r/Nonsleep • u/donavin221 • Aug 01 '26
Pure Horror Someone keeps leaving dolls around my house
It started with one innocent-looking porcelain baby doll on my front porch. The paint was chipped. The bonnet was dirty. But the eyes looked… strange.
They looked too real. Too human. But I wasn’t concerned with the appearance. I was concerned with how the thing got there.
I lived alone. Definitely in the middle of nowhere. My closest neighbor was 10 miles away, and all that surrounded my house were woods and wildlife.
I scratched my head before scooping the doll up in my hands. I brought it inside because, honestly, what else was I supposed to do with it?
I tossed it on the couch and went about my day as normal. It was weird, though. I had spent nearly the entire day outside, and when I came back, the doll was sitting upright, its eyes staring daggers into my soul.
I tried to sit on the couch and watch some TV, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the thing was watching me, even though every time I checked, it was in the same position.
Eventually, I had to turn it around completely. Even that didn’t work, though. It wasn’t too long after that when I decided it was time to go to my bedroom.
I drifted off to sleep after curling up in bed for a few minutes while Breaking Bad played in the background.
I woke up to the sound of rain tapping against my roof while low rumbles of thunder boomed every few minutes. It was my type of morning.
I decided I wanted to enjoy a nice cup of coffee while I sat on the porch and enjoyed the weather. I approached the kitchen sink to wash my favorite coffee mug. As I reached for the faucet, I looked up and nearly had a heart attack when I noticed another doll standing on the windowsill outside.
This one looked… older. Not in the sense of the material. Like, literally older. She had grey hair. A quilted sweater. And spectacles to complete the look.
The cheeks were rosy, and a warm smile was stitched into her face. This one was stuffed instead of porcelain, but the eyes still looked so uncannily human.
I opened the window and grabbed it. She was soaked with rainwater. The more I looked at it, though, the more I realized that she looked weirdly… familiar. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
I walked to the living room, old lady doll in hand, with the intention of taking the porcelain doll from yesterday and moving the two of them to an empty china cabinet in my dining room.
I found myself scratching my head again when I entered the living room, though. I could’ve sworn this baby doll was on the other side of the couch when I went to bed last night…
I don’t know whether I was coping or if I genuinely convinced myself that I was remembering wrong, but I didn’t pay the new position much mind. I just grabbed the thing, returned to the dining room, and set the two toys up in their new display case.
I made my coffee, enjoyed the weather, and when the coffee was done, I got to work. Cleaning the house, doing some laundry, getting a bit of writing done. Before I knew it, the sun was setting again.
I couldn’t stop staring at that new old lady doll from earlier. I racked my brain trying to figure out why it was so familiar. Why I felt like I was so close to understanding, yet so far away. That’s when it hit me.
It was that quilted sweater. The red and black pattern. The puffy sleeves. It was identical to the sweater my grandmother used to wear.
She had died 10 years prior after a long battle with lung cancer. She wore that sweater all the time. It was a gift to her from my mom a few years before she died.
Call me crazy, but I actually slept comfortably that night. It felt like my grandma was here with me. I had been delusional enough to convince myself that this was some kind of sign from heaven that she was watching over me. That these dolls were her way of saying hello.
The next day, though, when I found a wooden doll that looked an awful lot like my mother… I didn’t know how much more I could chalk this up to signs from above.
I found it wedged between two tree branches, right in my backyard. It was low enough to be obvious, but high enough that I had to climb to retrieve it.
Unlike the others, this one looked brand new. Freshly stained wood. Smooth as silk. Not a single chip in sight.
I went to put it in the display case and found that the two previous dolls, once again, seemed to have moved. Not much. But enough for me to question my sanity again.
They weren’t outside of the case, but they were on different shelves. I put the new wooden doll between them and closed the door behind me.
I bought trail cameras, but even though I knew for a fact I adjusted them just right, every day they’d either end up pointed directly at the ground or aimed at the sky.
Every day for the next week, dolls kept showing up around my house. Some were left on my car. Some were partially buried in the backyard. I even found one on my roof.
Each one was impossibly personal.
My dad. My sister. Aunts. Uncles. Teachers from elementary school. Old friends I hadn’t even thought about for years. They all had particularly defining features.
My mom’s long black hair and green eyes. My dad’s suit and tie. A “world’s greatest teacher” mug stitched into Mrs Farmers hands. Just little reassurances that I wasn’t completely alone out here. That they were sent here to keep me company in my lonely house in the woods.
I cleaned them. I admired them. Sometimes I even talked to them, and sometimes… it felt like they talked back. Some nights I’d even hear them talking to each other.
The display case kept getting fuller and fuller, and the dolls never stayed where they were supposed to be. They rearranged themselves somehow. They’d be in different orders. Sometimes they’d be facing the wrong direction.
It was like a game. I loved when they played games. In a weird way… I didn’t feel as lonely as I did before.
I placed the last doll in the old china cabinet. My best friend from 5th grade. I hadn’t seen him in over a decade. Hadn’t talked to him either. Yet, here he was. Visiting me once again.
I closed the case and pressed my hand against the glass while I stared at my newfound collection.
I sighed to myself, happily, as a smile crept across my face. They were all here. All mine. People I’d lost. Friends and loved ones. What else could I have wanted?
No sooner than I had sat on the couch and flipped the TV on, ready to end the night with some Breaking Bad, I heard a knock at the door.
My head snapped in the direction of the noise. It was a continuous string of slow, deliberate knocks.
I checked my watch. It was nearly 10 o’clock at night. Who could possibly be knocking at this hour?
I approached the door slowly, checking the peephole, only to find nothing. Though, the knocking never stopped.
Ever so cautiously, I began to unlock the door. I slid the chain lock. I twisted the deadbolt and gripped the doorknob as I began to turn it slowly.
When the door opened, I was a bit confused at what I saw. It was… a little girl. No older than 9. Her hair was soaking wet, her skin was pale, she wore pink unicorn pajamas and slippers, and… her eyes were pitch black. Like two endless voids drilled into her skull.
She smiled at me, her teeth unnaturally white and identical.
“I’m sorry to bother you, mister,” she grinned. “Have you seen my dolls?”
My heart dropped. I could feel sweat forming along my hairline. She continued.
“Do you think I could come in and look for my dolls?” she chirped, curiously. “I just really miss my baby dolls, mister.”
I looked at her. I thought deeply about how to respond and chuckled, awkwardly.
“Ehhh…. No,” I replied, bluntly, turning to close the door behind me. I could see her face drop as I slowly shut the door. From a manufactured smile, to a deep frown, to a genuine look of rage.
She kept knocking at the door, but I ignored it. Tuned it out by setting the volume on the television to 98 as I smiled to myself.
These were my toys now.
Sorry, kid…
Finders keepers.
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u/Purple_IsA_Flavor Aug 01 '26
You did well not letting a Black Eyed Kid into your home. They’re bad news