Doll Face

Perky, Passive and Forlorn

The first thing Quint woke to was a white ceiling. He then moved his head to look at the wall closest to where he was lying. It was a purple flowery pattern, and Quint suddenly wondered if all the past events had all just been a nightmare. He wondered if maybe he had fallen and knocked himself out at his grandmother's place and now here he was, lying in bed, his grandmother waiting for him to wake downstairs.
Quint sat up, liking the sound of this. A nightmare it was. That's all it was; a nightmare. A horrible, horrible nightmare.
He slid out of bed, and noticed that there was a pair of jeans and a T-shirt there waiting for him. This somehow gave him a reassurance tat it was a nightmare. Quint pulled on the clothes, and realised that they were the same ones he had worn in the dream. He shrugged, thinking it was just a coincidence.
But then he looked up at the room again. There was something different about this room, it wasn't the same as any of the rooms at his grandmother's place. His grandmother always had a certain scent that she scented the room with. Lavender. But this room smelled like stuffed toys and baby powder. Quint took in his surroundings properly. The room wasn't the same. It was filled with toys, some headless. Quint shuddered, and thought back to his last memory the night before.
He had been pulled into the Dollhouse, and in the darkness he could see three figures. One of them had a cheery voice, and another had a somewhat depressed voice. The third sounded something in between happy and sad at the same time.
Quint stood and walked over to the window. He could see the rest of the street from here. Including... his grandmother's house. Quint froze, realising that last night had not been a dream. It had been real.

He was inside the Dollhouse.

"Took you long enough to realise you know." The same sad sounding voice came from behind him, and reluctantly, Quint turned to see who it was.
The first thing Quint thought when he looked upon her face was that if it hadn't been for the stitches running underneath her eye and beside her mouth, she would have been quite a pretty girl. But as he stared at the stitches, he shuddered. The first one started at her forehead and ran underneath her right eye, making it look as if the only thing keeping that part of her face from coming off was those stitches. There were two stitches running from either side of her face down to her chin, making it look as if she was forever frowning. Behind those stitches however, was a pale, too pale, face. It looked as if all the blood had been drained from her face. Around her eyes was purple eye shadow, making her otherwise grey eyes look a sharp yet dim green. Her cheeks were bright pink, making her dark purple lips stand out more.
"Who... who a-are y-you?" Quint stuttered, unable to get over the look of this Doll's face.
"Forlorn." She replied quietly and frowned. Well, at least Quint thought she frowned, as it looked as if she was already frowning. But her lips did thin, and her eyes sharpen, so Quint decided that she was frowning. "You don't have to stare you know. I already know I'm hideous." She said sadly, and Quint looked quickly at his feet.
"Who's hideous?" A bright, bubbly voice filled the room, and in came another Doll. This one had stitches one either side of her mouth as well, but it made it look like she was smiling endlessly. There was another stitch going across her eye, which was surrounded by blue eye shadow making her blue eyes shine. Her face was as pale as Forlorn's and her cheeks an even brighter pink, making her pink lips pop out.
"I am. Isn't it obvious? He's not staring at you with as much disgust on his face as he was for me." Forlorn replied, her depressingly low voice ringing through the room.
"Oh tish, tosh. Everyone stares at us that way. You know that, Forlorn!" The other Doll giggled then turned to Quint smiling. "He's cute. Can we keep him?" She turned her head so that it was leaning out the doorway, clearly looking at an approaching Doll. Quint gulped. He felt like he was going to throw up.
The approaching Doll entered the room. She was taller than her companions, and seemed sharper witted too. Not to Quint's surprise, her face was also covered in stitches. One coming down from the edge of her eye, and the others in a straight line going from the edges of her mouth. Her eyes were surrounded by black eye shadow, making her hazel brown eyes seem deep and dark. Her deep red lips stood out along with the pink of her cheeks, making her whole pale yet dark face look deadly serious but playful all at once.
"I'm not sure yet. And for god's sake Forlorn, will you please just try to lighten up a little?" The Doll said, but the depressed looking doll beside her just scowled and looked back at Quint.
"What are going to do with him then?" Her voice had a tint of curiosity to it, but it was almost hidden beneath the sadness of her usual voice.
"I want to keep him! Can we keep him? Please, Passive?" The happy sounding Doll looked up at the tallest Doll with big begging eyes. The tallest Doll - Passive - stood there with a look on her face that said she was thinking hard about Quint's fate.
Forlorn sighed. "She's gonna say yes, I know she is. She never goes along with anything I suggest."
Passive shushed her. "I think we'll keep him for a while, and see how it goes. But Perky," she pointed a finger sternly in the smiling Doll's direction, "he's your responsibility." Perky nodded happily and Forlorn sighed a 'see?' but the other two ignored her.
Passive and Perky then left, chatting to one another. Forlorn came towards Quint and Quint, in a flustered and terrified manner, backed up against the wall.
"Quint. That's your name right?" Forlorn asked, although she sounded uninterested.
"Y-yeah. H-how did you..." Quint began, still incredibly shocked and too frightened to speak.
"We heard your friends yelling it out. They are so noisy. They gave me a headache." Forlorn explained, sounding bored. "Did you know that your name in old English means 'Queen's town'?" She asked, and Quint shook his head, wondering why she wasn't just going to kill him on the spot.
"Well it does. Your full name that is, not Quint. I wish I had a nice name like yours..." She mumbled the last sentence. Quint wondered if she was often complaining and whining.
"I hope you like it in here." She said, breaking through his thoughts and searching his face intently for an answer. Quint said nothing except nodded. He didn't want to make these people mad.
She nodded now. "Yeah. I'm glad you do. I was certain that you wouldn't. No one likes it here. No one likes us. Especially me. You know, Passive and Perky are often rolling their eyes at me. I know they are. You don't like me either, do you? Wait don't answer, I don't actually want to know." She rambled on, and sat down next to Quint, who wasn't taking his eye off her for a second. "This is my room, you know. I said that you could have it because I knew they were planning on putting me on the couch. So I saved them the trouble. They don't know how much I do for them. But I do a lot. I do it because I can tell they're planning on throwing me out if I don't do things for them. I can tell. They are always whispering and giggling. I know that they don't even like me. No body likes me." She whined, and Quint wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a few very small tears drip down. Strangely, Quint suddenly felt empathy for this strange creature.
"No one likes me either, you know." Quint said. Forlorn looked up at him with her big dim green eyes. "My friends only hung around me because I would do things to impress them. I bet they don't even miss me." He said, then stopped. What was he doing? She was gonna kill him, she didn't care what he thought!
"That sounds bad. I better go and see them then. Otherwise they'll think I'm playing with Perky's new pet. I like you... Kinda. So.. I guess I'll keep an eye on Perky for you... Not that you'll care of course." Once again, she mumbled the last sentence, but this time she got up and left with a graceful stride. But that didn't matter to Quint. What did matter to him was that she had called him Perky's pet. Quint slowly stood up, his hand gripping the closest thing near to him to stabilise himself with all the dread rushing down his veins. The thing he was gripping turned out to be a window. He wondered if it was possible for him to climb out the window and to his relief there was a tree branch, much like one out of cartoons and things he had seen that he would be able to climb safely down. He pulled the window up, and climbed down- very awkwardly - to the bottom. He began to run to the fence, but as soon as he arrived he was stopped by the Doll called Perky.
"You can't leave. You have to stay." She said, her face still smiling but her voice sounded as if she was disappointed in him for trying to escape.
"Wh-why?" He stuttered, backing away slowly.
She smiled, as if pleased. "Because you're our guest. You have to stay."
Quint gulped. "Please. Please let me go home. I can't stay- I miss my family." Quint quickly stopped himself from saying 'I can't stay here with you psychos'.
Perky tipped her head to the side in confusion. "We're your family now." She said this as if it was obvious, and that she didn't understand why Quint wanted to leave them. As if they were normal people, and that Quint was treating them like they weren't. "You stay here, okay? No leaving. Do you understand, Quinty?" She said, her childish voice ringing through Quint's head. We are your family now. No leaving. Do you understand?
Slowly, the realisation dawned on him that he was in a house that belonged to almost other-worldly people. There was no way that he would be able to get out. Not unless they let him out. He nodded, somewhat reluctantly, but nodded just the same.
Perky's smile turned into a wide grin. "Okay, good. Now let's go burn something, Quinty!"