The Doll - Part 1
The first time you stepped into the house you inherited from your great aunt, you got a pretty bad scare. For a minute you thought someone had broken in but it turns out to be a life-sized doll leaning in the corner. It's not the only eccentric thing in the house, but it's the creepiest so far. No wonder your parents didn't want you visiting when you were young.
"What the hell are you?" You murmur, going in for a closer look.
The doll has weighted, ball-jointed limbs and a range of motion that makes it feel far too real when you touch it. Its hair is black, almost purple in the soft lighting of the vintage lamps, falling past its shoulders. Its features are so realistic that it looks like a person who had a run-in with Medusa. You snicker childishly as you peer under its clothes.
"What are all these details for? Nipples and everything. Why does a doll need a dick?"
Wait a minute. What if it's a weird sex doll? You yank your hand away.
"Oh hell no. Goodbye." You heave the thing into your arms like a dead body and struggle down into the basement, where you're keeping all the old stuff until you can hold a garage sale.
You prop the doll in the corner and you're back upstairs in a few minutes. You quickly forget all about the doll until a few days later, when you're woken up in the middle of the night by a weight dipping the mattress. In your sleep-addled mind, you think it's your cat. Except you don't have a cat. Your eyes fly open to find a face poised above yours. The doll is straddling you.
That was mean, the doll says, even though its lips don't move an inch. Does my form not please you?
"I'm having a nightmare," you mumble. "You're not real."
Hurtful. Please let me stay here with you. The basement is damp and reeks of mold.
"You're a doll. You're not supposed to care."
Oh, but I do.
Its hard body shifts as it gets comfortable beside you.
"This is a crazy dream," you announce, too sleepy to be able to tell what's real or not.
Then I will be gone from your side when you wake.
The next day you're alone in your bed, much to your relief. But all that washes away when you go downstairs and find the doll on the couch, frozen with its head turned in your direction. It's smiling.
Part 2
