Your five-year-old body may be quick and spry, but your mood causes your pace to an excruciatingly slow crawl. Slowly, you return to the house and climb the stairs. Tears stream from your chubby cheeks and you try to choke back another round of crying.
You rub your hands across your eyes as you turn the knob to the doll room. It's still in its state of disarray that you caused who knows how long ago. You slam the door behind you.
"Okay," you say to the piles of mutilated dolls, broken mirror and wrecked furniture. "I give up. What do you want? I'll give it to you! WHAT DO YOU WANT?"
"Play with me."
A chill rockets down your spine. You don't know where that little girl's voice came from, but it's much cuter sounding than yours. Your voice has become somber, cynical. This voice sounded as sweet as sugar and as joyful as a kid on Christmas.
"What?" you gasp.
From the pile of rubbish, a doll with a crack in its cheek and a missing eye stood up. It had straight black hair and the one eye it did have was pale blue. It wore an adorable frilly black dress with a plaid red vest and shiny red shoes.
"Play with me," it said without moving its lips.
You're terribly unsettled by this development. Still, you've got nothing else to do but abide by its wishes. "Okay," you stammer. "I'll play with you. What game do you want to play?"
"It's a lovely game," the doll says in its squeaky voice. It cocks its head. "I have been waiting so long and I am so anxious to play it."