Mannequin: Prologue – “Something Missing”

She was nearly complete.

I couldn’t remember when I had stopped referring to her as “it.”  When had she so completely enthralled me, thwarting my senses and sensibility alike?  I had been so careful.  When had she become more than an object, more than a mere sum of her parts?  When had she become my masterpiece?

Looking back, it was all but inevitable.  I knew full well how abominable my task might become when I first started on her.  Perhaps if I had not kept her hidden for so many years, those closest to me would have had a chance to save me, before she had consumed what remained of my sanity.

It was too late for that, now.  I could not be redeemed.  I did not want to be redeemed.

And yet, looking at her now, lying there with a glow that only my gentle, caressing hands could give her, I felt something missing.  Something gone, or something that never was.  One last shred kept her from true perfection.

Eyes.  She needed eyes.  Eyes full of passion, full of intelligence.  Eyes as deep as the ocean and as clear as the night sky.  I needed eyes to give her life.

I felt a slow smile creep across my face.  Eyes.  I knew exactly where to find them.