurse seemed to hum to herself as she grabbed the stiff

Elara and tossed her into a pitch-black closet, the air rich with dust. She felt no pain. Nothing.

Only numbness.

The nurse turned the antique handle on the door, shutting it. She fastened the metal

bolts, chaining Elara to an eternity of quintessential girlhood.

Elara Gray had no thoughts anymore. No flesh. No anything. Just blank space

and nothingness and doll parts.

She turned the axis connecting her neck and head, observing her surroundings. The

closet was stocked full of life-sized doll girls who had been victims of the doll nurse’s surgeries.

A few dolls seemed to giggle at the new girl. She swiveled, and right beside her, where she

hadn’t noticed before, was a girl with scarlet waves and an enigmatic stare.

“Welcome to the Doll Clinic: where absolutely faultless girls waste away forever.

Perfection is a vacuum of all real life. You’ll never get out,” whispered Callista Woods.