Chapter 1 - The Imaginary Friend

Once upon a time, there was a girl.

She was lonely.

She had no friends, and only her poor sickly mother who could hardly care for her.

She wanted a companion...one to care for her mother and herself, one to play with her and care for her...

And it seemed that one night, her wish was granted.



Luna wandered through the cemetery behind her home, hiding behind tombstones or dancing about them. She was such a strange little girl, to dance along the graves....of course, everyone in Lunarset knew she was a rather odd child....

Her hair was as silver as the moonbeams, her skin as pale as the moon itself. Her eyes were the color of amethyst, and how they shone like jewels in the night. She wore the clothing of an older era, an old white dress and black heeled boots. She never wore anything else. And always with her, was her companion, a little doll with black robing she had named 'Little Grimmy'. Yes, she was a lovely, but strange little girl. For she had a fascination with the dead...and the undead. She often sat down and read stories of spirits and corpses that walked among the living....

Her poor mother couldn't figure out why she had such a dark fascination for the deceased at only the age of nine. She blamed the cemetery, but due to their poor nature and her current condition of health, she couldn't afford to take Luna away from the cemetery...so there they remained.

A soft giggle escaped black painted lips as the girl gracefully spun about the stones, her black parasol twirling about with her. The moonbeams almost seemed to follow the girl as she explored the yard containing the graves of the deceased. She was so caught up in her dance that she didn't notice the figure that sat atop one of the mausoleums, watching her intently. When she twirled to face it, she saw a glimpse of the figure...and it made her freeze and look again, this time nothing seemed to be there.

"Must...be my imagination..." She told herself, before she watched as the figure slowly dragged themselves upright...they had fallen off of the mausoleum in surprise when she saw them. "Hello? Who are you?" The child asked as she stepped closer, and frowned ever so slightly as the creature took the same number of steps back. "Please, I just want to see what you look like. Its ever so dark and I'm just curious..." She moved closer and this time the being stayed still and remained in silence.

Soon amethyst eyes were looking upon a strange creature. It was a young man, from what the child could tell...his body was mixed and matched with different flesh, though all of it was a pale white or off-white color. His form was adorned in stitches of every kind, some keeping the flesh together or trying to seal wounds. What caught the girls interest was the fact he had a tail....serpentine in appearance and stitched together like the rest of his body. His lower legs were bone connected to three taloned feet...and his fingers almost looked like they were ripped apart to make way for the ebony claws.

Luna did not run from him, nor did she cower in fear. Her curiosity had been sparked by his intriguing appearance....the odd child slowly took one of his hands into her own small ones, and she examined and studied his claws and ran her fingers over every stitch...the creature she inspected was a bit...surprised, to say the least.

The silver-haired girl soon looked up at his shadowed face. "What does your face look like?" He slowly crouched down so she could see for herself. His face held stitches as well, from the two stitched wounds to the one running down his hairless skull. His eyes hid behind thread, though in his sockets only one eyeball remained, his left. She inspected him curiously, noticing flecks of blood that decorated his face. She reached out and touched the joints on the sides of his jaw...he was a peculiar creature indeed, especially when his mouth opened and exposed several mix-matched fangs and a serpentine tongue...yes, a strange creature indeed.

She pricked her fingers on the thorn like needles that surrounded his elven ears, and poked the needles that jutted from his shoulder. "Wow..." she finally managed. They shared a long moment of silence before she introduced herself. "I'm Luna...Luna Taliare. What's your name?" "Don't have one..." The creature told her as he rose back up to his full stance. "That's silly, everyone has a name." "I do not." The unnamed being twisted on his claws and began to walk away...but she wouldn't allow him to go away. She hurriedly followed after him. "Where are you going?" She inquired as she kept to his side.

"To get something I dropped." "Well, what is it?" Luna asked. He stopped at the bushes he fell in and managed out a corpse, shredded and bloody. "This." He answered. Now, any normal child would've ran away and hid in the safety of their home a long time ago...but Luna was no normal child. She stared at the body in interest. "Wow....did you kill them?" She said as she got closer and leaned so she could look at the mangled corpse. She received a nod, and she grinned. "Coool....hmm?" She stopped and plucked off an item that dangled on her belt. A doll that appeared to look like a cute version of the Grim Reaper.

"What's that, Little Grimmy? Hmm...Uh-huh...yes, yes, good idea." She told him after listening. She soon rose up and dusted her dress off. "Sir, Little Grimmy wanted me to ask if you'd want to to be my friend....we can give you a nice place to live...." She pointed to the house that stood eerily on the hill overlooking the cemetery. "And we gots a big basement were you can put bodies." She gave a soft smile as she held out her hand in friendship. The creature stared at her in interest.

'This child seems to be....very, very unique....hmm...' He gave a devilish grin, revealing his sharp uneven fangs. "Alright then, I'd be happy to have you as a friend, dear Luna." He took her small hand in his own after he slung the bloody corpse over his shoulder. "Great!" The girl giggled as she clipped Little Grimmy back onto her belt, and started to lead the way to her home. Half-way there, she stopped and said. "Patchwork."

"Hmm?" The creature rose an eyebrow as he looked down at her. "Patchwork. That's the name I 'll call you by." The girl told him sweetly. He gave a grin and ruffled her silver hair. "Patchwork...that name fits just fine."