Doll Eyes; 1.3 - Slowly Slowly

Later that afternoon Lydia was looking through Charles’s bookcases in his office while he researched everything he could find on the Sim anatomy and the effects of coming out of a coma.

It wasn’t quite what was happening to the doll girl upstairs, but it was as close at what they had both decided would be way to approach the situation.

“She’ll need some clothes...” Lydia though out-aloud to herself.

Charles paused in his typing and glanced at her frowning slightly.

“Really? She’s either going to have a melt-down or be the equivalent of an extremely smart six year old; and you’re worried about her fashion sense?”

Lydia turned to her becoming annoyed at him.

“Ok Charles, let’s have her running about in bare feet and a dress that comes from the early eighteen hundreds, it won’t be obvious in the slightest she’s not a local or anything.”

Charles stood up and moved to his sister.

“She’s not a doll you can play dress ups with you know.”

“Really, now you’re going to throw that at me, shouldn’t you have thought of that before you decided to play Watcher?” She threw her hands up at her brother in frustration.

“Alright, alright. Valid point, thank you. I’d forgotten about that. ” He snapped back crossing his arms firmly.

Lydia shook her head as Charles sighed and let his arms drop to his sides.

Slumping her shoulders slightly Lydia couldn’t help but feel slightly sorry for her little brother.

“Look, we’ve been at this now for hours. Why don’t you let me go up and sit with her?”

“But you don’t know how to give her the sedative.”

Charles went to get another vial but Lydia touched his arm lightly stopping him.

“No Charlie, you bought her to life so you could see if she could live, right?”

“Well, yes but...” He seemed worried; this was a side Lydia had never actually seen in him before.

She spoke softly to hopefully help him not feel so stressed.

“But nothing, look, just please, give me a chance? I’ll get changed into some comfortable clothes and go sit with her; I’ll text you when she wakes up.”

She noticed Charles clench his jaw for a moment before he stiffly nodded.

“I’ll go feed the other two; they’ve both been making noises all day. It’ll be good to observe them and see how they’re going.”

Lydia paused on the stairs and turned back to Charles for a moment.

“I’m still fixing up this place you know...”

Charles smiled from the office doorway then gave a half hearted laugh as he headed to the front door.

Lydia shook her head and continued up the stairs to get changed.

It was getting dark by the time Lydia texted Charles.

She’s ready to meet you now, been sitting talking to her for a while... come on up

Charles was a bit annoyed that Lydia hadn’t texted him as soon as the doll girl had woken up and he took the stairs two at a time before pausing at the door before he took a deep breath and went into the room.

Lydia had brought in another chair and was sitting by the bed; the doll girl was still lying on the bed but she was looking much calmer.

Something in her eyes changed when she saw Charles, it was slight, but enough for Charles to feel that she wasn’t sure she wanted his company.

“This is my brother.”

Lydia spoke no different than if she were introducing him to one of her old friends.

The girl nodded but kept her eyes on Lydia.

“He’s not going to hurt you; he’s the one who...”

The girl suddenly bought a hand up to half cover her face and shrank back more into her pillow curling her legs slightly as if to move away from Charles more.

Lydia looked back at Charles furrowing her brow slightly.

“Somehow she knows who you are, I don’t understand how though.”

Charles rubbed his chin for a moment trying to make sense of what was happening, and then leaned against the wall in thought as Lydia turned back to the girl.

He had heard of objects holding ‘value’ to people and even seen with his own eyes in studies the effects of ‘spirits’ inhabiting personal objects, like toys or figurines.

“I think I do.” Charles spoke slowly and watched the doll girl. “A few years ago, the concept of an inanimate object actually having some sort of ‘consciousness’ from the time it was created to its ending when it is destroyed, or rather, dies; was dismissed as complete bullshit by the scientific community, but this...” He shook his head still watching the doll girl curled up on the bed. “This means that it’s no longer a concept but, an actual fact.”

This meant that Charles now understood that the doll girl had ‘seen’ the parrot transformed and then gone through the transformation process herself. She basically experienced being drowned by him.

He hadn’t even considered the effects of what submerging the doll into the tank of the solution might have had on her.

He shivered slightly recalling the girls’ terrified screams when she had first woken, but it made sense and he felt a horrid pit form in his stomach.

Lydia sighed and touched the girls hand gently. “It’s alright; he didn’t know how frightened you were.” She glanced back at Charles slightly. “And he won’t ever frighten you again, I promise.”

The girl looked up before she slowly sat up on the edge of the bed and gave a weak smile focusing on Lydia.

Charles decided to move along with getting familiar.

“Alright, so... do you have a name, did anyone ever give you one before...?”

He was frustrated with thinking of her as ‘a doll’ since now she was a living Sim, with feelings and consciousness.

If she was going to be ‘part’ of Charles’s research, he wasn’t going to refer to her as ‘Doll’ that was for sure.

The girls’ eyes darted about the room as she seemed to be thinking about the question.

She opened her mouth and a small struggled squeak came out, she coughed, shook her head and tried again.

“Mm...” She paused seeming to be concentrating on how to use her muscles say what she wanted to. “Mm...Mia, they called me, Mia.”

She beamed at Lydia then Charles then back at Lydia again.

Her voice was smooth, sophisticated and light without being breathy.

Giving her hand a slight reassuring squeeze Lydia nodded and moved her chair around to face her a bit better.

“I’m Lydia, and my brother, is Charles.”

Mia’s mouth moved slightly as she silently sounded out the names to herself for a moment.

“Ly...dia, Ch...arles.” She nodded as she spoke.

Lydia nodded at her again.

Deciding to sit in the other spare chair, Charles watched as Lydia gently quizzed Mia about what she knew and understood.

He was surprised when Mia showed that she knew trivial information such as colours, body parts, furniture, food, seasons, the alphabet, basic maths and most surprising of all conversational French.

It seemed that the sort of ‘consciousness’ Mia had as a doll was retained in her now living mind, but what Charles found the most disturbing was what this actually meant and whether or not it spanned across all inanimate objects that were replicas of animals or Sims.

It was well past midnight when Charles stepped back from his work bench and stretched.

Mia had been given another sedative to put her into a normal sleeping pattern and Charles had let Lydia take his room so that Mia felt comfortable and Lydia could keep an eye on her.

Charles had been up at his workbench looking over the serum he had made, he had been trying to figure out how he could make a reverse of it that couldn’t be made into another working form again.

‘I’ll have to report it didn’t work... that all of the research was a failure. The parrot and Mia I can explain, she’s my sister’s friend with her pet parrot here to stay with Lydia for a few weeks. Now the Laganaphyllis Simnovorii, that’ll be another matter.’

He still frowned and tapped his foot on the floor deep in thought for while.

Letting out a sigh he shook his head as he tried to think straight, there was shuffling noise from behind him and he turned.

Lydia had climbed up into the attic, even though it was chilly and Charles knew she hated the cold; she moved over to the archway and leaned on the frame.

“You really should get some sleep you know, or should I make you some strong coffee?” She smiled slightly at her joke.

Giving a small chuckle Charles shook his head running a hand through his hair as if it would maybe help smooth out his jagged thoughts somehow.

“No, no... I was just going over what to do with my new houseplant out the front.”

“What about it?” Lydia glanced about Charles’s workroom then her eyes focused back on his face again.

“Well, for one thing... and I hate to say it, but you’re right...”

Lydia’s expression changed slightly as she raised an eyebrow in interest to what Charles had said.

“I am?” He voiced raised ever so slightly in a mocking tone.

“Oh, don’t sis.” Charles became exasperated. “You know you are; if her ‘static consciousness’ let’s call it, exists across all other inanimate objects such as toys and statues, then putting that serum out there for any old sim to get their hands on it would be chaos. We wouldn’t need to wait for war to kill us; little Jonny’s robotic dino is rampaging up the esplanade ‘cause that last thing it recalled before coming to life, is having a Simmy-Doll head shoved between its too small jaws and now its pissed off.”

Though Lydia could see Charles was upset, she couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at the image he painted.

She was able to stop herself after a few moments though and gave a small shrug.

“Ok, ok... so, what’ll happen to your job then?”

Charles shook his head and sighed again rubbing his face before he looked at Lydia, his eyes showed how tired he was and his brow slightly furrowed with more worry than she had ever seen him express before.

“I’ll... I’ll just have to tell them it was a failure, that it didn’t work, but now I...” He trailed off which made Lydia nervous and she came over to him.

“What?” Charles looked at the floor and Lydia noticed the serum behind him on the crate Mia had been sitting on. “Ah, I see... so, what can you do?”

Giving another heavy sigh, Charles gave a small shake of his head.

“I’ll have to make its reverse, and then destroy the initial results before handing over the reversed ones to the lab, to prove to them it won’t work.”

Lydia pursed her lips in thought for a moment; the faded distant sound of frogs from the swamp was the only sound that disturbed the stillness of the night.

“What if someone else tries to...”

“I’ll make sure I put back the impurities I removed in the successful batches, I’ll make sure they look like they belong there, you’d be surprised how much easier to destroy a serum than it is to perfect it.”

“If you say so. I mean, you’re brilliant at what you do, any more awards or trophies and you’ll run out of room here.” Lydia smiled. “Now... could you please go get some sleep, can’t you do this tomorrow when you’re rested and have a clear head?”

Charles had always found it hard to say no to Lydia, even if when they were children she had threatened to ‘flatten’ him if he didn’t do as she said; now as adults, her eyes had a way of saying much more than she vocalised.

He nodded and they both left the attic to get some sleep. As much as he hated to leave his work, Charles knew that getting the serum imperfect was critical, especially if he was to cover his tracks.

In the morning Charles woke later than he would have liked, but looking at his alarm clock he smiled sleepily knowing that Lydia had turned off his alarm to let him sleep in.

He sat up pausing for a moment and decided to take his time getting up, he knew the next few days were going to be long since he would have to call work and tell them he wouldn’t be coming in because of his research.

He knew they would accept that and soon was feeling a little more at ease; he got up to go have a shower.

Charles felt grimy from working constantly over the past two days and decided to get cleaned up before he went down to have something to eat.

Just before he could even get into the bathroom to have his long shower, Charles found Lydia waiting for him in the hallway blocking his path.

“I need your help with Mia.”

“Alright, what’s the matter?”

“She can’t walk yet, and we need to teach her... more precisely, you need to teach her.”

“Me?”

“Yes, I have to go get us something eat since you have no food in the place and I have to get Mia some clothing that isn’t at risk of falling apart. So, while I do that, if you could please teach the poor girl to walk so she can get about on her own it would be appreciated.”

Lydia walked off before Charles had another chance to argue with her. He could tell she wasn’t angry, but she was annoyed.

Quickly Charles went and had a shower and dressed before going to Mia’s room; he knocked on the door and waited for a moment.

“Come in...” Mia answered his knock after a few seconds, her voice sounded more clear and confident now.

Stepping inside the room, Charles smiled seeing she was at least able to sit up on the bed. Lydia had given her some pyjamas so she seemed a bit more comfortable out of the old dress.

He half kneeled on the floor to hopefully put her at ease without him standing over her.

“Hi, uh, Lydia wanted me to come and, well help you find your feet, so to speak.”

Mia looked at him oddly then looked down at her feet before looking back up at him again.

“But my feet are right there, see?” She smiled wiggling her toes.

Charles smiled to himself, being able to move her feet was a good sign that she at least had good motor skills and her body was able to respond to subconscious commands, but then again, putting weight on unused joints could be dangerous and the small room was not place to start, and Charles didn’t even want to think about her hurting herself.

“Well, I’d like to take you downstairs to a larger room and we’ll see about getting you up and walking. If you don’t mind can I pick you up and carry you?”

Charles recalled how she had shielded away from him the evening before and wanted to make sure that she didn’t see him as a threat anymore.

Mia’s eyes travelled across the floor of the room before she slowly nodded.

Slowly Charles got up and then half bent down and made sure he had a good hold before her before carefully lifted her up into his arms.

She was light and somewhat limp; up close he could faintly smell jasmine in her hair.

“Alright then, I was thinking about the sitting room, it’s spacious and nothing to hurt yourself on.”

Mia nodded then leaned her head on his shoulder as Charles moved them out of the bedroom, she suddenly gasped as he stepped onto the landing above the stairs and Charles stopped.

“What? Is something wrong? Did I hurt you?”

Mia shook her head as she looked around the landing of the second floor of the house.

“Wow... it’s, it’s so different to what I remember.”

Charles glanced down at her furrowing his brow. “You remember what the house use to look like?”

“Oh yes, the girls and I would sit up here during their parents’ parties and...” She trailed off suddenly looking sad and turned her head into his neck blinking back tears.

Charles shifted slightly and cleared his throat.

“Well, let’s get downstairs and get you aquatinted with your feet and legs, ok?”

Mia nodded and Charles descended the stairs making sure to be careful as he went.

Down in the sitting room, Charles sat Mia down in a chair by the entrance of the room then stood back from her.

Mia looked about the room with a slight smile; she then looked at Charles and nodded.

“So... how do I...”
“Oh right...” Charles moved over to her. “Now, we can go as slow as you like, there’s no rush with this ok?”

Mia nodded. “Ok. When will Lydia be back, I think I’m... um, hungry?” Her stomach made a growling noise.

Charles smiled. “Lydia will be back soon, she’s gone to get some food and some new clothes for you. So while we wait, you ready to give this walking thing a go?”

Mia nodded again giving a small smile back, her silver eyes sparkling in anticipation.

Charles put out a hand for Mia to take. Mia cautiously put her hand in his and Charles gently lifted her to a standing position, her knees wobbled a little bit and she laughed nervously.

“Ah, ok, so this is what standing feels like... makes the world look a bit different too.”

Charles laughed himself and held her hand a little tighter as she held his tighter while she held her balance.

“Ok, now... it doesn’t matter which foot you move first, just slowly try to lift your leg to move one foot forward, leaving your weight on the other leg and foot that isn’t moving... ok?”

Mia looked at Charles seeming bewildered.

Charles smiled.

“Ok, here, let’s try something I saw in the rehabilitation centre when Lydia was getting the use of her leg back after she broke it a few years back.”

Charles carefully moved around behind Mia and put his arms under her shoulders. Again the soft smell of jasmine wafted from her silky hair.

“Ok, just follow how I move my feet with your own, and don’t worry, I won’t let go until you feel ready you’re ready and say so, ok?”

Mia nodded and followed Charles’s movements, moving her feet with his when he advised her to.

 ***** The next few hours progressed quickly with  Mia easily grasping the mechanics of walking *****