The Headless Doll

I could see him standing in the doorway. He looked scared, his face a ghostly white shade of pale. I walked up the rusted staircase towards him as the steps creaked underneath my feet. He was whispering to someone. He started to back away, his eyes widening as he escaped my view of the doorway. Then I heard a scream.

Earlier that day

I’d never been to the old insane asylum before. People always told me that it was haunted. I didn’t know Austin too well, so when he invited me out I was skeptical.

“You want to hit this?” Austin said, gesturing the joint he had just rolled towards.

“I’m good.” No chance I was going into a haunted insane asylum stoned out of my mind.

We pulled up into the abandoned street where the asylum was and then I saw it. The building was massive. It might have been about a mile wide in length. It was a beautiful building, red brick and white columns lining the grand entrance. We snuck through a hole inside the fence and made our way in through the back.

We’re In

The place was a mess. You can tell it had just been abandoned. Broken glass everywhere, medical equipment left all over the place, it was a wreck. Austin had started to walk ahead of me a little bit. He was so spaced out I think he had just forgotten I was behind him. It was so dark I lost him within just a few minutes.

“Austin?”

I called his name but no answer. The hallways were caving in around me. The infrastructure of the building was collapsing with age. I was walking through a long corridor when I tripped over something and fell to my knees. It was an old porcelain doll. Its head had been ripped from its body, leaving just a creepy Irish kilted body on the concrete. Now I was scared. Symbols of devil worshippers lined the walls. Maybe just graffiti.

I still couldn’t find Austin. I climbed the rusted staircase praying that the steps wouldn’t fall beneath me. Once i got up the last set of stairs, i saw him there. He was standing in the doorway whispering to someone. My hands were shaking. I heard him scream and ran out the door onto the roof to find him. He wouldn’t look me in the eye .

“Austin, what’s going on?” He was trembling, backing away from me like I was some sort of monster. His eyes rolled to the back of his head as he collapsed onto the rooftop.

I grabbed his arm and tried to wake him up. I could hear the echoes of my screams.

“Wake up!, wake up!”

A cold breeze stung the back of my neck as Austin lay there frozen. I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around in disbelief of what I saw. The headless doll sat perched up on the rooftop. I watched the doll hand creak up and give me a little wave.

“Wake up!”

“Huh?” I opened my eyes to my dad grabbing the covers off of my bed. But it didn’t feel like a dream.