Mavis sat, or rather, remained still. Her vision, trapped inside the doll, was fixed on the wooden floor. The room was silent, the kind of silence that made your ears ring.
Her arms, stiff and unmovable, stayed frozen by her sides. The faint memory of a body once hers, soft and warm, seemed so distant. The doll's glass eyes stared ahead—unblinking, forever locked in a gaze that wasn't hers.
She remembered when it happened. The house had smelled of old wood, dust, and something strange. The shadows stretched long, like fingers reaching for her. Her mother had placed her down on the shelf. The day had been cold, like most days were. She had never seen the shadow at the corner of the room, creeping ever closer.
She had felt it, though. The coldness seeping in through her skin, the air pressing in on her chest. She had looked up to scream, but she couldn't.
Nothing worked. And then it happened. The thing had twisted inside her, ripping apart whatever it was that made her alive, leaving nothing but a hollow shell and a soul trapped inside porcelain. The warmth had left her for good.
The hours blurred together. Maybe days. She couldn't keep track. She didn't know how long she had been there, on that same shelf, forced to listen to the soft creaks of the house as it aged, the whispers of footsteps on the floorboards. At first, there had been some noise.
Her mother, her father, they used to come into the room, look at her. But now, no one came.
Her world had become nothing but darkness and the dim light that seeped in through the cracks in the walls. Her thoughts were like a broken record. The same things replayed over and over. "I want to move. I want to scream. Please, just move."
Time meant nothing now.
But then something had changed. A figure stepped into the room, the floor creaking beneath their feet. Mavis could do nothing but stare. She had no voice to call out, no way to warn herself.
The figure knelt down in front of the shelf, and for the first time in years, the doll was picked up. Her face was turned towards a new owner. A little girl, no older than Mavis had been before this... curse. She had pale skin and dark eyes, empty eyes.
The girl smiled.
And Mavis knew, deep inside, that she wasn't going anywhere. Not ever.
The girl placed the doll down on a bed. Mavis felt the softness of the sheets beneath her. For a second, it felt like a relief. But that was before the whispers started. They never stopped. No one else could hear them, but Mavis did. The voice in her head—the one that told her everything would be okay. That she was safe.
Then it would ask her questions, ones she couldn't answer.
"Do you want to move again? To scream?"
She couldn't. The curse was unbreakable. The toy, a hollow mockery of a body, was her home now. There was no escape. There never would be.
And as the night wore on, and the little girl stared down at her, Mavis could feel it all over again. The coldness. The emptiness. The endless silence.
The girl didn't know it. But she was the last person who'd ever touch the doll.
Mavis' soul was trapped. Forever.