As a child, I was always fascinated by my grandmother’s collection of antique dolls. She kept them on a shelf in her living room, carefully dusted and arranged in a row. Each one had a story and a history, but there was one that always caught my eye. It was an old porcelain doll with curly blonde hair and a frilly blue dress. My grandmother told me it was over a hundred years old and had been passed down through generations of our family. She called it the family heirloom.
Years went by, and I eventually forgot about the doll. But when my grandmother died, it was passed down to me. At first, I was excited to have it, but soon strange things started happening. Every time I looked at the doll, I felt uneasy, like it was watching me. Its eyes seemed to follow me around the room, and sometimes I could swear I saw them blink.
One night, I woke up to the sound of soft footsteps in my bedroom. I sat up and saw the doll standing at the foot of my bed, its eyes glowing in the darkness. I was frozen with fear, unable to move or scream. The doll reached out a porcelain hand and touched my leg, and I felt a cold, clammy sensation.
After that night, the doll’s presence became more and more pronounced. It seemed to move on its own, appearing in different places in my house each day. Sometimes it would be in the kitchen, sitting on a chair. Other times it would be in the hallway, staring down at me as I walked by. I tried to ignore it, but it was always there, always watching.
Then, one night, I woke up to the sound of the doll laughing. It was a high-pitched, maniacal cackle that echoed through my house. I got out of bed and followed the sound to the living room, where I saw the doll sitting on the floor, surrounded by other dolls from my grandmother’s collection. They were all turned to face me, their eyes glowing in the darkness.
Suddenly, the room grew cold, and a gust of wind blew through the open window. The dolls began to move, their porcelain limbs creaking and cracking. They formed a circle around me, and I felt trapped, like I was being suffocated by their presence.
Then, the doll in the blue dress spoke. Its voice was cold and hollow, like the wind blowing through a graveyard.
“You have taken something that belongs to us,” it said. “We want it back.”
I didn’t know what it was talking about, but I was too terrified to speak. The dolls began to move closer, their porcelain faces twisted into grotesque expressions.
Suddenly, I remembered something my grandmother had told me. She said that the doll was cursed, that it had been created by a vengeful witch who wanted to punish our family for a past wrong.
I knew then what I had to do. I reached out and grabbed the cursed doll, feeling its cold, lifeless body in my hands. With all my strength, I threw it against the wall, shattering it into a million pieces.
The other dolls fell silent, and the room grew still. I knew then that the curse had been broken, and the dolls would no longer haunt me. But I also knew that I would never forget the terror I had felt that night, and the knowledge that evil can sometimes lurk in the most innocent of objects.