Third Post

I wonder if discovering the true nature of what lived in my house was the trigger for it to start affecting me the way it did the house's previous inhabitants. It was then the first signs suggesting the true horror of what I was dealing with began to manifest.

To start with, soon after the talk with my neighbour, I found myself getting more frequent and severe nightmares.

I've always had some nightmares, largely as a result of the traumatic experiences I endured before my adopted family found me. At the time, I didn't understand what made them resurface again; I wondered if it was listening to my neighbour tell his disturbing story of the events the night the house was partially burned down, or else if it was just a side effect of all the stress of moving into the new house.

In some of the nightmares, I was losing control and hurting my family, or being forced to watch as someone else did, paralyzed in place and unable to help them.

More frequently, the nightmares involved the doll, and related to scenes and memories from my past, which I would call highly traumatic. The doll would always be there to observe me reliving them. I could hear it laughing, telling me I deserved everything bad that happened. It tried to convince me I was actually living through those experiences again. Sometimes it succeeded.

One particularly terrifying recurring nightmare started with me getting into trouble. My parents would yell at me, telling me I was worthless, they didn't love me, literally screaming into my face until I completely broke down. After that, the doll, which would usually be watching from a rocking chair nearby, began to grow and change, morphing into a faceless man who grabbed me and dragged me, kicking and screaming, to a coffin inside the basement of my house. I was always utterly helpless to fight against him.

The man shoved me inside and shut and locked the coffin door, leaving me lying trapped in the enclosed space.

I would be stuck inside the darkness of the coffin for what felt like hours, banging on the door as hard as I could and begging to be let out, as I felt the coffin slowly close in around me, forcing me into a tighter and tighter space until I was sure I was going to suffocate. My voice was drowned out by the sound of the doll's music playing from where it lay beside me, as I screamed until I had no air left to breathe.

More than once I woke up from one of these nightmares screaming uncontrollably.

I remember the first time I really started to be scared of the doll. It was one day at school. I opened my locker during lunch break and the doll fell out onto the floor.

I shrieked loudly, jumping back, losing my balance, and nearly falling against a group of people passing by. A few students snickered my way and stopped to stare as I scrambled to my feet, glaring hard at it.

I knew I hadn't taken the doll to school. I hadn't taken the doll out of my room at all since Kayla had stolen it.

But that wasn't the reason I yelled so loudly when the doll fell out.

I screamed because it was moving. The doll was wriggling around, its arms and legs twisting and contorting. It looked like it was trying to catch hold of and climb up my leg. It's face appeared half human, a mix of real, wrinkled skin and porcelain, twisted into an ugly grimace. It had turned to watch me, it's mouth opening and gaping unnaturally wide.

Then I blinked, and the doll was back to normal, lying still and lifeless on the ground, and I was left feeling like a lunatic for screaming and pointing at it in front of everyone.

I experienced a few similar incidents at home. The doll wasn't just moving around anymore when I wasn't looking, it was like it was stalking me, making me see things - trying to drive me crazy.

This, combined with my repetitive nightmares, made me rethink my connection to the doll and wonder whether I really wanted to keep it after all. For the first time, I fully acknowledged all the memories it forced back into my life, and how unhealthy my attachment was to it.

I decided to leave it where I found it; inside the closet in the corner of the attic. I wasn't ready to get rid of it, not with how essential it was to my continuing investigation into the prospective haunting, but I no longer wanted it anywhere near me.

When I got back home from school the same day I moved it, the doll was sitting on my bed where I usually left it. I had to fight the urge to cry when I saw that. I started to wonder if I had moved the doll at all. A voice in my head suggested maybe I imagined that, too.

About a week and a half later, I got into another argument with my sister. A bad one.

I can't recall for sure what started it. I felt tired and frayed, and like my bad dreams were starting to bleed steadily into reality. I think it was my sister claiming something about me using drugs again that took me over the edge. I started yelling at her, and we broke into a heated argument.

She picked up the doll. I don't know how the doll had gotten into the room, but I had become accustomed to it appearing and disappearing randomly at a semi-regular basis.

'You've been obsessed with this thing for weeks now. I've caught you talking to it. And I'm not the only one, either. Mom and dad have seen it too,' she yelled.

'You just love making up lies about me, don't you?', I shot back.

'I saw you, Ashley. Just like I saw you trying to steal my stuff. You acted the exact same way when you were using drugs. I should know!'

I knew I hadn't done any of the things she was talking about. I knew she was just trying to piss me off. It was working, too.

'Why don't you just be honest?' I demanded. 'You don't want me here. That's what this is about, isn't it? You hate me, you've always had!'

'You're right,' she spat, throwing the doll down again for emphasis. 'Mom and dad only adopted you because they felt sorry for you. We'd all be way better off if you stayed in that foster care home. Maybe the people there could have stopped you from turning into a freak!'

That was too much for me. Her words sparked a blinding flash of hot anger. The fury washed over my mind, taking hold, almost surprising me with its intensity. I didn't try to stop it or control it.

I hit her. I hit her as hard as I could. Hard enough to send her stumbling backwards, to cause her to cry out in surprise and pain.

A few seconds of silence followed my actions, as time froze in place.

My sister looked slowly up at me with a look of pure disbelief in her expression. Neither of us could quite comprehend what I'd just done.

She straightened up, one hand still pressed over her face. I could see her crying as she started to back away from me.

The rage dimmed and faded, leaving me feeling shocked and stunned. I called out to Kayla instinctively. She broke out into a run as she left the room.

I stood there for a while, after she left. I felt sick at what I just did. I despised myself for it. What kind of person was I to be capable of physically hitting my family?

At some point later, my parents came home and started yelling at me. I endured it. There wasn't anything they could say that was worse than what I was already thinking about myself.

When my parents finally went away to take Kayla to see a doctor, I ran upstairs and locked myself in my room. I sat on the floor against my bed and put my head in my hands.

Kayla was right. It would have been better if I never became a part of this family, I thought.

I imagined myself doing it again, hurting them. What would stop me? I expected it would only get easier the next time I lost control and felt the urge to hurt someone.

My thoughts led me into a downward spiral of self hate and depression. This voice in my head kept telling me what an awful person I was. I just hit my own sister, it said. You didn't get more evil than that.

I lifted my head. My attention drifted to the doll, which was staring at me with it's familiar smile from across the room.

I went over, my anger returning. I was sick of it. I was sick of looking at it, and constantly being reminded of all the bad things it represented. Further, in my frayed state of mind, I was convinced it was somehow aware of all the pain it had brought into my life and it was enjoying watching me suffer.

I picked it up and threw it at the wall. I heard a cracking sound as it hit the wall and fell to the floor. I ran over to it and slammed it against the ground several more times until the porcelain was cracked and the doll's arms and legs were twisted at awkward angles. Every time I hit it, it seemed like the doll was leering a little bit more at me from what remained of its ruined face.

I hit it until my anger was spent, and then fell back against my bed again, exhausted.

And just like that, the doll was sitting back on my pillows in front of me, looking completely serene and untouched. It's glassy eyes stared back at me, an obvious smirk on its face.

I rubbed my eyes, as if I could make the sight in front of me less unbelievable. It didn't.

My hands shook. I picked up a pair of sharp scissors from my makeup desk. I raised them over my head and dug them down into the dolls chest, ripping and tearing at its body.

There was absolutely no way for me to expect what happened next.

When the scissors sank down into the doll's chest it felt like they were being driven into something soft and yielding. Dark red fluid started to bubble and pool around the place where the scissors protruded from.

I felt sick. I started to scream. The doll moved, one hand going to it's chest as if it were trying to pull the scissors out, the other waving around wildly, all the while as it stared up at me, grinning its hideous grin. Something which looked a lot like blood was running down my hands and onto the floor.

I pulled the scissors out and stabbed the doll again, twice. The second time the thick, dark blood fountained up, spraying onto my face and momentarily blinding me. I wiped my eyes frantically, feeling sick as I pulled my hand back and stared at the oily liquid coating it.

My attention flicked back down to the doll still clutched in my grip. Inside the doll's chest, I could see humanlike organs, including a small, beating heart which with every rhythmic thump forced a fresh wave of gore spurting over me.

And then suddenly it wasn't the doll in my hands, it was my sister, Kayla, staring up at me with a stricken look on her face and the scissors sticking out of a series of huge, bloody gashes on her chest. The sight practically gave me a heart attack. I immediately let go of her and she fell limply to the ground, her hands still reaching out to me and her lips moving soundlessly. I screamed again and covered my eyes.

I could barely look at her. At it, at whatever it was. I kept peeking and waiting for her body to go away, hoping and praying I was seeing things, but feeling increasingly terrified I wasn't.

By the time I heard my parents and Kayla come home, the body was gone, and the doll was sitting back on the bed, it's arms on lying on either side of it, its face locked in a serene smile, it's glassy eyes staring silently back at me. It was still perfect and untouched. There was no blood on my shirt or on the floor, either, only a discarded pair of spotless scissors. It was like nothing had happened, like it had all been in my head.

Whatever else the experience meant, it proved to me the doll wasn't going to let me escape from it so easily.