Quote:
You receive a mysterious package in the mail. It has your name on it, but no return address. Inside is an extremely creepy doll. Realistically it seems well made and well maintained, but there’s something off about it. If you choose to keep it, it seems to always have its eyes on you. Sometimes it seems to have moved from where you left it—and, since you received it, sometimes you hear a strange, echoing laughter. What do you do?
There was a package on the step.
Weird, because Sid never got packages. She didn’t know anyone of the type to send packages, she never really ordered things online, and anything she got from anyone tended to be handed over in an out of the way corner, not sitting in front of her door. Not that it mattered since it didn't have anything on it to indicate who had sent it anyway...
It had her name on it though, so it was definitely for her and not for Rob.
Shuffling down the hall in her socks and too-big sweater, Sidney took the mysterious package to the kitchen and plunked it down, retrieving a knife from a drawer to slit the tape with. Inside, carefully packed in paper, was an exquisite china doll... all soft blonde curls and blue satin edged with white lace. The contents of the package only added to the confusion of it all... who would send her a doll, of all things? Was it a bomb?
That thought nearly had her dropping the thing and she set it down very carefully before leaning in to press her ear to it. No ticking, so not timed... Not that she knew anything about bombs. Carefully picking it up and turning it over produced nothing untoward... no explosions, no seams or compartments to hide anything. No unusual weight.
Sid placed it back down to frown at it, magenta eyes starting into glassy blue. Blue that had an odd... realism to them. They were really well painted... leading the young woman to lean down to squint at them. She shifted to one side... and then to the other, and felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She couldn't be sure the eyes weren't following her, like how the eyes in paintings were sometimes... but it was a damn creepy effect. What was she supposed to do with the thing? Maybe it had been sent to their house by mistake? Maybe the label had made it onto the wrong box? Should she toss it? Someone might be looking for it, but it wasn't like it was her responsibility to fix postal errors. The idea of keeping it didn't sit well. It didn't fit in with really anything in Sid's life and the eyes on it... she just wasn't sure she wanted that sort of bad juju in the house. She'd never been superstitious, or even religious sort, but all her life Sidney had honed an instinct about situations and people that kept her out of trouble and her skin in tact... for the most part. She had learned to listen to that creeping feeling, that sense of wrongness, because it was better to avoid trouble that wasn't there than to get into some s**t that could get her hurt, dead... or worse.
"Sorry, Babydoll, but its not you, its me." Sid murmured under her breath as she dropped the doll back into the box and bundled the paper back around it. She marched out the back door to the alley and then down a couple of houses, finding a neighbor's garbage to stuff the box into, under some black bags of trash. The lid of the can slammed with satisfying finality and Sid quick-stepped it back to her own house, closing the back door firmly... and locking it for good measure.
Word Count: 568
