Eli had never been one to believe in ghosts or haunted houses. He was a curious 8-year-old, full of wonder, and spent his afternoons reading books about pirates and space adventures, or sketching strange creatures in his notebook. But ever since they moved into the old house on Willow Street, something had changed. His new room was filled with odd, uncomfortable silences, the kind that made his skin crawl despite the warmth of the daylight.
The house was ancient—three stories of creaking wood, faded wallpaper, and long-forgotten corners where dust seemed to settle like time itself. His mother, Hannah, tried to make it feel like home, hanging family photos on the walls and putting out cozy, vintage furnishings she’d picked up at estate sales. But something about the house always felt… wrong. Even though Eli had only been living here for a few weeks, the sense of being watched never left him.
Then there was Toby.
Toby had come into Eli’s life the day they moved in. A mysterious woman, dressed in black, appeared at their doorstep as the sun dipped below the horizon. She didn’t introduce herself, and when she handed Eli the marionette, her face was as pale as moonlight, her eyes distant and knowing. The doll was an odd thing—a clown, but not a happy one. Its eyes were wide and glassy, its painted smile unnervingly crooked. Its wooden joints creaked as if the doll had been through centuries of play. Despite the woman’s strange behavior, Eli had accepted the doll eagerly, charmed by its detail.
For the first few days, Toby was just another toy. Eli would sit in his room, talking to him like he did with his other dolls, making up stories about his adventures. But then things started to happen.
It began with small things—subtle, easily dismissible. He’d leave Toby sitting in the corner of his room while he played, only to find the doll moved to a different spot when he returned. At first, Eli thought he had simply forgotten where he’d left him. But after a few times, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. The way Toby’s eyes seemed to follow him from across the room… or the way the doll’s smile would shift when Eli wasn’t looking. Eli’s stomach would tighten when he noticed it, but he didn’t say anything to his mother. She would just laugh and tell him it was his imagination.
Then, one night, as Eli knelt on the floor of his room, trying to figure out how to make Toby perform an acrobatic flip, the doll’s head turned. Slowly, deliberately. Its eyes locked onto Eli’s, and the grin stretched wider, impossibly so.
A whisper echoed in Eli’s mind.
“Run.”
Eli’s heart stopped. He jerked backward, dropping the doll. But it didn’t fall. It hovered for a moment, its wooden limbs jerking as if pulled by invisible strings. Eli ran out of the room, his pulse pounding in his ears, but the whisper had already faded into the shadows.
The next day, things escalated.
Eli was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to eat his cereal, when he heard the whisper again. It was soft, like a voice calling from a distance, only meant for him.
“Listen.”
He looked around, trying to place where it had come from, but no one else in the house seemed to notice. His mother was reading the paper, oblivious to Eli’s wide-eyed terror. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard Toby’s voice, but it was the first time it felt… real. He wasn’t imagining it. He wasn’t crazy. Toby was talking to him.
“Bring me the key,” the whisper said.
Eli tried to ignore it. But as the days wore on, the whispers became more frequent and impossible to ignore. Every time he was alone, Toby would speak, coaxing him to go further into the house, to places he had never ventured before. The basement. The attic. The locked cupboard under the stairs.
And then it came—the first command he could not deny.
“Find the room.”
Eli didn’t know why, but something in the way Toby said it felt important. The words felt like they carried weight, as if they were tied to something that had been waiting for him. He could no longer resist.
One evening, when his mother was out at the store, Eli ventured into the basement. The door had always been locked, but after weeks of hearing Toby’s whispers, the lock suddenly gave way under his touch, as if it had been waiting for him. The moment he stepped inside, a chill ran through him. The basement was cold and musty, lined with old furniture draped in sheets, forgotten relics of the house’s past.
At the far end of the room, Eli noticed a door he had never seen before. It was small, tucked behind a stack of old boxes. His fingers trembled as he touched the knob and turned it.
Inside was a room unlike anything he’d imagined. The air smelled stale, like it had been sealed away for decades. In the center of the room was a collection of old dolls—hundreds of them, arranged in a circle. They were all different—some were ceramic, some wooden, some ragged with age. But all had one thing in common: their eyes. They stared at Eli, unblinking.
Toby’s whisper echoed in his mind again, louder now, more insistent.
“Place me among them.”
Eli hesitated, but something in his chest urged him forward. He placed Toby at the center of the circle, and for a moment, nothing happened. But then the room seemed to shift. The shadows deepened, the air grew colder, and a low hum filled his ears.
The dolls’ eyes… they moved. They blinked. They twitched.
A voice—one that wasn’t Toby’s, but somehow the same—spoke. It came from all around him.
“The curse has begun. You have opened the door to what should have remained sealed.”
Before Eli could react, the room seemed to collapse inward. The walls groaned as if the house itself was alive, protesting against the breach. Eli scrambled to his feet, trying to run, but the door slammed shut with a deafening crash, trapping him inside. The dolls began to move, jerking in unnatural rhythms, their limbs twisting as though they were puppets pulled by invisible strings.
A figure appeared in the corner of the room—pale and thin, with hollow eyes and a sadistic grin. The figure stepped forward, revealing the faded name on its clothing: Victor Crowley.
Eli’s breath caught in his throat. He knew that name. The journal. The warnings his mother had found in the attic. Victor Crowley had lived in this house decades ago, and according to the journal, he had become obsessed with the dolls. But it wasn’t just obsession—it was possession. Victor had created Toby, not as a toy, but as a vessel for something darker.
Victor’s ghostly hands reached for Toby, and for the first time, Eli understood what had happened. Toby wasn’t just a toy. It had been part of a curse, a malevolent spirit passed from one body to the next, seeking new victims to control. And now, it had claimed him.
Suddenly, Eli’s body locked in place. His mouth went dry. He was no longer in control. The whispers in his mind grew louder, more urgent. He could hear Toby’s voice, but it was no longer a whisper. It was a roar.
“You belong to me now.”
Victor Crowley’s figure dissolved into smoke, and the dolls began to chant in unison. Eli’s vision blurred as the spirit of Toby merged with his own. His hands twitched, his mouth curled into a smile he didn’t control.
Then, everything went dark.
Eli’s mother found him the next morning, lying in his bed, his eyes wide open, staring at nothing. She called his name, shaking him, but there was no response. His body was cold, his skin pale. The house was silent again, save for the faintest sound—like the soft clicking of wooden joints.
In the corner of his room, the marionette Toby stood. Its wooden eyes gleamed, and its smile stretched wider than before. And this time, it wasn’t Eli who whispered.
It was Toby.
“I’m still here.”