Days
turned into weeks, and the strange events became harder to ignore. The whispers
grew louder, more frequent, and they didn’t only come at night anymore. Ruby
would be sitting in her room after school, doing homework or playing with the
doll, and she’d hear it—a soft voice calling her name, asking her to play.
Sometimes, it was followed by the sound of footsteps, the faint creak of
floorboards, or the rustle of fabric.
The worst
part was the dreams. They were no longer just dreams, but nightmares—vivid and
suffocating, filled with images of the girl in the old-fashioned dress. The
girl’s face was still a blur, but her crying was louder now, desperate, and Ruby
felt compelled to follow her through dark, twisting hallways that seemed to
stretch on forever. She would wake up drenched in sweat, her heart racing, and
each time, the doll would be in a different position than when she had left it.
One
particularly cold and rainy night, the whispers woke Ruby again. She sat up,
clutching the blankets to her chest, and saw that the doll had moved—this time,
it was on the floor, halfway between the rocking chair and her bed.
This was
too much. Her fear had reached its breaking point. She grabbed the doll
roughly, feeling the hard, cold porcelain under her fingers, and ran to her
parents’ room. She burst in, tears streaming down her face.
“What’s
wrong, honey?” her mother asked, startled awake.
“It’s the
doll!” Ruby cried. “It’s… it’s moving! It’s whispering to me! It’s not just a
doll, it’s—”
“Ruby,”
her father interrupted, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “It’s late. You’re
having bad dreams. There’s no such thing as—”
“No!” she
shouted. “You have to believe me! It’s real! The doll is—”
Her
mother’s expression softened, and she held out her arms. “You’re just tired,
sweetheart. Bring the doll here, we’ll keep it in our room tonight. You need to
get some sleep.”
Ruby
hesitated, holding the doll tightly against her chest, but then she nodded. She
handed it to her mother, who placed it carefully on her own dresser, and gave Ruby
a reassuring smile.
“See?
Nothing to worry about. It’s just a doll.”
Ruby
swallowed hard, feeling a pang of doubt, but she was too tired to argue. She went
back to her room, feeling strangely empty without the doll’s familiar presence.
Her parents’ room seemed safe, far away from whatever haunted her own, and she
fell asleep almost instantly.
The next morning, she woke to the sound of her
mother’s scream.
