Melancholia

Remnants 36 - Dolly Friendship

"You're a doll!" cried Allison, who had answered the telephone. "Nancy, I just know you're going to be in big trouble!"

"I sure am," Nancy said. "I'm..."

"I'm what, Nancy? What?"

"Play with me..."

Allison heard something fell on Nancy's side, then the telephone went silent. "Nancy? Nancy?"

Allison hung up the phone, worried for her friend. What happened to Nancy? Was Nancy ghosting her? Was Nancy playing tricks on her? No, Nancy was a responsible person, she couldn't have done that.

"Grace, something bad has happened. Something has happened to Nancy!"

"Nancy? How could that be? She's always careful."

"I don't know, she just called me on the telephone, and then it went silent."

"What did she say?"

"She said that she was a doll, a very pretty one too."

"Sure she is, we all are. We're just beautiful ladies, aren't we?"

"Yeah, but the last thing she said was, 'Play with me'."

"Play with me? We'd better go to her house and check on her."

So they went, after dinner, to Nancy's house.

"It's locked!"

"We'd better call a locksmith."

"That might not be necessary. Knowing Nancy, there might be a key..."

"Ah! Here it is!"

"Clack!" the door flung open.

"Where is she?"

Walking down the corridor, they found no sign of her.

"Where is she?"

"How about this? You go upstairs to find her and I find downstairs?"

"Alright."

Grace went upstairs and Allison stayed downstairs.

Upstairs, Grace was having no luck, only being able to find Nancy's bedroom and toilet, there wasn't really much to go about beyond that.

Downstairs, however, Allison found in the study room, a red telephone handset fallen on the floor. She bent down to pick up the handset when she found that close by, a doll was lying down on the floor.

She put the handset back and then examined the doll. She looked at the front, and turned it around. It looked, familiar. That dress, that attire, the accessories.

"Ah!" It soon came to her mind. "No, it couldn't be," she thought.

"Grace! I found a doll!"

"A doll?"

"It looks just like..."

"I'm coming down! Let me have a look!"

One look at the doll, and her jaw was opened wide, in horror, in fear and in awe. "It... This isn't Nancy, right? Tell me it isn't her."

"But it is. I've looked around and, no sign of her. Only this doll."

"Why, look again! Look again!"

"You want to? Then search you shall. I give up."

So Grace searched the floor again, to no avail.

"Fine. She isn't anywhere."

"Come, look at this. She has a string."