Angelic was six years old, and to the people who knew her, she was a quiet, strange little girl who only spoke to her dolls. It was as if they were her only friends. She was often seen alone, clutching her dolls with a death grip, her fingers twisted in their hair or the fraying fabric of their clothes. They weren't just toys to Angelic; they were companions. No one could understand her attachment to them, but her parents dismissed it as a child's whim, nothing more.
It was an overcast afternoon when Angelic vanished. It had been raining all day, the kind of rain that came in sheets, drowning the sky, making the trees outside bend with the weight of it. Her mother had been busy in the kitchen, preparing dinner, when she realized that Angelic hadn't been in the living room for hours. It wasn't unusual for the girl to play in her room, but this time, something felt off. The house was eerily quiet.
Her mother called out, first softly, then with growing urgency. She checked the yard, the attic, and even the closet under the stairs where Angelic sometimes hid. She called the neighbors, but no one had seen her. The police were called, but the town wasn't large, and everyone knew everyone. It was just a matter of time before they'd find her, or so they thought. But hours passed, and there was still no sign of the little girl.
The search grew frantic. People combed through the woods behind Angelic's house, poked through every corner of the neighborhood. Her mother's face twisted with anxiety, her hands shaking as she clutched her coat tighter around her body. As the sun began to dip, casting long shadows across the empty streets, hope began to drain from everyone.
The first night passed without any leads. The second night, too, came and went with no answers.
But then strange things began to happen.
At around midnight on the third day, the first person reported seeing something odd: a doll. It was on the porch of a house two blocks away from where Angelic had last been seen. It was sitting upright, almost as if it had been placed there intentionally. The doll was in pristine condition, its face painted with a smile that could only be described as unsettling. Its eyes, wide and glassy, stared unblinking at the street.
The doll wasn't the only thing out of place. Over the next few days, reports of similar dolls—always positioned in the same way—started to trickle in from all over the town. They would appear on doorsteps, in gardens, or just lying in the middle of the street. People started to talk, their whispers growing louder. Was this some sort of message? A sick joke? Or, as some feared, a sign of something darker? The dolls were always in the same condition, no matter the weather, no matter how many days passed. They were... untarnished. As though they never saw the outside world at all. And with each new doll, the people of the town began to wonder: could this be somehow connected to Angelic's disappearance?
Angelic's mother grew more frantic by the day. She could no longer tell if the dolls were a sign or a mocking reminder of what had been lost. The fear clawed at her chest, pulling her into sleepless nights. What if something worse had happened? What if she was never coming back?
On the seventh night, Angelic's mother decided to confront the dolls. She couldn't take it anymore—the strange occurrences, the growing unease. She walked to the porch where the most recent doll had appeared, clutching her coat as if the very fabric could shield her from whatever force was behind this. The doll sat there, staring at the ground, its cracked porcelain face a grotesque imitation of joy. But it wasn't just the doll that caught her attention. It was what lay beneath it.
A note.
She hesitated, but the note had Angelic's name written in a child's messy scrawl. She didn't even need to open it. She could feel it deep in her gut. The note was from Angelic, or at least it seemed to be.
Angelic's mother ripped the paper open. The words on it were simple, the handwriting barely legible: "I'm with them. They won't let me go."
A chill ran down her spine. "Them." Who were they? And why wouldn't Angelic leave? Her thoughts spiraled, the fear mixing with confusion. What did this mean? Was it some twisted game? Was it just her mind playing tricks, or had something truly supernatural taken hold of her daughter?
The police had no answers. No one did. Days blurred together in a haze of grief and uncertainty. But then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, the dolls stopped coming.
The streets were empty again, as if the town had forgotten all that had happened in the last week. But Angelic's mother couldn't forget. And the dolls, though gone, left behind a thick silence, a heavy pressure in the air. The town, still shrouded in shadow, no longer seemed familiar.
And then, after weeks of dread, it happened.
It was late one evening when a man walking home saw a girl standing at the edge of the woods. He stopped, his heart skipping a beat. She looked so familiar, but there was something wrong. She was standing too still, too unnervingly silent. The girl was wearing a dirty dress, her hair tangled and matted with leaves. Her eyes were wide, hollow. No, not hollow, but something else—something strange.
He called out to her. She didn't respond. He took a step closer.
Then, from the woods, he heard something. It was soft, almost imperceptible. A sound like a doll being dropped onto the ground. He turned his head, the unease creeping up his spine. When he looked back at the girl, her face... it was no longer hers.
Her smile, once gentle, had twisted into something grotesque, a grimace that stretched too wide. Her eyes were now pure white, devoid of all emotion. She blinked, but her lashes didn't seem to move right. She tilted her head to one side, as if something in her neck wasn't working correctly.
She reached out to him, her arms jerking unnaturally. The man froze, rooted to the spot, his breath caught in his throat.
"Angelic?" he whispered.
She didn't respond. Instead, she stood there, like a doll, her body frozen, her expression one of intense, unnatural calm.
With each second that passed, the world around him seemed to become heavier, as if it were folding in on itself. The forest beyond the girl felt like a dark void, a place that shouldn't be looked into, a place where time twisted into something monstrous. A faint rustling filled the air, and the man's skin crawled as something... other moved just beyond his reach.
Then, as suddenly as the scene had played out, the girl spoke. Her voice was a high-pitched, jagged sound, like the creak of an old wooden doll's limbs.
"She's not coming back." The words were simple, but they chilled him to the bone. "I'm her now."
The man tried to move, but his legs wouldn't obey. His eyes never left the girl, his heart hammering in his chest.
And that's when it happened. The woods behind him shifted. He didn't even have time to scream before they came—silent figures, their limbs twisted and jerking in impossible ways. The dolls, too many to count, surrounded him, their painted faces lifeless and cold.
They all closed in, and as they did, the world went black.
The next morning, there was no trace of the man or the girl. Only the doll remained, sitting on a moss-covered stone, its eyes staring into nothingness.