Chapter Text
Vintage Matryoshka Dolls, made in Russia.
Three for five dollars.
The gathering of Matryoshka dolls, little Russian ladies , stare back at a man as he skims through them, before moving on ahead to the next set of offerings, another shelf with sleeping porcelain baby dolls.
Away from where he was situated.
He watches from his own place from the shelf, as people stream into the halls of his home — now former home. The owner of the house had finally passed, and his children had decided to sell off his entire collection of dolls instead of inheriting them.
He, along with the others, had heard the many tense conversations in the hallways among the inheritors, not long after his former owner had died. Something about the dolls, about them, being too creepy, about how the house, how his belongings were cursed. How he could not have just tripped down the stairs, so conveniently, when he was still a sprightly man, though old.
They were not wrong.
One of the clowns did it. They were a trope of five identical dolls, differentiated just by their individual pastel palette: red, orange, yellow, blue, green. With rosy red painted cheeks on their glazed porcelain faces. He was not sure which one it was, all of them behaved like a hivemind. Perhaps they were all occupied by the same single demonic entity, just split across five dolls. They had a tendency of being mischievous, often shoving other dolls off their shelves. Their habits of “pranking” the old man usually consisted of near-death accidents, the old man narrowly missing Death every single time.
Except for the last time.
He was not faultless, for he had played a prank or two on the old man before. A gust of wind spilling drinks over electronics, a fallen chair in the walkway that was not there moments ago. All ready for someone in the house to take a misstep at the wrong time.
The estate sale that he and his brethren were part of attracted all kinds of people. He watches them through his soft cloth eyes, shuffling and browsing through the physical memories of the eccentric old collector's house.
All kinds of people including a particular woman in thick makeup, a low cut body fitting dress with a strong masculine jaw and prominent Adam's apple, who was trotting suspiciously after brunch like she was sitting on a secret. Her black heels clicked loudly on the wooden planks of the second floor where the doll room was.
The showgirl eyes his doll body up and down through her dark lashes, seemingly seeing through his soul residing within the doll.
"You're a piece of work, mawma," she sniffs at his clothes in judgment, drab from color and patterns fading after decades.
What would you know?
He sneers back internally at her fake blond hair and smoker’s breath. However, the woman delights seconds later at the female baby doll dressed in a white gown beside him. The woman holds up the baby doll like an infant with her red nails, then cuddles it to her fake bosom. She proceeded to declare the baby doll was perfect for her collection. Pursuing her vermillion lips, she coos over her 'new daughter'.
"I’m naming you Anastasia," proclaims the woman proudly.
If he could roll his eyes, he would. Humans buy and sell them off frequently, their owners change all the time. There was no love for older dolls. Alas, the spirit in the baby doll chortled in delight all the same, like a human child would towards its parent.
He was miffed that this suspicious woman in a blond wig insulted him. He might be slightly dirty and dusty but the baby doll she picked up had an eye missing and a chipped face.
The showgirl was still muttering to herself as she exited the doll room. The next visitor walked in after her and stopped immediately at the threshold, as though sensing something. The visitor looked around the room until his sight landed in his direction.
"You'll be perfect for my project," a handsome, young man with a striking nose and big, kind eyes picks him up with his long, pale fingers and neatly trimmed nails.
His doll body fell limp in the man’s arms. The man was dressed casually in a white, linen shirt and khakis. A distinct difference from the showgirl with bright, blue eyeshadow that left in a storm.
The stranger was decisive, turning heel and leaving with him. He stares back at the rest of the dolls. As fate would have it, he was ditching the brethren that kept him company in the past few decades for a new home.
At least he was not taken by a child this time. Children were pieces of work, rough with their toys and more uncaring than adult owners. His previous owner may have left him to gather dust on the shelf, but he never tore his arm out of his socket.
Not that he could have felt it.
The owner’s son was about to stuff him into a supermarket franchise plastic bag before the handsome stranger stopped him.
“Hold on, I have a spare box in my car. Don’t want to damage the doll.”
The stranger pays the son a few bills of cash before cradling the doll in his arms. The doll fitted just right in the crook of the stranger’s arm muscles, firm, and if he could feel heat properly, and warm.
“Are you a doll collector as well?”
“Not really. I like going to these types of antique sales. I was just looking around the estate sale until I saw him. There’s just something about the doll that I find really cute.”
He watches the man as he makes small talk to his previous owner's son, the left corner of his lips quirking up to give a quick side-smile.
“Oh, so you’re one of those people. You would have gotten along with Pops, since you like dolls too.”
“Maybe so. But I doubt we would have anything else in common.” The stranger gives the son a polite smile.
Before the man could give a confused answer, the stranger turns to leave. The stranger approaches a van and puts him in a cardboard box, sealing it shut with scotch tape.
In darkness, the doll could only ponder about his latest, newest home. Or maybe his new owner would be a flipper, and he would not be his owner for long.
The rocky car ride that ensued only stopped as the stranger parked his Volkswagen camper van and keys jangled loudly with doors opening.
He could only stare at his new owner with his cloth eyes as the man unboxed him with a smile. The man dunked his cloth body in cold water and bleach, cleaning off the years of dirt and dust in a loving manner. Blow drying and brushing his yarn hair like his previous owner did once upon a long time.
After cleaning up the doll body, his new owner places him on a shelf, tucking him on a cushion that seemed to be made perfectly to fit his cottony behind.
What a thoughtful new owner , he cannot help but scoff a little.
It was the idea of having something new that all his past owners have gone through. Soon, he will be forgotten like the rest of the toys, just as typical of his previous owners.
It would seem so as his new owner left him alone in what could be described as a child’s room. The plain wallpaper with pastel accents, a small bed with a wooden etched bed frame. The long window was framed by sheer, white tulle curtains with sunlight streaming gently in the morning. The beams of sunlight illuminated a wooden rocking chair.
However, the room was unused. The bed sheets were pristine and no one ever entered the room in the coming days.The room furniture was as though frozen in time, from an era before his time on this plane. He was the only being inhabiting the room.
The highlight of the room was not the shelf where he resided but a beautiful painted model of an exquisitely detailed manor that laid in the middle of the room on a small table. He could easily fit into the doll house, all 30 centimetres of his body, that was how big the model was. Nevertheless, the room was interesting to him.
In a certain way, the entire house was intriguing to him. His new owner had an aura that differed from normal humans. He had chalked it up to weird humans who frequented antique markets and accidentally picked up on objects with dark energy. As a result, the house owned by this owner inhibited dark energy that he could detect beyond the hinges of the wooden room door.
It was not surprising to him. The house of his previous owner contained dark energy too with the number of haunted dolls kept. He shrugs it off. For a house that appeared as old as this, it would be no wonder if the house already had a spirit residing in it. He would have competition or an enemy in this case.
He does what he normally does in a new home. He bids his time.
A few days later, he puts his plan in action. Every morning, the rest of the books and children’s toys from the shelf end up in a mess on the floor. Following this, the tall man would always clean up and reorganize the fallen items back onto the shelf without a question, his thin fingers brushing off the non-existent dust from the books and toys before he carefully places them back in place. Whenever the man was in the room, he would mutter demonic curses in a language beyond the human ear. The man made no reaction, unsuspecting to the entity that was before him.
He chooses to push the human’s buttons, to see how much the human would accept these occurrences in his house before the paranoia sets in. Then he could feast on the fear.
He wonders what it would taste like.
For some reason, after a few attempts to spread his chaos beyond, he could not leave the room. There was something with greater power beyond the room door that was blocking his own powers. Probably the other entity.
He has to figure out a way to gain access to his main source of fear, of sustenance.
Flipping through the drawers, all he got were children’s clothes, worn but clean, and old photographs with no mention of the family or child that once resided in the room. There was still no clue to the identity of his new owner.
On this night, the moonlight shone through the window instead. The house was built directly below the direction of the moon, for the moon was the clearest that he had seen before. It was also time for his nightly disturbances.
This time, all it took was for him to push the rocking chair too hard for it to come crashing down. Alas, the commotion had attracted his owner to open the door to the room. The man never visited at night, only during the day.
He gazes down at his new owner from the high place on the shelf, his doll body still. The human was still innocently clueless, unknowing of how his cloth eyes tracked his every movement.
On the other hand, there was another guest tonight. A black short-haired cat sauntered into the room, right on the heels of his new owner. The cat immediately catches his eye, staring back at him with its unblinking green eyes as though he was its prey. He could sense the cat’s energy. The cat was no ordinary animal, for there was a tinge of magic on top of dark energy.
He decided that this cat was the creature beyond the door that was oppressing his powers. It must be the cat that blanketed the house with its peculiar dark energy. If it was even a cat at all.
The cat meows, rubbing its head against his owner’s legs. He hisses demonically at the creature, standing his ground. However, the cat continues to stare nonchalantly at him, almost like he was nothing.
Ruffled, he manipulates the items to fall off the shelf. The cat stops before the shelf, looking directly at his cloth body. He felt pinned like a bug under a looking glass. Agitated, he levitates the next item in the room: the doll house.
The doll house manages to levitate a few inches off the table before it slides down. Abruptly, the doll house freezes in stasis and floats in the air. If his cloth eyes could widen in shock, they would. There was an opposing power in the room, even stronger than his own power.
The cat? No.
He curses, trying his best to overcome the other power. He was a demon, albeit stuck in a doll’s body. He could only contain as much power in his small body. He had his physical limitations.
He realises in horror that his new owner’s hand was outstretched in the direction of the doll house. With a twirl of his owner’s fingers, a fleeting strand of magic tilts the doll house backwards instead. The toy cradle that was sliding out of the doll house’s doors rolled back into the house, back into place.
Gently, the doll house was set back down to the table in an almost loving manner. The doll house stood like it did before, as though untouched. His owner looked up at him for the first time, with dark eyes that flashed emerald in the moonlight.
"Hello, doll. I knew you'd come around. Or should I say, demon?"
Panicking, he sends a trinket box next to him flying towards his owner’s head. Again, the trinket box stops mid-flight. This time, his owner’s eyes glow green.
“That wasn’t very nice of you.” His owner says with a tone of disapproval, taking the box from mid-air as if plucking a fruit from a tree, with such ease.
He raises his hand in the doll’s direction, right before his cloth eyes, and snaps his fingers. The corner of his lips quirks up.
He could feel his own power being cut off. He could not move objects or even move his own doll body. Below, the cat swishes its tail triumphantly. A smirk seemingly graced its feline features, a rumbly purr, almost saying that he was in trouble now.
For the first time, he felt fear.