The Dolls

A grandmother gives her seven granddaughters dolls for their protection against a curse. Will they take her warning seriously, or fall to the curse?

The Dolls

by Omegax45

 

 

                        There was a grandmother who had seven granddaughters.  She loved each of her granddaughters and had a doll made for each one upon their tenth birthday.  For the eldest daughter, Natasha, she was given a male doll dressed as a knight.  The second eldest daughter, Vivian, received a male doll dressed as a male samurai.  The third eldest daughter, Sabrina, received a male doll dressed as a gentleman.  The fourth eldest daughter, Kathleen, received a male doll dressed as a police officer.  The fifth eldest daughter, Brittney, received a male doll dressed as a wizard.  The second youngest granddaughter, Opal, received a male doll dressed as a hunter.  The youngest granddaughter, Rose, received a male doll dressed as a soldier.  Each time the granddaughters received a doll, their grandmother told them a story:

                        "Once upon a time, there was an evil goblin that came upon our ancestral village, stealing young children to eat or to change them into goblins.  Your great-great-great grandfather went to the goblin's lair and put a hex onto the goblin:

 

                        "So long as my bloodline flows will you not harm a single child again.  Your attempts will gain you nothing but the agony of Hell itself."

 

                        "The goblin never again harmed a child, but came before your great-great-great grandfather one night and told him:

                       

                        "You may be victorious, human, but know that you have also cursed your entire family.  By the death of seven girls of your blood before their nineteenth birthday in a single decade will I be free, and the village's descendants will be doomed by my wrath."

 

                        "Taking this warning seriously, our family has dolls created for each girl to act as our protectors from the goblin.  Keep the dolls by your side.  Love them dearly, and they will protect you."

                        The granddaughters knew not of what their grandmother meant by the story, but they loved the life-like dolls they were given.  They treated them with love and respect, and rarely did they leave the dolls' side.  However, time had a way of changing things, and for each granddaughter, they were no exception.

                        Natasha grew into a beautiful woman upon nearing her high school graduation, her appetite for anything beautiful voracious.  Her room was designed with the finest antiques and custom furniture.  Whatever she wanted, her parents got for her.  On the eve before her nineteenth birthday, she gazed in wonder and her eyes fell upon her knight doll, who had collected dust while sitting in his tiny chair for the last several years.  She had long forgotten about the doll and its meaning.

                        "What an ugly thing," she said, picking up the doll by one arm, "I can't believe Grandmother gave this thing to me.  It's so not beautiful.  It's not even pretty!  I'll donate it tomorrow.  Maybe some poor brat can make something of it."

                        She tossed the doll into her closet and went about deciding what to do about her birthday.  Tired after a few hours of planning, she went to bed.

                        The next morning, Natasha was found dead in her bedroom.  Her parents were in tears as EMTs carted her away to the hospital, where the coroner decreed that she had an aneurysm in her brain that had ruptured, killing her instantly.  Everyone was shocked, for Natasha showed no signs of an aneurysm nor did it run in the family.  Only the grandmother knew the truth, having found Natasha's doll in the closet.

                        It was the goblin.

                        A year later, Vivian had quickly moved on from her sister's death.   She did not believed her grandmother about some goblin killing Natasha and felt that old age was rotting away her sense of reality.  She had college to think of alongside her own nineteenth birthday.  She was going to celebrate with friends that will be going off to different colleges, friends whom she was more close to than her own family.

                        One night, Vivian was packing away her room to get ready to move into her dorm when she came across her samurai doll.  The doll had been treated poorly and its clothes had holes and stains upon them when the house had been victimized by mice.

                        "Ew," she said, dropping the doll, "I can't believe I missed this after that infestation.  It's no good to me now."

                        She placed the doll into a garbage bag and planned on throwing it out with the rest of the garbage in the morning.  Feeling thirsty, she headed for the kitchen downstairs, but felt some strange force pushing her and she fell.  Her screams called her parents to her, but they were too late.  She broke her neck upon the stairs and died.

                        The family was horribly scarred and scared.  They could not believe that Vivian could've simply tripped and fall to her death.  She was graceful, and even had a scholarship for dancing.  The grandmother was given the samurai doll back as her daughter cleaned out Vivian's room a few months later, and the fear of her warning going unheeded grew.

                        Two years passed, and the twins Sabrina and Kathleen were getting ready to celebrate their nineteenth birthday.  They were collecting their old toys to give to needy children and decided to give their dolls to them.  They placed them in boxes to be wrapped later and headed out to celebrate.  On their way to a restaurant, the brakes went and they crashed into oncoming traffic.  Neither one survived.

                        By now, the entire family couldn't believe that such horrific accidents were happening to them, one-by-one.  The grandmother told them that it was the goblin, fulfilling his curse upon them.  Everyone did not believe her, feeling that she was becoming senile.  Brittney accused the grandmother for causing the accident, as the police suspected foul play after finding the brake lines cut on the car.  She even went so far as to throw her wizard doll at her grandmother to hurt her so.  Her parents scold her and grounded her for her behavior.  A few weeks later, before her nineteenth birthday, Brittney had ran off and was found the following morning dead in the public swimming pool.  The police had deduced that she snuck in the following night and drowned.

                        Both Opal and Rose were scared, feeling that their grandmother was right.  They held their dolls tightly each night and rarely left their side.  Opal kept her hunter doll on her desk, only paying attention to it at night when going to bed.  Rose, on the other hand, treated her soldier doll with love and care, keeping the dust away and placing it on its own pillow at night before going to bed.  As time went on, they became less and less scared of the goblin.

                        Three years have passed, and Opal was getting ready for both her high school graduation and her nineteenth birthday.  She was going to study computer graphics and open up her own business.  She looked at her hunter doll and decided that she no longer needed it.  She gave her doll to Rose, who was studying to make dolls herself.  Rose was frightened that Opal would perish like their other cousins, but Opal felt that she had nothing to fear anymore.  She was leaving before her birthday, so the goblin would not catch her.

                        A few days before her birthday, Opal left with her friends to visit an amusement park a few states away.  She got on the plane okay, but the family was shocked when they learned that the plane crashed a few hours later due to engine failure.  There were no survivors, and investigators could not find a single thing wrong with the plane's engines.

                        Rose was completely depressed and scared.  She was all alone now, not even her parents could protect her.  All she had were her soldier doll and Opal's hunter doll for her protection.  She needed to get away, no longer able to stay with her parents until college started.  She was packing when her grandmother showed up, carrying the other dolls with her.

                        "The goblin will not stop," she said, "He needs you to be free.  Take these dolls and love them dearly.  I love you, my dear granddaughter.  Only these dolls can save us all."

                        Unsure what she meant, but not having other options, Rose took all the dolls with her.  She found space for each of them and gave each of them a bit of time in her day for maintenance and a few words.  Being almost nineteen, she felt silly, but couldn't help but feel that the dolls were... alive, almost.  Were they?  Was that why they were so special?

                        Winter had arrived and Rose was studying hard for exams.  She had made new clothes for the dolls and she was working on new designs to impress her professors.  So far, they were mildly impress with her works and wanted something to amaze them with.  She was frustrated and tired, crumbling up yet another design and started on another.  so lost in her studies and designs that she had forgotten that her birthday was days away.  Eventually, her body took over and she promptly fell asleep.

                        Rose awoke the next morning, feeling groggy and stiff.  Cursing herself for sleeping on her desk, she slowly got up and went to take a shower.  She stopped in her tracks while passing her living room and nearly screamed.

                        Large splotches of blood decorated her furniture and floor, one of the windows wide open.  She could hear a commotion outside and looked out the window to see a crowd of students forming around something on the ground.  Squinting her eyes, she made out a hideous human-like creature, the skin a nasty green color and what little hair it had on its head a few shades darker than the skin.  Large slashes and what appeared to be bullet holes littered its body and by no doubt the thing -goblin- had died upon its fall from several floors.  Teachers and faculty were coming by to shoo away the students and EMTs were coming with a stretcher to cart the body away, everyone wondering where the strange creature came from.

                        Body numb with shock, Rose pulled her head back and turned to look at the dolls that she had set up in her living room.  Each had a different weapon in hand and had splotches of blood upon them, but no signs of injury. 

 

THE END

 

Author's Note

Thank you for reading. I may change the ending, but I feel that it is good as it stands for now.