EnglandxReader: The Cuckoo Bird

A lovely doll; a mere portrait to glance upon and admire. That's what they called "humans" like her; if they even bothered to acknowledge her. Those things, those objects without being, weren't even considered "humans". They were considered weapons; beautiful and deadly. That was all she was. A prize, an object; only to be gazed upon, and never to be touched or handled. That was the way she "lived". Or maybe it was just "existing". No one was really sure what they were. A mere portrait to be admired. A human captured at her finest pinnacle of emotion that she was stuck there; trapped in time, to never change, so that she never could differ. A doll had no emotions; they were stuck at one emotion, the last one they had as a human; if you only had one emotion, does it even count as an emotion? But they had supernatural powers; yes, like everything would be better with them. They had no use for them, though. She was just a toy which could be easily shattered; hence the title of doll.

This one... was special. He had never seen a "female" doll who was anything like her. Her eyes were flickering shades of dull; of death.

And that was the way he remembered her.

"Who are you, love?" There was something about her that was familiar. Ah, but what was familiarity? A false sense of calmness? Of reminiscence? Was there anything that was actually familiar, he wondered? There was no use for these thoughts, so he shook his head and bought her off display. 

Her body did not move one inch, and her face was as cold as always. This was perfection at its finest; the finest beauty was tragedy and sorrow. And this was horrendous, he thought. Because life was not perfect. And she was not life.

The clock struck one, in March.

He opened his eyes, and even after looking frantically around, the cuckoo was still not there.

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"Smile for me, love."

She did just that. And maybe she had moved once or twice; he could hardly tell. After all, she was a "cuckoo"; a person who was "created" only to be admired, to be told what to do, and to tell the time. Each cuckoo counted down to a specific event, but no cuckoo would reveal what the event was; they were only a ticking time bomb. No one knew why they were so fascinating, even they counted down to something no one knew in particular. No cuckoo would ever tell any human what number they were on, either. Only fellow cuckoos would know, because of telepathic powers; those powers that no cuckoo needed. 

In this world full of "dolls", only the "craftsmen" were real humans. The rest of the creatures had no emotions. None. It was said that "cuckoos", and the other kinds of dolls, were "created" from humans who were traumatized in some way. A result of horror and tragedy. For example, if someone witnessed a brutal massacre, and they were the lone survivor, that would be a possible situation where a cuckoo resulted. If the person grew insane or detached, they were deemed a "cuckoo". If the person was unharmed, then they would stay a human. And that's why they looked so perfect, so serene, because after seeing the world's demise, everything seemed wonderful; beauty is only in the eyes of the viewer.

However, what about the humans who were close to the doll? It was supposed that they were made to forget about their contact with the newly-formed doll. Maybe by forced amnesia? Were the dolls subjected to memory loss, as well? What horrors and brutal fate they had resigned to, and what were their final thoughts? Tragically beauty and fatal.

Either way, the tragic things were always beautiful.

"Sing for me."

The cuckoo opened her mouth, and spoke for the second time in her life.

"Cuckoo, cuckoo." 

The doll spoke. He listened.

The grandfather clock rung many times in April, but the cuckoo sang only twice.

Those echoes of her voice resounded in his head, but when he shook them out, he found that they were never there in the first place.
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Every day, she would repeat it over and over again; repetition is an art, is it not? Her voice was sweet when she sung it, so different from when he did, in his agony.

It repeated like clockwork. A metallic clank, which throbs only in tune to its pendulum. Cuckoos had their own "clock". It was on a different time measurement.

Sometimes, he wondered if dolls were able to feel anything; it was just...surreal, to believe that after this...event, a person could completely lose all sense of humanity. He certainly wished she could feel something, because there was something about her that made him feel that she was real; he felt this odd connection to her, but then again, she was a doll. Dolls were known for manipulating the mind. They had psychic powers that were dangerous. They were a helpful ally, and an unforgiving foe.

Dolls were known for hysteria. For insanity. Because they had broken dreams and distorted sights, and they frightened the general public.

However, he would notice that sometimes, she would be staring out of the window; when she had moved her head, he didn't know, but dolls were always capable of startling humans. That's why many of them were eliminated early on.

He fell asleep watching the doll's eyes stray, not hearing the small sigh she let out. Her eyes silently followed the sun every day, counting from it, the number of hours that had passed. The moon was the same. She stared at it. 

Like a cuckoo, she clucked softly at the stupidity of humans.

It was three in the morning. And it was May. And the cuckoo sang softly, only uttering the same word in patterns of three. Three, three, three.

It was his last memory of her being calm. His last memory of her staring out the window. His last memory of the cuckoo not tainted with death. Sometimes he even wondered if it was truly his own memory.

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"Let me out! Get away from me, you horrible monster! I shall not stand for this horrid treatment! You despicable human! Let me out, let me out!"

He cringed listening to her screeches, and locked her inside the room. He breathed heavily, because she was growing insane; insanity and desperation were always linked hand-in-hand, were they not? She was pounding, screaming, and god, why was she suddenly acting like this? This was not a perfect doll, this was not a perfect cuckoo, and why was she acting this way? He could notice hair strands on the ground where she had angrily torn out her hair, cackling, and he just couldn't figure out why-

Denial was always a welcome friend for humans. It had been present when they thought that dolls were inferior. It was still present, even when they knew that dolls had powers that normal humans didn't. So he calmly picked up a newspaper to take his mind off of the situation; surely this was just a rare occurrence, and nothing to fret about. Was his cuckoo defective? Of course, if it was, they couldn't be repaired, (and he wondered if cuckoos could even be made) but there was nothing he could do, so he ignored that thought and started searching the article.

He stared at the newspaper in his hand, and what he saw shocked him. Ah, but "shocked" again, is just an emotion, and emotions are only different perspectives on life. And were any of them even "living", even "alive"? After all, cuckoos and dolls weren't.

In the parlor, the grandfather clock struck four.

And inside the room, the cuckoo screamed four times in desperation.

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He stared at the destroyed house in horror. Ah, but it shouldn't have been that frightening. All around, humans were screaming, because their dolls had run away and were on a rampage, rebellion ringing clearly in their ears, which shouldn't have the ability to understand anger. Anger, sadness, frustration; none of which these dolls understood, yet why were the humans the ones ignoring all of this?

She was gone. There was this horrible feeling building up in his chest that something, something like this, had happened once before. And the thought terrified him.

"UPDATE!"

He swiveled around at the large town plaza's bulletin screen, which showed pictures of rampaging dolls, and a calm reporter. The citizens were gathered in the town square, where they had put up a shield to keep out the dolls coming from outside, and this was the only area the humans supposed was calm and safe for now.

"It appears that scientists have calculated and figured out the frequency in which dolls send wavelengths in. We should be able to find out the dolls's motives rather quickly, but please, stay alert for any infiltrators. Please stay inside the town plaza and the gates while this is happening, however, and stay away from all dolls. There has been a code black emergency issued."

He anxiously watched the screen, when moments later, the reporter appeared again.

"UPDATE!

"It appears that scientists have found the so called "backwards" cuckoo, the cuckoo which counted up. The cuckoo is currently inside the shield! Please, evacuate the town square immediately, and turn to the nearby forest for safety. Reinforcements are now going in to restrain the corrupted cuckoo, and to try and set them right."

"It appears that this cuckoo was unresponsive to their owner, and instead of dutifully following their master's orders, the cuckoo stared outside and communicated with other cuckoos about ways to rebel. More information will come as soon as the cuckoo is restrained. Here is a picture of the cuckoo. If anyone sees them, run away immediately and call authorities. Note: This cuckoo is highly dangerous, and any police seeing them should immediately try to eliminate them."

A live video of the doll killing police officers was shown on the screen.

He gulped, and then looked down at his hands. Carmine red was splattered all over. Dead bodies were scattered on the ground before him. A lovely, lovely scene, was it not?

It was her? No, it was him. Him? Her? Them?

Oh, god.

The town clock started to ring.

The backwards Cuckoo stared back at the video camera filming her (him), eyes darkened with hatred. She (he) seemed like a ghost, floating quietly above the crowd. The backwards Cuckoo stared back at the girl, and he wondered who was the actual doll. And then he knew.

She (he?) lunged for the camera, and the screen turned to static.

The clock rung five times, on the first day of July.

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"The cuckoos are coming! The cuckoos are coming!"

The crowds of people screamed as they ran around, arms flailing around as they sobbed. Mothers clutching husbands and children tightly, limp bodies in the hands of those hysteric, the cuckoo army was becoming greater and greater. The cuckoos were destroying everything. Killing humans who tried to put them down, he watched as she (he?) stood at the very front, commanding every single one of them.

The humans were getting frantic now, and they were sending in tanks and helicopters to try and counter them, but they would not work. Falling bits of mechanical pieces, helicopter blades, missiles and bullets, surrounded the air and took over, but not once did the Backwards Cuckoo falter.

However, he stood there. Because he felt empty. Because somewhere, deep within the heart that he never believed he had, he remembered her. And he would stop to nothing to get her back.

She turned around at hearing her name, stabbing a soldier in the process, and she stared at him coldly as he made his way to her. He could almost touch her; he could even hear her voice as he came closer. God, it had been so long since he had heard her voice-

The tanks kept on rolling.

He kept on walking towards her, knowing that the humans (god, they really mocked the word "humane", didn't they?) were aiming at him. Where was she?

He held his head up high.

They aimed.

And then he saw her; pale and translucent, shimmering in the light. Her eyes suddenly changed, and they looked almost frantic. He thought that even in the most horrid sense, the most tragic things were still beautiful. He reached out to touch her face as he neared, and she nuzzled her head into the palm of his hand, even when they both knew that they were being aimed at. He couldn't feel her. No matter what, she was still smiling at him through the dead lids of her eyes, and that's when he knew, that the backwards cuckoo was already dead.

No matter how hard he tried, she was still dead.

"...Arthur."

Dead.

"Cuckoo."

He smiled bitterly, and he imagined that if she was here, she would've done so too. How he had tried to save her...surely the dead could not move, right? Then if she had done all of this, she wasn't dead. She couldn't be accepted as dead.

And he was bracing himself for the impact when he was suddenly pushed off by other dolls, in an effort to save their leader, and he watched in horror as her image suddenly disappeared, mid-word. Blood, horribly goopy and squishy blood, splattered all over his field of vision, and he screamed.

"Cuck-!"

The cuckoo sung at five thirty, on the last day of July, and the battle stopped. There was nothing they could do any more. The fight was over, although it was not lost.

They dragged the cuckoo away, and he, hysteric, commanded the dolls to destroy every last human. Because really, what exactly were humans but dehumanizers?

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"..Arthur Kirkland, you are being arrested for being the leader of the rebellion."

...Who was (Name), exactly?

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