Chapter 1

This was my first year playing basketball, and I seemed to injure myself nearly every game. First game, I twisted my ankle. Second game, I jammed my finger. Third game, I fell right on my face and nearly broke my nose.

All I was looking for was an extra pair of socks. I had run through all of my own socks, and my dad and I had relatively the same size shoes, so I went into his closet to grab an extra pair of socks before my basketball game. I went rummaging through his built-in drawers in his closet and finally pulled the bottom drawer out to see all of his socks balled up and set perfectly in three rows. I grabbed a pair from the back and as I was closing the drawer, an object dislocated from the drawer above and fell onto the socks.

It was a doll.

It was a Voodoo doll of me. It had one tuft of my straight, blonde hair pinned to the top of the head and two tiny buttons for eyes. It was wearing a little version of my high school basketball jersey with my number sewn onto the back of it.

This was completely out of character for my dad. He was a smart, church-going man that believed treating everyone with dignity and empathy is the best way to live. He would never touch a Ouija board, let along a Voodoo doll. He didn't even watch movies that contained supernatural beings, he claims, "We have no idea if demons are real, and I don't want to even talk about ghosts."

Despite being pretty freaked out by it, I didn’t have time ponder about it, I had a game in thirty minutes and I was already running late. I planned on asking dad about it after the game. I grabbed the little doll and put it under my pillow in my room before grabbing my duffel bag and running out the door.

We lost. I had the worst migraine I've ever had in my entire life and could barely run across the court without nearly passing out. I attempted to shoot a three-pointer when my vision failed and I ended up staggering backwards falling on my butt. I sat for a second before the left-half of my vision came back and I staggered to the sidelines. The coach pulled me out of the game after that and my migraine moved to the left side of my face while I watched my teammates continually lose the ball to the other team. By the end of the third period, I could barely see, and I spent the rest of the game lying on the bench, my hands covering my face and occasionally peeking through my fingers, only to be disappointed.

On the ride home, dad tried to comfort me.

"It's okay bud – we've all had these kinds of days. You did nothing wrong. Let's get you home and take some pain medication and sleep it off."

I could barely say anything and just laid in the backseat with my arms covering my eyes. Each time we passed by a street light, it felt like a knife stabbed me in the eye.

When we finally made it home, I had completely forgotten about the doll. I got ready for bed and took enough pain killers to knock a horse out. When I laid down, I felt the bump from the doll on my pillow. I pulled it out and nearly blacked out again. It had a needle sticking straight into the left side of the doll's head. I pulled it out and the tension in my own head began to subside, very slowly, but I could almost feel the needle being pulled out as I removed it.

I sat in disbelief. I needed to see if this was real, so I grabbed a thumbtack from the corner of my James Harden poster and stabbed it in the doll's shoulder. It wasn't immediate, but I felt the sharp prick near my collar bone and as soon as I pulled it out, the pain settled. I pulled the collar of my shirt down and saw nothing, there wasn't even a mark on me. I sat the doll down and stared at the beady little button eyes. Despite the absence of pupils, it felt like he was staring right back at me.

There was no possible way for my dad to have been in my room and move the doll. I was changing in there before my game,, and we left right after I put my shoes on and jumped in the car. It was only the two of us, no one else lived with us. My mom died about seven years ago and I was their only child. I hadn’t had any friends over in a few weeks. Just me and dad. There was no way anyone could have known where this was, let alone where I put it after I found it. I decided to move it again and see if something else would happen.

I searched my whole room for the best spot to hide it and decided on putting it in my vent in the ceiling. I grabbed my pocketknife from my desk, stood up on the top of my bed, unscrewed one side of the vent and shoved the doll in. My headache was finally getting to where I could hear myself think again, and I turned my lights off before getting in bed. The vent was right above my bed and the low reflection from the light of the hallway shone dully on two button eyes through the slits of the vent. He was looking at me.

The next morning, I woke up early to head to basketball practice, only to be yelled at from our coach from losing to the worst team in our division. My headache came right back as soon as I left the house again, this time right at the top of my skull. It wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday but still impeded my focus. I finished practice near dinner time and dad picked me up in our little grey, beater sedan. He usually took me out to dinner on Saturdays, so we headed to our local Mexican restaurant. I was starving but had a hard time deciding on what to eat, but nothing sounded good. My dad picked the same thing as he always gets, and I decided on just basic cheese quesadillas.

"Practice go any better today bud?"

I shook my head, "No, I got another headache. I don't know why it keeps happening to me. It’s the worst migraines I have ever had.”

He seemed genuinely surprised.

"That's not good. Your mom had headaches a lot when we moved here, they seemed to come out of nowhere and would last for days. Hopefully yours won't develop into those. We can go see a doctor if you want, just to make sure nothing's wrong."

"No, no I don't think so. Maybe I'm just stressed. Hopefully it will go away soon."

When we got home, I immediately ran to my room and unscrewed the vent. One of the screws was missing, so I undid the other side of the vent and grabbed the doll. My heart jumped out of b my chest. The second screw was stabbed in the top of the dolls head.

I ripped the screw out of the doll's head and a sharp pain tore through my entire skull. This hurt way worse this time. I doubled over and grabbed my head between my temples and dropped the doll. He bounced off my bed and landed across an old lacrosse stick left on the floor of my room. My back instantly cramped, and it felt as though someone hit me with a bat straight across my back. My whole body was writhing in pain, and I laid on my bed until I could move again. I kept an eye on the doll as I caught my breath and the throbbing pain subsided. The pain felt like it was increasing the more I was interacting with the doll.

I had to tell someone about this. I don't want to tell dad about it yet – I decided to ask my friends about it first. Dad was already worried enough about me.

I texted my friends that I made during the first week of basketball practice, Sam and Reese. We all lived in the same neighborhood and would ride our bikes to school at the beginning of the year, but Reese recently got his license, so he's been dragging us around in his parent's old truck.

While I was waiting for Reese to pick me up, I sat the doll down on my bed and watched him. His dead, button eyes stared straight back at me. I moved around my room and despite the doll not having any pupils, it felt as if he was watching my every move. Eventually, Reese and Sam let themselves in the house and I could hear them walking down the hallway.

"Dude what's going on, are you okay?" Reese busted into my room. He pointed to the doll on the bed. "Why do you have a tiny version of yourself?"

"Okay, you guys have to promise to not laugh." I went to grab the doll, and it had moved from being in a sitting position to face down in the bed sheets.

Sam and Reese glanced at each other, and I passed the doll over to them.

"Please be careful. It's a Voodoo doll of me. Everything that's done to it, keeps happening to me."

Sam immediately flicked the doll in the groin, and I fell to my knees. They both laughed and I could tell they didn't believe me.

"Is this a weird game or something? Where did you even get this?"

Reese grabbed the doll from Sam and stretched the arms into a T position and pulled them. I heard a stitch pop from the doll, and I felt my shoulders being stretched. My shoulder cracked and nearly dislocated out of its socket. I yelled in pain and grabbed the doll from Reese.

"I'm really not joking guys, I need help. Every time I leave this doll, I keep getting hurt. I've even put it in the vent so nobody could get to it. I don't know what's happening. What do I do??"

"Let's burn it!" Sam said a little too excitedly.

"I don't really want to watch myself being burned. That sounds worse than anything I've ever been through with this stupid doll so far. There's got to be another way to get rid of it."

We went through a few options of ways to potentially get rid of the doll and even looked up a Wikipedia article on how to "un-curse" yourself. Most spells involved either a bat wing or a whisker from a one-eyed cat, neither of which were readily available to us. After a few nonsensical verbal incantations we found on a Black Magic online forum, to no avail, we gave up and started playing Xbox in the living room. I put the doll back into the vent and tightened the screws. No way was he getting out this time.

While we were playing video games in the front room, my chest started to tighten, and I began coughing. Initially, it felt like when you take a drink of water, and the water goes down the wrong pipe. I kept coughing and it felt like it was getting worse, and I couldn't catch my breath. I was gasping for air and felt like I couldn't breathe.

"Sam, do you hear water? It sounds like someone turned on the bathtub." Reese started freaking out and laid me down on the floor.

I saw Sam run out of the living room and my vision started to waive in and out. My air was running out and no matter how much my body was physically grasping for a breath, nothing was entering my lungs. It felt like I was choking on the air I was trying to breathe in.

Finally, I was able to breathe again. I took a huge breath in and immediately started coughing again. This time, it was more like I was coughing something out of my lungs, rather than coughing something into my lungs. Reese and Sam were kneeled beside me and Sam held the doll, soaking wet.

"It was in the bathtub, facedown and floating. The tub had barely any water in it." Both of my friends were obviously shaken.

All of us were in the living room and my dad was at work. And the doll was locked in the vent. I got up and went to my room to see the vent for myself. I creaked the door open, and the vent was open and hanging by two of the four screws. All three of us stood in the doorway of my room, speechless. I heard the garage door open, and made Reese and Sam promise they wouldn’t tell my dad.

Dad offered for Reese and Sam to stay for dinner but they both refused and left quickly after dad got home. I felt abandoned.

“Well, they seemed to be off in a hurry. Did you guys do anything fun today?”

“Yeah kind of, mainly just played video games.”

My body felt exhausted and my lungs ached. I had to find a way to get rid of this doll. I wanted to tell dad about it, but I was still cautious about even mentioning it to him.

I worked on setting up a tiny prison for the doll that evening. I took everything out of my side table, next to my bed and put the doll inside the drawer. I duct taped the entire table, multiple times so that the drawer wouldn't open, then turned the side table around so that the door was facing the wall. I then pushed it in between my wall and desk, making it completely unable to open, even if the doll was able to chew through the duct tape. There was no way he was getting out tonight.

The next morning, dread flooded my system as I went to check on the doll to make sure he had not escaped during the night. To my surprise, my body had no new aches or pains, my fingers and nails felt slightly numb and sore, but nothing like the horrible pain I had felt the past few days. I inspected the nightstand to ensure no holes had been chewed, despite my nightstand being solid wood. I saw no signs of bite or scratch marks on the outside so, I moved on to examining the inside. I twisted my nightstand to have the drawer facing me and began ripping the duct tape off the table, taking some of the paint with it. After unwrapping multiple layers of tape, I was finally able to get the drawer open again. I didn’t initially see the doll, and I instantly panicked. I yanked the drawer out and saw his tiny body curled into a fetal position in the very back corner of the drawer. He was laying perfectly still with his head shoved between his thighs. I almost felt bad for him, he looked helpless and small in the empty drawer. I hesitated before I picked up his limp, pale body. Carved right underneath him, originally covered by his body, said "HELP ME".

I stumbled backwards, gasping mid-breath and dropped him back into the drawer. Every hair on my body stood up. I slowly peeked into the drawer again and looked at the doll – no fingers or hands, just little stumps, and definitely no nails. I looked at my own hands and under my nails, I didn't see any signs of chipped paint or splinters despite my nails throbbing. That’s when I saw the doll move for the first time, right in front of me.

He got up on his legs and walked towards me, in a slow, disjointed trudge. He was tall enough to hoist himself out of the drawer and on top of the nightstand. He stopped at the edge of the table, tilted his head to have his emotionless, black, button eyes look up and started to open his little mouth. I squatted and lowered my head to get a better look at him and became eye to eye with the doll. I maintained my distance and stayed a few feet away from him, unaware of what his next move could be. I saw tiny, shark-like teeth, in two separate rows. His little red outline of his mangled mouth smiled at me, showing me how sharp and piercing his teeth could be. He then lunged off the table, jumping multiple feet directly at me and sank his teeth directly on the bridge of my nose. I wrapped both hands around his body and attempted to pull him off my face, his teeth both scraped against the skin and cartilage on my nose, but I also felt the pain of being pulled from the abdomen – all while screaming for help. As I was yanking and squeezing the doll's body, my ribs felt like they were being crushed by an unbelievable force. I could feel my own nails digging into my back, as I attempted to rip him off of me. My dad busted into the room, "What's going on?? Are you okay?? What is tha-." Dad saw the doll when I finally pulled him off of my bleeding face. Instinctively, I threw the doll in any direction to get it away from my body, to which the doll then smacked in a starfish against the wall, and I heard my Dad's voice before I finally blacked out.

“Oh no. Not again. Not you too."

I came to a few minutes later.

“Th-the doll!! Where did it go?”

I looked over to the wall I had thrown him at, but his body was not on the floor.

My dad was holding a washcloth to my nose, “I put him in that drawer. I assumed that is why it’s covered in duct tape.”

I sat silently for a bit before getting up to wash the dried blood off of my nose. He didn't rip the whole thing off, but he got pretty close. I began washing the blood off my nose, when his tiny imprint from the bite began to show. It was about the size of a quarter, but very obviously a deep bite mark. Both rows of teeth were very prominent. As soon as I got the bleeding under control and dad put a huge bandage over my nose, and sat me down on the side of my bed.

"Son, we need to talk. That doll…" He began to bounce his knee, "I've seen one of those dolls before. Your mom bought some before she passed away. I don't know where she got them, but she had a doll of each one of us. She knew I was uncomfortable with anything that messes with human souls. Playing with Voodoo dolls is like playing with the devil, and no human will win playing against the devil."

"Dad, I wasn't playing with it, I just found it. It keeps moving around by itself and-"

He cut me off, "Look, your mom started to act weird when she first got the dolls. She wasn't herself and started having these weird visions and symptoms, enough so that she was hospitalized before she died. I don't want that happening to you. Please promise me that you'll leave this doll alone and not mess around with it anymore. I don't want you to show it to your friends and I don't want this being brought up again. It's dangerous.”

I nodded and agreed, but I still had one question, "Dad, where is your doll? You said mom had one for all of us."

"I've locked it up in a spot where it will never escape and never hurt me. I had your doll in there with mine.”

I saw a drop of blood land on my lap. My fingers were trembling as I pressed them on the bandage on my nose, it was completely saturated and was continuing to rapidly ooze. I started feeling queasy and laid down on the couch and the room started to spin violently. I shut my eyes, but blood started pooling in my eyes. I tried to open them and call for dad, but the acidic sting and blur of red prevented me from seeing anything. I couldn’t focus my energy to even speak. I heard my dad yelling my name, getting further and further away under I collapsed again.

I woke up in the hospital, blinded by the lights coming through the window. I could feel my head pulsing from pain. My nose seemed to be the main source of my discomfort, as I now had a large, white strip of gauze wrapped around my entire head. Apparently, my dad had told the nurses I had been attacked by a chihuahua, a pretty vicious one from what it sounds like. The rest of my body was feeling numb, all except for my headache and my torn-up nose. I can barely remember anything that happened in the hospital, my dad was there the entire time, and I think Reese and Sam came to visit me. I do remember asking the nurse to pull the curtains down and requested the TV off. My head was pounding again, this time worst than last. The nurse raised an eyebrow.

"Do you have a headache? You are on some pretty heavy pain killers.”

I nodded begrudgingly and she left to get the doctor.

They put me on some additional pain medication, but nothing got rid of the agonizing pounding from my nose. I tried to sleep the pain off, but it was too intense. Everything around me sent a new pulse of torture to my brain. Footsteps thundered through the hall, the ceiling groaned and creaked, and my own heartbeat felt like a hammer against my temples. I laid, staring at the ceiling for hours, tears rolling down my face. I had nowhere to go and nothing to relieve the pain.

I was counting the tiles on the ceiling as an attempt to lull my brain. My dad had left for the night and I was alone. Moonlight draped through the slits of the curtains, just enough to provide a small nightlight. I quickly lost count and shut my eyes in an attempt to try to sleep. As soon as I began to settle, the A/C kicked on and my eyes rolled from the back of my head. The loud mechanical whoosh rolled across my brain and embedded more ice picks to my migraine, despite the cold air soothing my pain-ridden face. I caught a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye. I jerked my head to the side to see what it was, only to be met with shooting pains through my neck and spinal cord. My eyes were sore and dry; I blinked to make sure I could decipher what was moving around in my room. I heard whatever it was running around under the bed and moving my stuff around. I lifted my body up and peered over the edge of the bed – there he was. He had five needle heads poking directly into the crown of his skull, along with a miniature band aid on his nose – as if he was mocking me. He turned his head and continued running. The doll dove headfirst into the bag my dad had left me. There was a change of clothes and a few toiletries in there, even though I was supposed to go home tomorrow. I saw his legs poking out from the zipper as he wiggled his way inside the bag. He moved around in there a bit and then came out of the bag with one of my shoelaces from my Nikes.

The doll climbed to the top of the bag, and in a jerking leap, jumped from the bag to the chair that was next to my bed. He was making his way slowly towards me as I staggered around my bed, adrenaline pumping through my body, trying to find the button to summon my nurse. As I pulled the remote from in between the bed and mattress, the doll stood at the side of my bed, his dull eyes glued to mine with lifeless intensity. The shoelace hung from his jagged, serrated tooth-filled mouth. He dropped to the mattress with a soft bounce and sprinted with an unnatural speed to the end of the hospital bed. He began to tie a knot around the plastic handles, loop after loop, knot after knot. Like he knew exactly what he was preparing for.

I tried to kick him off the bed, but he was moving around too quickly to make any difference. I couldn't see exactly what he was doing, then, as I was trying to catch him, he sprinted into the moonlight making its way through the curtain cracks on the bed. The doll had tied a noose around his own neck. I panicked and got out of my bed to untie the knot on the handles. As soon as I put my feet on the ground, he jumped. I watched him in almost slow motion, jump feet first off the bed. Right before the shoelace became taut, I saw his evil little face give me the most horrendous smile. I instantly blacked out.

I thought I was dead.

However, I did wake up!

I woke up in a very dark room with a tiny ray of light coming through and edge of the ceiling., and only through the cracks of light could I barely see "HELP ME" scratched into the wood beneath me. I examined myself, unbelieving what I was seeing. I was wearing my basketball jersey, but a much tinier version of it. My little stubs of arms would be little to no help getting out of here. I heard a voice that sounded identical to my own enter what used to be my room. My dad and whoever was in the room must have gotten back from the hospital. The nightstand rattled for a second and the drawer opened. I saw my own human face looking down at me. He gave me a familiar evil, horrendous smile before he slammed the door shut the drawer and taped it back up.

“Don’t worry dad – the doll didn’t move. Looks like it will be locked up for a long time in here.”

I have to find a way out of here.