Prompt 6
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.
Returning home with no job and no money made for a fairly unhappy Beatrice Kellye.
She knew she was going to have to find some sort of job before the year's end - preferably, before December. Christmas was coming and she wanted to buy both her mother and her friends presents, on top of all of the expenses she needed to budget for with her (currently failing) stuffed animal workshopping. Nobody wanted her mutant creatures - nobody wanted teddy bears that had been chopped up and replaced with puppy dog or elephant parts. Friends received them graciously but she was even starting to wonder if they really liked the odd presents she handmade for them.
It was a disheartening concept to think about, almost as disheartening as seeing the fridge empty and the pantry full of boxed meals that she didn't have the effort to put together.
Sigh.
Trudging worn out sneakers over the carpet, she dragged her tired body towards her bedroom with the hopes of taking a nap. Filling out forms and handing over resumes were tiring - especially when it came to trying to find places to work that she actually wanted to work at. Fast food places meant smelling like grease and fries all day, working retail meant dealing with fussy people and government jobs meant dressing up like old ladies and being monitored for breaks.
Her purse was tossed to the side of the bed, eyes shifting towards her pillow with the intent of flopping face down on the fluffy surface. A blonde blur caught her attention, however, pausing her journey as pale eyebrows began to furrow.
What the heck?
There was a doll on the bed.
She hadn't bought any dolls lately - especially with her lack of money.
Moving to sit on the comforter, she peered curiously at the strange new visitor in her bedroom. The porcelain face was... a little unnerving but that could very well be because of the missing eye. The hair was in place, pigtail patterned like her own but in a cheerfully, almost too bright blonde shade. The dress was lace and oldish looking - but where had she come from?
Turning the doll upside down, she looked around for any sort of note or card that might have come along with the strange toy. Could her mother have found it and decided it needed some operating on, like her other toys? Or maybe Marnie or Kelly or Sea had slipped in and dropped her off?
But... any of them would have messaged her first, right?
Hm.
Shrugging to herself, she decided that if anyone wanted to come clean on the strange gift giving practices, they'd text her when they were ready. For now, though, she wanted to forget about the stresses of the day and take a well earned nap.
Setting the doll onto her nightstand, Bea pulled back her covers and kicked off her shoes. Not even bothering to change into more comfortable clothing, she dove beneath the sheets and snuggled up with her insanely soft pillow. It didn't take long for eyes to close and for the young woman to drift off into a nice slumber - even despite not getting a snack, much less dinner, beforehand.
Dreams for Beatrice Kellye tended to be all over the place, just like her. Sometimes they were fun and colorful, sometimes they were mysterious and exciting. Occasionally she'd get a monster one, attributing the horrific parts to late night monster movie binging but more often than not, she was able to vanquish or befriend the demons and creatures that tried to munch on her teenage bones.
That evening, however, the dream was... peculiar. More peculiar than usual.
When her eyes opened, it was almost as though she were awake again. Except... she wasn't in her bed. Wait. No - she was on her nightstand, oddly enough, and the vision was obscured... limited.
It took Bea a few minutes of trying to figure out how she'd moved from bed to nightstand to realize that she wasn't actually herself anymore. No, she'd replaced the creepy, uncomfortable doll that had made an appearance on her bed, looking through the empty eyesocket at the otherwise empty room around her.
.... at least, she thought the room had been empty.
"Bea? Baby, are you home?"
Her mother's voice called out through the hallway, Bea trying to open her mouth to respond back to the call. As hard as she tried, though, the painted lips of her new face refused to budge. She couldn't answer her, but surely her mother would notice her absence and start looking for he---
"In here, Madre!"
Her small doll heart froze in place as she heard the voice call back. It sent a shiver down her spine, how eerily accurate the sound was to her own voice. It was always weird to hear her voice play back in Snapchats and recordings but this was way more than weird - this was supernatural, it had to be.
Craning to try to let her see from the corner of the doll's skull, she made out the familiar white pigtails that she was used to seeing in the mirror's reflection. Only this time, the pigtails were on a stranger... a stranger that looked like her, that sounded like her but she couldn't be the real Beatrice --- the real Beatrice was on the nightstand!!! She was the real deal!!!
The impostor was real good though. She used the same nicknames that the real Bea had for her mother. She seemed to know the right things to say because when her mother came through the bedroom door, she was smiling and acting delighted and it was almost as if she didn't suspect a thing about her daughter having been replaced by some creepy doppelganger.
But... did her mom even realize she'd been replaced?
The faker was talking about how she'd applied for jobs and had some promising leads. Everything that spilled from her mouth were lies, horrific lies, about how excited she was to be earning money, how she wanted to help out with the bills and take care of some of the groceries. It wasn't anything the real Bea had ever offered -- her mother had never suggested it, they'd lived fine on her mom's paycheck for decades... so why, then, did the older woman seem almost ecstatic to hear the strange promises coming from a liar's mouth?
Silently she screamed, trying to get the attention of the woman who'd given birth to her. Silently she tried to rock back and forth, stuck in the same spot the small doll had been forced to sit in. Almost twenty minutes, the conversation drowned on, every minute passing feeling like an agonizing hour. It didn't matter what false things the girl told her mother - her mother ate every word up like a starving man at a dinner table.
Surely her friends would be able to tell the difference and come rescue her? Her mother was easy to bamboozle - they didn't have the best of relationships, so maybe that was just her fault for not spending more time with her mom.
But the sinking feeling only grew as she watched the impostor text and text and text... her smile was wide and it was clear that whoever was on the other end of the phone was equally chatty, judging by the way her text message sound went off, again and again.
Eye closing, the small doll couldn't help but wonder what had happened. Was it a curse? Had she wronged a witch or a wizard in some way, by accident?
What had the doll done?
She couldn't even cry, her emotions held off by the painted expression, the painted smile on her borrowed face. Porcelain hands failed to move, the lace sleeves brushing gently against the sculpted fingers as the fan overhead made the fabric sway with the breeze.
Slowly it dawned on the former girl that she was stuck like this and had the potential of being stuck like this for the next forever. Whatever the demon in the doll had done, she wasn't strong enough to reverse the curse by herself and if the doppelganger had fooled all of her friends and mother, she stood little to no chance of ever being freed from her porcelain prison.
It was a fate worse than death. Living forever without being able to speak, able to tell her truth, able to stand up for herself. Of just sitting on a girl's desk and watching the world go by.
Screams remained silent but persistent, until she could feel the sensation of her throat becoming hoarse despite no sound escaping. Over and over again, she let out an inaudible screech --- that eventually had her shooting up in bed, a long howl piercing the empty bedroom as Beatrice's dark eyes fluttered open, sweat soaking her blouse and braids.
Wait.
Okay - so it had been a dream. Okay, just a weird, freaky nightmare about a dumb doll that had no owner or no reason to be in her room.
Glancing over at the nightstand she left it on, Bea felt her heart drop into her stomach as her gaze settled on the empty table. She knew - she swore - that she'd left the doll right there... so where had it gone?
A tickle on her wrist revealed a blonde pigtail resting next to her and as she pulled the blanket back, the creepy doll sat there, smiling up at her new owner as she stared from the pillow next to Beatrice.
Uh-uh. No way. No sir.
Grabbing the supernatural freak of nature, Bea tumbled her way out of bed and headed straight out for the garage. Her mom kept all of her tools and yard equipment in the garage and it didn't take long to locate a hammer and soon after, a large garbage bag.
Tossing the doll into the bag, the hammer soon went wailing down on the lumpy plastic bag. Sickening cracks echoed in the empty garage as the young woman crushed the fancy, porcelain doll into pieces of broken face and lace.
It didn't matter who gave her the evil thing - it was going to be broken into splinters and get fed to the trash bin. And, after a few more whacks of her hammer, that's exactly where it went.
Brushing her hands on the sides of her pants, she let out a soft hmph before returning to her house, soon calling up a collection of her friends in search of the perfect warding spell to keep evil spirits out of her home.
WC: 1765
