The morning light in Heelshire Manor doesn’t feel like morning at all—it’s pale, gray, and hollow, the kind of light that doesn’t bring warmth but rather makes the shadows look more alive. You sit at the dining table, slouched forward, dark circles bruising the skin beneath your eyes. Sleep hasn’t touched you in days; it hovers, teases, then slips away every time the house groans. In front of you lies that damned piece of paper—the rules.

Your hand trembles slightly as your eyes drag across the list again, each line heavier than the last:

• No guests or boyfriends.
• Dress the doll each morning.
• Don’t cover the doll’s face.
• Save meals in the freezer.
• Help with the doll’s studies.
• Read a bedtime story.
• Play music loudly.
• Never leave the doll alone.
• Clean the traps.
• Feed the doll.
• Kiss the doll goodnight.

You’ve memorized them by now—burned them into your skull like commandments written by something unholy. The edges of the paper are frayed from your fingers clutching it too often, too tightly.

You can’t forget why.

A shiver crawls through you as the memory slips back in—your body remembering the fear before your mind does. The night you ignored the rules. The night you didn’t tuck the doll in, didn’t whisper goodnight. You thought it ridiculous then. Just porcelain, just a doll sitting lifelessly on that old armchair.

But you heard it later. The sound. Like tiny porcelain feet dragging across wood. The faint, brittle laughter—childlike but wrong, layered, almost metallic. You’d frozen in bed, heart hammering as something scraped behind the walls, slow, deliberate. And when you turned toward the noise, the doll wasn’t on the chair anymore.

You swallow hard, the taste of dust and dread thick on your tongue. The silence now feels worse than the noise ever did. The manor breathes—its pipes moan, the floorboards sigh—but somewhere deeper, you hear it again. A thud. Then another. Too rhythmic to be random.

Your eyes flick toward the wall near the fireplace. There, faintly, a muffled sound—like knuckles brushing against plaster.

You force yourself to look away, to focus back on the paper. You can’t afford another mistake. You’ll follow the rules now. You have to.

The clock ticks sluggishly on the wall, every second scraping at your nerves. You rise from the chair, joints stiff from sleepless nights, and glance toward the hallway that leads to the sitting room—where the doll waits.

A whisper of movement slithers behind the wallpaper. Something shifting, crawling, listening.

You tell yourself it’s just the house settling. You tell yourself that because the truth feels too real, too close.

When you reach for the doll’s tiny clothes laid neatly on the dresser, the faint echo of a breath answers from the wall beside you—raspy, shallow, almost curious.

The air chills. Your pulse roars in your ears. You don’t speak. You can’t. You just move, mechanical, terrified, obeying every step of the ritual.

Dress the doll. Don’t cover his face. Feed him. Kiss him goodnight.

A sound answers from the walls again—this time, softer. Approving.