The dream started at some point and now Shawn found himself in the kitchen. He was munching on a bowl of Boo Berry cereal, which meant that it was October and that Halloween was here.

The house was empty except for Mr. Clayton who was cleaning the dishes at the sink. There was a clang of metal pots and the soapy clink of glasses that needed to be washing. In the oven, something was cooking. Shawn knew it was a dessert of some kind that Mr. Clayton had prepared especially for him.

Shawn ate his cereal, feeling less tired than usual. He glanced up at Mr. Clayton. "Thanks for doing the dishes." There was dessert for later, but for now, it was really nice of him to take care of the chores. He took a bite of Boo Berry.

The Boo Berry cereal tasted rich with fruity flavor and light with sugar. It crunched with a rough, granular and satisfying texture in Shawn's mouth.



"Oh, it's no problem. You know what they say? Two hands are better than one!" Mr. Clayton said, clearly washing the dishes with both of his hands now, though something was off with the expression.

"So tell me honey, how was school?" Mr. Clayton asked, and Shawn could see he was wearing a yellow apron now, and yellow, rubber gloves that he was using to wash the dishes like some sort of 1950s Mom.

Shawn wasn't sure why Mr. Clayton would be acting all domestic like this, but he was nothing if not willing to play along. "It was all right. Tough to pay attention sometimes, though." The comment about two hands made him wonder something, and he tried to recall what school had been like recently. Had he been taking Mr. Clayton with him, or was he leaving him at home? Maybe that was why he had trouble remembering school?

While he was doing that, though, he also noticed Mr. Clayton's expression and hazarded a guess about what it might mean. "Do you want help with the dishes?"

“Mmm-hmmmmmmmmm...” Mr. Clayton agreed when Shawn spoke of how it was hard to concentrate at school.

It was hard to concentrate. And Shawn felt vague bits of reality filter through the dreamscape. Shawn was tired. He was tired and it was hard to concentrate in Mrs. Moore’s class. Back to School night was right around the corner, which meant that either Mom or Dad would soon thereafter have a parent-teacher conference with Mrs. Moore. What would his teachers say? And for that matter, would Mom or Dad be going. Shawn hadn’t seen or spoken to his Mom in a month since Dad had that argument.


“Would you be a dear and finish washing the rest of these dishes?.” Mr. Clayton said in a demure, house-wife’s tone, lifting one yellow glove out of the soap suds of the sink.

Shawn felt worry creep in as he remembered parent-teacher conferences were coming up. His grades probably weren't very good if he couldn't even remember class half the time. It almost didn't matter if it was Mom or Dad meeting with his teacher, he didn't want to disappoint either of them. But that was for later, when he was out of the dreamscape = it was hard to think about it right now. He swallowed down the last of his cereal and brought his bowl to the sink before picking up a dish towel and starting to dry the dishes Mr. Clayton had already washed. "Did you want to talk to me about something?" His tone was politely curious - he didn't think he'd be having this dream if Mr. Clayton didn't want to tell him something.

“Why yes” Mr. Clayton said. His wooden head slowly looked down into the sink.


The sink swirled with white soap. But the water itself was dark. It was impossible to see from Shawn's vantage point how deep the water was or what lay beneath those white soap suds and dark, almost black water. If Shawn was going to find the last dish, he'd have to stick his entire arm into the sink, at least up to the elbow.


“I need you to reach in there, and see if you can find the very last dish in there” Mr. Clayton said

"Umm, sure." Shawn set the cloth aside and tentatively reached into the opaque sink water. He swirled his hand around, trying to find the missing dish.

The water was murky and the soap suds were luke-warm and somehow spongy. They clung to Shawn's forearms and skin like crawling insects. As Shawn stuck his hand deeper in the sink, the dark water greedily swallow it up to his elbow.

He fished around in the unknown depths for a few seconds searching for something or any sign of the missing dish. Suddenly, something scaly brushed up against the skin of Shawn's hand and in and instant it was gone, the swirling water current still pushing from where it had passed by.



"Did you find it?" Mr. Clayton asked

Shawn felt something strange and not at all dish-like brush up against his hand. But he stayed in-character for the domestic scene Mr. Clayton had built. "I don't feel it anywhere - would it be easier to drain the sink first?"

"No. We'll need to soak the tray in the oven after dinner is done. Maybe jsut reach in there one more time?" Mr. Clayton suggested

Shawn nodded and smiled, and thrust his hand deep into the sink one more time.

Shawn plunged his hand in, searching around for the dish. He felt something: a smooth, porcelain shape. But it was slippery. And it fell out of the grasp of his right hand.

Mr. Clayton, loomed up on the side of Shawn's peripheral vision.




"Maybe try with both hands." Mr. Clayton said, with the eagerness of someone ready to get a house chore over with. Then he disappeared from Shawn's vision and Shawn heard the clackity-clack of his wooden feet against the linoleum kitchen flooring as the Puppet made his way towards the oven.

Shawn adds his other hand, not sure what this whole thing was about but wanting to get it over with and have dessert.

Shawn put his other and in and then...

'Crinch!' There was a snapping sound somewhere at the bottom of the sink and a sudden jolt of pain on Shawn's right hand. Like a sharp knife of some kind or a needle had stabbed him. Or maybe something had bit him.

The water immediately began to turn red with blood.

"Something wrong?" Mr. Clayton's voice could be heard from the other side of the kitchen.

Shawn immediately pulled his hands out of the water, and applied pressure to his right hand. "Ow! Something cut me!"

But Mr. Clayton was busy with the oven. The door to the oven was open and he was bending down, peering into it, the profile view of his Puppet head visible to Shawn.

"Oh? Did you get a little nip?" Mr. Clayton said still looking into the oven. He wasn't wearing the yellow rubber gloves anymore. Instead he was wearing large, white oven mitts, the kind used to handle hot plates in a kitchen. The oversized gloves on his hands brought forth images of Mickey Mouse gloves.

"A little nippy-nip?" He asked absently, voice of a Mother that was slightly distracted.

Meanwhile there was blood leaking out of Shawn's hand. It ran down his forearm and dripped onto the floor. Shawn could see that for all the blood, the cut was very small, perhaps less than centimeter. But it was deep. The skin folded as he flexed his hand, and deep, red blood welled out.

Shawn was generally tired and fuzzy these days, and that made him unsure of the degree to which this was a dream or real or both. What he was sure of was that his hand was really hurting and that it looked like a lot of blood. He did his best to keep his right hand still, and clamped his left hand over the cut. "I need bandaids, I'm really bleeding..." His tone was insistent, but even hurt as he was, he instinctively shied away from screams or whining or complaining. He tried to remember if his parents kept first aid stuff in the kitchen.

Mr. Clayton came over with a rag. The oven was left open and smoke was billowing out, whatever had been inside was now burning. He inspected Shawn's hand. Blood soaked his own wooden hands as he took Shawn's hand in them. Then he produced a rag from behind his back to soak up the wound. Then another rag. Then another. He soaked up the blood and with each rag that was wet, he dropped on the floor with 'plop.' Finally, several piles of rags later, the wound had stopped bleeding.

"Better?" Mr. Clayton asked

Shawn kept his hand still to make sure it didn't set off any more bleeding. "I'm okay....sorry about the oven..." He looked down at the pile of rags at his feet. He'd probably need some kind of bandage.

Shawn glanced back at the oven and saw that there was a large cake on the table. It had somehow gotten there from the oven in a way that only makes sense in dreams. The oven was no longer burning. Shawn knew somehow that the cake was for him.



"That's a very deep cut." Mr. Clayton remarked. "It might go down right to the bone. And beyond the bone really. It might go even into the bone. It's probably deep enough to where it goes into you. Not just your body. But right down into who you are."

Shawn glanced from the cake back to his arm. "What does that mean? What was in the sink?" Whatever Mr. Clayton was trying to show him, Shawn didn't understand it. What he did understand was getting hurt.

Mr. Clayton looked at the sink then at the oven and then at the cake.



"It could mean many things." Mr. Clayton concluded. "It might be something you need to reflect on in the waking ours. Or maybe we could talk about it now."

Mr. Clayton sat down at the table. He had to sit on his knees just to reach the edge otherwise he'd be too short. "Over cake!" He added, looking at the cake.

Shawn kept the remaining rag squeezed tightly on his arm, but this was Mr. Clayton's dream and there didn't seem to be any reason not to follow along. "Sure, let's talk." He gave the dummy a slightly woozy smile, then went over to the table and sat himself down. "I don't really have any free hands to eat with, though."

Mr. Clayton didn’t respond to this. Instead, he cocked his wooden head to one side and opened his mannequin mouth to ask Shawn a question:





"Who controls the magic Shawn?" Mr. Clayton asked with wonder and curiosity"Who controls the magical things that I do? Who changes things like wishes and reality?”

Shawn kept the pressure on his arm tight as he considered. "I don't know...I don't think I can control it, but you said the dummy was a trifle. Is it someone else?" Sure, when he wasn't dreaming, Shawn knew he technically was the one moving Mr. Clayton around and giving him a voice. But he was also certain the dummy had his own independent existence and goals, even if he wouldn't admit it.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:22, Fri 13 Sept 2019.

"That's right. I did say that Shawn. You have a very good memory" Mr. Clayton commented in the tone a doting parent would use to praise a child who colored inside the lines.

"The dummy is a trifle. Do you know what that means? It means that the dummy is nothing. I am nothing. I'm just what I am: A dummy. The name fits me Shawn. I mean, look at me. I'm made of wood. And I have this ridiculous mouth that is always smiling. And these eyes that always look like they are looking out past you or through you. Mr. Clayton elaborated.

"There are all kinds of us dummies Shawn. Sometimes we have strings that hold us up. And sometimes you have to put your hand up my back to get me to move. In fact, I can't even speak without you making me speak. You know why? Because I'm a dummy."

"The name dummy fits me perfectly: Something that is so dumb it can't do anything without being controlled."

"I am nothing. I am a trifle. I am a dummy."

Shawn looked Mr. Clayton up and down. He had to concede the puppet was correct - he was made of wood, his mouth was operated by a hidden lever, his arms and legs had to be specifically manipulated by him. And yet, Shawn never felt in control, felt like he was in charge. "But I don't know how to do stuff with magic and wishes and stuff. If you can only do things by being controlled, who's controlling you to do things?"

"You are!" Mr. Clayton said with furious alacrity. His eyes rolled upward and for a moment it looked like they might roll all the way back into his wooden skull.

Instead Shawn saw that Mr. Clayton was, in fact, just looking directly above him, his head still fixed in the same position.

Shawn followed Mr. Clayton's eyes and saw what Mr. Clayton was looking at, just above the Puppet's own head:

Shawn's hand, the one that was cut, was holding a wooden cross piece above the Puppet's head. From the cross piece, multiple strings were attached to Mr. Clayton's arms, wrists, knees and feet.

"If you don't know how to do something. It means that you haven't practiced enough. You have to give it everything you have. How do you think Bradford learned to bring you the Briar Patch? He learned because he practiced every day and every night until the secrets of ventriloquism began to reveal themselves to him."
This message was lightly edited by the player at 01:04, Sat 14 Sept 2019.

Shawn experimentally tried to move his cut hand, even wrapped in the rags, and watched the cross-piece over Mr. Clayton's head to see if it moved with it. Then he turned back to Mr. Clayton 'himself'. "You know I've been doing that. I'm working really hard to practice like you want."

Mr. Clayton's head jangled about with the movements of Shawn's hand, before settling into a more believable rhythm.



"Exactly" Mr. Clayton said.

"But it isn't what I want you to do that matters Shawn. You have to want it. I'm not someone to please or displease. I'm just a dumb piece of wood. I don't have a voice or a mind. I'm a trifle."

"Through practicing and performing consistently, you're only going to get better and better with this dumb piece of wood. This silly object that looks real but really isn't. Because that's what I am: a dummy. Look at me and see how I don't even have a purpose other than to be toyed about. That's what I am. A toy."

"I can only be controlled by someone who wants to give everything over to the practice of learning. Willingly. Not to please me. How can you please something so dumb? But to give themselves over to the idea that ventriloquism has its secrets. To trust that only through practice and faith that those secrets will show you the way."

"And every once and a while, through practicing, you will see a glimpse of those
secrets. And when you do, you must take them in and let them become a part of you."

"You must act on them, even if you don't fully understand what they mean."

Shawn tried to square that away with other things that Mr. Clayton had told him. It made sense, more or less, but that didn't necessarily mean it was true. He tried to think about what this meant in practice. "So you really can't do anything yourself, and it's just me controlling you. And I need to want to learn this stuff. But since you're just me controlling you, this is basically just me giving advice to myself." He tried to think about what this meant, but his brain just kept going in circles.

"This is all really complicated...what's something I can give to learning ventriloquism right now to make something happen? To see how it's supposed to work?"

Mr. Clayton chuckled and with it, his mouth clacked open and shut over and over again with a 'rackety-rack-rack' noise.



"It's not a science!" Mr. Clayton laughed.

"This isn't something that you can pin down and turn into some formula and then repeat it like the lines you've rehearsed. It's about sacrifice. You have to let go of your attempts to control Greater Ventriloquism."

"You just have to trust it and listen to it as it comes about throughout practice." He finished.

"That's why it is called Greater Ventriloquism."

Shawn felt like Mr. Clayton's answer was evasive, but that didn't mean it wasn't the truth. Still, he felt like if he kept looking, kept searching for answers, then he could find something - if not a loophole, then some kernel of understanding. "I'm not trying to control it, I'm just trying to understand it. What else does it want, anyways? I'm already giving it all of my time and energy, my grades are probably awful now."

"We practice to be better at Ventriloquism." Mr. Clayton said.

"But for Greater Ventriloquism, we practice with the knowledge that every once and a while we get a glimpse at something." He said cryptically.

"What else does it want? The question is, what do you want? You may have to rethink about time and energy. You need to think about if there's another level of effort. This is only hard because you've never been asked to do anything hard."

"And you know it."

"You're just soft. That's all. A soft, whiny kid. It's time that you grew up and hardened yourself."

Shawn had to stop himself from recoiling like Mr. Clayton had slapped him. He'd always been the sort to wilt under judgement, to do everything he could to avoid even the lightest bit of disappointment or criticism. But at the same time, no one liked a whiner, so when the judgement did happen, Shawn always worked hard not to let it show, to take it like it didn't hurt him.

Instead, he took a moment to look up above Mr. Clayton again, to reassure himself that he was in control, and fix his tone to make sure it didn't sound whiny or about to cry. "I'm not whiny, and I'm not soft. I've done more hard things than anyone else I know." If Mr. Clayton was him, then what Mr. Clayton said was also what he thought. But that also meant that by talking to Mr. Clayton, Shawn could try to convince himself that he was wrong about him being weak. He'd done it before, after all. "I escaped from the Circus, I joined the Fortuneteller, I helped Mr. Cherrywinks get all those other kids. I stole souls, I rescued Ralph and Trenk, I sent Eddy to the krinner and I brought him back, I saw myself die. What've you done?"

"All I've ever done is what other people want me to do." Mr. Clayton responded, opening and closing his mouth. Then it was open for a second, before slowly, slowly closing until it was snapped shut. It was like Mr. Clayton was trying to let what he said sink in. Each word. And then the words together. It fit somehow, the idea that a puppet would only be doing what someone told it or made it do.

Mr. Clayton stared a very long time at Shawn.

"I have no control over my mind. I have no control over my body. I am a lifeless puppet. I am a trifle. I am stuck doing the things that those who pull the strings want me to do." he said breaking the silence. He didn't seem said about it. Rather, it seemed like he was trying convey information to Shawn somehow with that vacant stare in his eyes.

"Let's eat some cake!" He said, head shifting attention towards the cake. It was a large sponge cake baked into a cup shape with an icing topping. But it was more than just an average cake. It was an elegant lemon thyme cake, with alternating layers of lemon curd and vanilla buttercream, and then decorated with rich golden icing, candied citrus and sprigs of mint to top it off. Shawn knew without even tasting it that the first bite would be moist, tender and delicate.

Shawn met Mr. Clayton's blank gaze. He thought that the puppet was trying to tell him something, but he wasn't entirely sure what. He wasn't even sure if Mr. Clayton was talking about himself the puppet, or trying to convey something about Shawn...and he didn't like that it was difficult to tell. He sighed a little sadly, then looked at the cake. It looked good, and eating it sounded much better than insulting one another. "I'd like some cake, please."

When Shawn looked up from the cake to meet Mr. Clayton's vacant stare, the Puppet was already busy scooping forkfuls of cake into his mouth.

"All you have to do pick up your fork and eat." Mr. Clayton instructed, a large glob if cake falling from his mouth and 'plopping' onto the table with a wet sound.

"mmmmmmmmmm." Mr. Clayton said, frosting now coating his mannequin mouth.

"It's so good. I'm glad we get to spend this time together! Yucka! Yucka!"

Shawn picked up his fork with his free hand, and used it to snag a piece of cake. As he was about to eat it, a thought occurred to him. "Mr. Clayton, what was going on with those dishes?" While he waited for an answer, he popped the piece of cake into his mouth.

The cake was buttery and delicious all at the same time as Shawn tasted the first bite. it had a nutty flavor yet it was light and somehow creamy.

"It felt like you were going into the unknown for a moment when you were reaching down into the sink. Is that what it felt like? It looked that way. When you go into the unknown, far, far out from what you know, that's where the forces of great change are. There's a lot of potential there Shawn. But there's also great deal of uncertainty and confusion."

"Is that what you mean?" Mr. Clayton's tone was now philosophical and a bit darker than the sing-songy, high-pitched voice Shawn had grown accustomed to.

Shawn took another bite of the cake, and watched Mr. Clayton speak. Obviously, he didn't have facial expressions in the same way as a human would, but he noticed the tone changing, even if he didn't entirely understand the meaning. "I guess? But it felt like something bit me. And it's my puppet hand; that can't be good for performing."

A glob of frosting fell off of Mr. Clayton's chin and plopped to the table, staining the tablecloth with white cream.

"Something did bite you." Mr. Clayton agreed, his tone still very much level, dour and increasingly philosophical. Then he cocked his head, more frosting falling from his mouth, a bit of cake falling with it. "But even using the word 'bite' means that you might know what that was. You put your hands into the unknown water. How could you really know what happened?"

He stared at Shawn with that smile: empty and vacant. A skull's grin.

Shawn nodded in agreement as he continued eating, a bit less messily than Mr. Clayton was. "It felt scaly, and sharp. Like a piranha. And you called it a nip, which is like a bite."

"All true." Mr. Clayton agreed. He wasn't really eating anymore. Not really. The fork was place at an awkward angle on the table in front of him.

"Inside the water is where the strange and unknown live. You know that. You've always known that. Haven't you?" Mr. Clayton said, and his tone was now rising with some of his usual manic enthusiasm.

Shawn bit down on something hard and foreign. It was kind of like the sensation of finding out that the sandwich that you brought to the beach had sand or a rock in it. Shawn found that his tongue wanted to move about and try to identify the foreign object in the cake he had in his mouth.

"Do you understand what I'm talking about?" Mr. Clayton asked, a grin in his voice.

Shawn moved the strange item around his mouth, scraping away the cake surrounding it with his tongue. He tried to identify what it was by touch, but if he couldn't do so, he'd have to spit it out into his hand.

Shawn's tongue identified the hardness of the object. There was a sharp part of it and then some kind of soft outer coating. Once Shawn swiped away the cake, he spit the object out into his hand.

Whatever it was, it was sitting in his hand coated in a glob of cake and frosting.

"So much of what I'm saying is about getting rid of distractions Shawn." Mr. Clayton said. He stopped talking for a second as both Shawn and the Puppet focused their gaze on Shawn's hand, which was palm facing up, holding a glob of cake mush but inside the mush, whatever the object was in Shawn's mouth.

The pause, was mechanical as well. It was hard or near impossible to manipulate the Puppet with one hand and scrape away the cake from the object in Shawn's other hand. Still, Shawn got the sense that Mr. Clayton was eager to see what the object was and also eager to keep talking to Shawn.

Shawn tried to figure out the west way to clean off the object while still allowing Mr. Clayton to talk. In the end, he settled for using his free hand to scrape the cake mush off onto the bloody rags his hands were wrapped in, while doing his best to keep his puppet hand steady.

Shawn looked through the cake batter at the object in his hand.

It was....

A finger. A small finger with a long black nail attached to it. The skin of the finger was a greenish-brown. And the nail was sharp like the hand must of been clawed. The finger itself was very small, almost child-like.

Shawn looked at the finger for a moment without realizing what it was. When it finally dawned on him, he immediately spat out what cake was left in his mouth. He looked over at Mr. Clayton, clearly shocked and a little queasy, but still trying not to show weakness in front of him. "Did you bake this in here?"

"It was one of the ingredients." Mr. Clayton said nonchalantly. "You've got to get rid of distractions somehow! Yucka! Yucka!"

The his eyes looked over Shawn. "So, what did we learn?"

Shawn looked at the finger for a bit, but changed focus when he noticed Mr. Clayton staring at him. "I learned not to let things distract me...but is the finger a distraction, or a secret?"

"It was a distraction. The finger and its owner were both a distraction" Mr. Clayton replied. "Because there is only enough room for one focus in your head. For one voice. For our voice. No other. There is no other voice now. We must lose things that are distracting and sharpen ourselves to a single point of focus: changing things back to the way they were"

Mr. Clayton's vacant eyes probed the depths of Shawn's own eyes for a full five seconds  before the Puppet spoke again. "If changing things back is our focus, then Greater Ventriloquism is the path that we take to get to that focus. And in so doing, we must let go of everything and turn ourselves over to it."

Shawn found himself looking away from the finger at all costs once Mr. Clayton hinted that he'd known the owner; he was afraid of recognizing it. He found himself thinking about what the dummy said, about distractions and focus and ignoring the unimportant things. "Wait...this is a distraction, isn't it? I'm supposed to ignore you right now."

Without waiting for an answer, he stood up, pushing his chair back with a squeak. He walked over to the sink and looked down into its depths. This was where the strange and unknown lived; that was where he'd find the secrets he needed to make his will real. He plunged his hand back into the water, searching for something. He didn't know what, but hoped he'd recognize it when he felt it.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:57, Thu 19 Sept 2019.

Shawn felt around inside of the sink. There were a few pieces of broken dishes at the bottom and a stray fork. But somehow Shawn knew that those items were not what he was looking for.

Mr. Clayton was silent the entire time.

Water swished about. It was thick and luke-warm. There was something smelly in the water. It smelled like old docks and barnacles. Like the smell of a sponge in a sink that's been used too often. A rotten smell of mildew that worked its way up Shawn's nose.

Shawn grabbed a hold of something in the water....and it slipped away. He was now up to his shoulder in mucky, gray water.

Finally Shawn grabbed a hold of something and began to pull it up. A small, batwinged body emerged from the water. A dead thing, with a severed hand. It was curled up in rigor-mortis.

Shawn saw that it was Feddler. Or rather was Feddler. The Imp was dead.

Shawn recoiled from the body for a moment, but he remained in control enough to keep hold of it. Sure, the imp wasn't human, and had made a lot of trouble in his life, and probably only helped him out of self-preservation, but Feddler had known him better than perhaps anyone else in his entire life. He felt a pang of something sad as he backed away from the sink with the body in tow. He looked at the puppet. "Did you do this?" He kept his tone neutral - no judgements or accusations.

"I am a dummy who cannot move his arms or legs. I have no mind of my own. I have no ability to speak without the aid of another. The dummy is a trifle. I am a dummy. I am nothing. Mr. Clayton said.

Feddler's body was stiff and curled up and rigid as a tree branch. Rivulets of putrid sink water dripped down his scaly body in the sink. The expression on his face was one of complete terror and surprise. A frozen expression of something that had been violently drowned.

"I did this yes. But what I just said is also true."

Shawn looked away from Feddler's body, unable to bring himself to look at the imp's expression. Feddler had helped him, but he'd also been responsible for a lot of problems. If he hadn't delayed him in the forest that one time on his birthday, he might've been able to keep Bobby alive... Regardless of his feelings, he couldn't let them out where Mr. Clayton would see. "Thank you for your help. Feddler pulled my strings a lot, and that was scary."

He glanced back at the sink, then over too the puppet once more, deliberately skipping over the body. "If he was in the sink where all the unknown stuff is, does that mean he's a secret we can learn from? He knew more about magic stuff than he told me."

Mr. Clayton shook his puppet head. He looked like a dummy doing that. A head that was just wooden and without life. A stupid head, really.

"You should go into the water. Mr. Clayton suggested with his bright smile. "That's where the unknown things are. And you need to push yourself down, down, down there. But you probably won't do it."

"Without some kind of push of your own. You know what we should do?" Mr. Clayton said, brightening up as if he just thought of brilliant idea.

"You should push me down there. Right down into the sink. You should drown me. I'm just a stupid dummy. I can't really drown."

Shawn cocked his head to the side. "You want me to try and drown you? I mean, I can if you'd like." A little hesitantly, he got to his feet and went over to Mr. Clayton's side of the table. He picked the dummy up, and cradled him like you were supposed to do when performing, cradling the bottom and holding him up straight as he walked over to the sink. He looked down into the water, and then gave Mr. Clayton one last look, to give him a chance to clarify or say 'nevermind'.

Mr. Clayton stared back at Shawn with those vacant eyes.

"Do it. It will be just like when you killed Bradford. Mr. Clayton said. "You should think of Bradford when you do it. Think of him and all the pain he caused."

Shawn met Mr. Clayton's gaze silently for a moment or two. And then he violently shoved Mr. Clayton's head into the sink, pushing the puppet as far into the water as he'd go. And he thought of Bradford as he did, but the old Bradford, and how Mr. Clayton had twisted him into something that couldn't coexist with Shawn, that had made their conflict inevitable. He hated Mr. Clayton for that, hated him, but also needed him, and hated himself for needing him, and he tried to push Mr. Clayton even deeper into the water.

Warm hatred flooded Shawn's limbs as he forced the Puppet's head down into the luke-warm water. If it was a movie scene, then Mr. Clayton's floppy arms and legs would be straining about, trying to resist the imminent death. Instead, they just...

went down into the water. It was more like shove any other object into the water than it was shoving a living, breathing thing. If it was a movie, it would have been an anticlimactic scene.

Nevertheless, the feeling of pushing Mr. Clayton down into the water, at least in the dream, stirred feelings within Shawn: raw, uninhibited feels that were rarely let out at at home or in conversations with his family. Feelings of anger and hate. They burst free as Shawn shook the Puppet violently under the water. And just as quickly....

OOC: Shawn Joins Thread

Shawn: Are You Listening?