Only My Eyes Move: The First Nightmare

When a puppet becomes self-aware, can it prove its sentience to its puppeteer before a show? All is dark when Billy awakes. He doesn't know where or what he is. All he knows is he can only move his eyes, the rest of his body is attached to strange trends, keeping him trapped. They must be cut. There is a man who knows him, but Billy doesn't know who the man is. He might just be the key for Billy to escape the hell he has woken up to. But how can he do that when he can't even speak? Billy has to find a way to speak, or he will stay as a helpless observer of his own existence. Only My Eyes Move is the first entry in the Eight Nightmares Collection, a collection of horror stories about the dreamlike, the surreal, and encounters with the fantastical. Only My Eyes Move is rated R for child torture, existential horror and entrappment. Reader discretion is advised. I often find that short stories have more impact than full novels in the horror genre, and Only My Eyes Move is proof of that. The story is a brief, eerie, and disconcerting glimpse into the life of a puppet, exploring lack of autonomy and entrapment that will make me never look at toys the same way again. It's like if Toy Story was for adults, and reminded me of the creepier Punch and Judy shows from childhood. This is a great example of how horror doesn't need to be gory and twisted to be shocking. The fresh perspective on a mundane subject is enough to put you on edge in just fifteen pages. Rachel Bowdler-Goodreads