Return To Sender

Everything came to me at once. During the storm from a few days ago, Alice came over to collect her things. I had had far more to drink than ever before, and had worked myself into a frothing rage. She and I had an argument, and I had stabbed her with a kitchen knife, which I then concealed in my dresser. She fell out of the window into the skip, and the raging storm had muffled the sounds of the fight.

In an effort to sever all bonds to her I chucked away the gift I cherished the most, the plush toy she had made me for my Birthday. I had intended to give it to charity before, which is why it was sealed up.

When I looked at the missed delivery note from before I recognized my own handwriting. There had never been a delivery, my own subconscious had conspired to make me see the truth, and Jarvis had died of shock when his powers had shown him what I had done.

As for Grump, I must have killed him during the fight with Alice.

Reality and fantasy floated around my mind, and I could no longer tell them apart.

Was the doll a reminder of my sins, or a punishment for them? Did it possess any powers, or was it all in my head? As I stumbled woozily across my room I pondered the window.

“She’s not coming back, tee hee! Might as well join her...” said the doll, who I now knew for certain could never speak at all.

As I prepared to jump I considered that, if I had never opened the box, if I had done as Jarvis has said, I would never have been in this situation. Granted the authorities would have realized sooner or later, and I would have spent the rest of my life behind bars, but that nightmare seemed preferable to… this. In the end, as I fell I only had time to think a single sentence.

I should never have opened you.

The End