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You're not sure where it came from but somehow you've come into the possession of a small porcelain doll. Despite the happy smile on its face, it's anything but friendly in appearance. The pigtails look suspiciously like real human hair, it smells oddly of licorice and while the flawless, porcelain skin is intact, she only has one blue eye, a gaping hole where the other eye should be. Keeping the doll in your residence overnight produces one very vivid, very real dream of being in the doll's stead, your vision only visible through the empty eye socket. As you sit on your shelf (or chair, wherever the doll was left), you are forced to watch as someone puppets your body in your stead, taking your place. None of your family or friends seem suspicious, especially since you can't seem to scream or talk... being the doll that you now are. When you wake up, the doll has found its way into your bed, only now the hole is gone, replaced with a matching, ordinary looking eye.
Why did his parents do this to him?
Was it because they ‘loved him’ despite never bothering to really talk with him or do anything with him? It wasn’t like he was needy by nature, or asked for a lot. Just a bit of acknowledgement was nice. Yet they never gave him that. Instead they did things like this. Pretended to notice him, his moods, pretended to care and want to help him- heck, even Max knew it wasn’t just him being hormonal teenage angst. He was an adult, nearly a man grown by law, and his therapist even agreed. Max was the product of neglect. Not malicious but neglect just the same. His folks were too self-absorbed to notice their son, who was much more empathetic and emotional then them. The result was a family that couldn’t communicate and by the time Max got help, help to try and control his anger, his resentment, his fear and feelings of being alone and lost- it was too late. His folks already had moved on. Accept their son was flawed, and didn’t think he could be fixed. Just.. placated.
Just why when he became withdrawn after his episode they claimed to never have seen, they got him a doll at the advice of their counselor. Not his therapist, but their counselor. The one they went to about their marriage problems and problems with him not being withdrawn and okay with it like them. A doll will help him process his emotions. He can talk to it, pretend it’s them, and vent his frustrations. It was a creepy doll, and he took it with him to his meeting with his therapist. They had looked at it and asked, blankly, if his parents had done this sort of thing before. Done tactics that worked on children, but turned them on him as if they expected it to work. He said yes. His therapist had given him a kind but pitying look, and said they’d try to talk to his folks again about the fact Max was nearly 18- not a child anymore. They had to stop treating him like one.
That didn’t stop the doll from being creepy as all get out however. Shoving it onto the growing assorted pile that was known to him as ‘the placation station’, where he put all the random bad gifts his folks had given him in the past year, Max didn’t want to think much of it. But that night? Oh he did. Seeing only with one eye was terrible, really s**t for vision, but worse was watching himself. Smiling, laughing, acting what many would consider normal. Functional. Not him. And seeing his parents enjoy that Max more. See them act like a normal family without problems. It hurt. It hurt so much that Max wanted to cry and scream all at once.
Waking the doll was clutched in his hand, eyes both present and he shook in anger.
A hammer came down with a satisfying crunch.
His parents didn’t bother to notice it was even missing.
