Thank you Anon for my first commission piece! This was a lot of fun to write up and I ended up taking a slightly darker turn at the end than I was originally planning. The original character design was created and sent into me by Anon.
Lilly Cobbs and The Family Curse:
What do you do when your whole family dies from a curse? Interesting question, I know. But bear with me for a second. My name is Lilly Cobb. My whole family has since died and I can only assume I’m next. Why, you may ask?
Well I woke up this morning, brushed my long purple hair, put on my usual purple dress and donned my floppy purple hat. Then I made my way to my family’s gravestones in the front yard of our manor to say my good mornings to them.
But a new gravestone was there that hadn’t been last night. It had my name on it, my birthdate and blank, I can only assume, was my death date.
I’ll be 12 years old in exactly one week and I highly doubt I’ll live that long. But it’s okay, I’m not scared to die. It’ll just be a new adventure.
“Do you think I can blow things up as a ghost?” I asked the cigar dangling from my lips, it was originally my mom’s but after she died I took it. The soft purple smoke wobbled upwards in the breeze and formed the vague outline of my mother.
“Now, Lilly, that's a strange question to ask,” she replied. “I wonder why I didn’t think of it.” She stroked her chin. “Oh! I’ll go test it out now!” Her smoke evaporated and she was gone.
What to do when my whole family dies from a curse...My mind wandered back to my question. Should I wait for my death to come like it did for mom, dad and my younger brother? Or should I speed up the process?
A loud shriek came from the living room and interrupted my thoughts. Jerry is hungry. I got up off the kitchen counter and skipped to the living room. Jerry is my large flytrap plant. He’s my pet, mom and dad got him for me when he was as big as my palm. Now he’s as big as me. He thinks I’m food sometimes and he’ll try to swallow me, I mostly just laugh as he tries to gobble me up.
I tossed a squirrel at him and he caught it. Then he reached for my arm and sucked me in too. I laughed. “Jerry, you little jerk.” I said when he spit me back out. “Enjoy your breakfast?”
He shrieked.
“Good. Glad I could help ya out buddy.” I smiled and patted his nose.
I twirled my way over to the reading nook and bounced onto the chair in the window. I often wonder what my death will like. “Jerry, do you think it’ll be spectacular? I will be the last one to die, you know. It’s gotta be something cool, right?”
He let out a long shriek.
I laughed. “Don’t worry, Jer, I’ll leave you outside so you can eat all the squirrels you want when I’m gone.”
He snapped his teeth in my direction.
“Now? I guess you’re right, I’m definitely not making it to my birthday so I should prep now.” I hopped up and dragged his pot all through the house, down the foyer and out through the gardens. I parked his pot right outside the manor gate on the sidewalk. “There you go. Now you’ll be set.” I waved goodbye as I shut the gate behind me.
I turned to go back to the house but I tripped over something at my feet. It was my mom's helmet from her cannon. She used that thing to get everywhere because she always said she was too short to travel long distances.
I plopped the helmet on my head and lit the fuse to the cannon that sat next to the gate. I hopped into the tube of the cannon and let out a holler when it blasted me into the air. Tucking in my legs I rolled into the landing and bumped up against the stairs to the front door with a chuckle.
Thunder cracked overhead and I looked up as I reached for the doorknob. A smile spread across my lips as the raindrops fell. “Rain. Perfect weather today.” I shut the door behind me and promptly spun on my heels, headed for the kitchen. My balance was thrown off by a hand firmly wrapping itself around my wrist and pulling me down. I yelped as my chin smacked into the floor.
“What the--”
A hand covered my mouth and I looked into the pale green eyes of a man leaning over me. “You’re a daredevil of a girl, aren’t you?” He asked. I tried to respond but his hand was firm on my mouth. “Shh. Don’t be scared, I’ve been watching you for the past month. Shooting yourself out of a cannon, getting swallowed by an abnormally large flytrap, you even have a room of explosives that you so carelessly play in - and yet, you still won’t die.” He let out a low chuckle and removed his hand.
“Now, how shall we do it, hmm? How about we tie you up and set off all those explosives upstairs?”
“So it’s not a curse…” I whispered to myself. “You killed my family?” I spoke directly to the man.
He laughed. “Oh no, it’s very much a curse. One that you somehow keep evading.”
“So, the curse won’t kill me, so now you have to?”
“Ding, ding!” He said with a wink. “You’re a sharp one ain’t ya kiddo.” He grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet, dragging me up the stairs.
“Wait, so who set the curse? If I’m going to die anyway, there’s no harm in telling me.” We made it to the top of the stairs. “Right?”
He turned to me with the darkest of smiles I’ve ever seen grace someone’s face. He let a low chuckle escape his lips.
“Your father.” He said as he tossed a flour sack over my head.