Forbidden Horrors

Hush, My Child

It was unlike anything else I had ever witnessed. It all happened two weeks ago, before I was sent here.
     My aunt had just passed away. She wasn't married, but she did have a little girl. My cousin was four years younger than me. She was totally obsessed with a small China doll that she was given. The doll was kinda creepy and it sent shivers down my spine just looking at it.
     When I asked my cousin why she always carried it around, all she said was, "mommy gave it to me."
     I didn't think anything of it. I thought that she just wanted to keep the things my aunt had given her. But something about the doll still seemed off.
     So one night I did something that I would soon regret. I snuck into the room that my cousin was sleeping in. The doll was on the dresser. Its green eyes staring at me. I snatched the doll up and carried it from the room, shutting the door behind myself as I left.
     The next morning, I woke up to see my cousin crying and looking at me. "What's wrong?" I ask.
     She opens up her mouth and I scream. As soon as her mouth opens, blood pours out, staining my carpet. My mom comes rushing into my room hearing my screams.
     We spent the day at the doctor's office. They said that my cousin had her tongue cut out. They tried to get her to write down what happened, but all she wrote was 'mommy did it. She wanted to punish me for losing the doll.'
     When we got back to the house that night, I convinced my cousin to go to sleep. When I was sure she was asleep, I went to get her doll and return it. However, when I opened up the cabinet and moved the towels, the doll was gone. I began to frantically search for the doll.
     I finally found it in my parents' room. I wasn't sure why it was there, but all I wanted was to get the doll back to my cousin. I picked up the doll and smoothed down her strawberry-blonde curls.
     I turned around and almost dropped the doll. Before me stood my dead aunt.
     "You took it?"
     "How? You're dead!"
     She laughed. It was bone-chilling and maniacal. She reached out towards me, her fingertips stained with blood. "Give it to me."
     "No. I'm giving it back, I swear."
     "Give it back!" She commands. Her harsh tone startles me and I drop the doll. Everything seems to happen in slow motion.  The doll drops and crashes on the ground. My aunt stares at me, a wicked smile growing on her lips.
     "Oh lord," I mutter.
     "Hush, my child. It's fine," my aunt says. She comes closer to me. I find myself unable to move. She whispers, "two weeks."
     She then disappears. For the next two weeks, things began to change. My parents started yelling at me more and I couldn't do anything without angering them.
     After the two weeks was over, I saw my aunt again. She held a faceless, bald China doll in her hands. "I'm making another," was all she said.
     I just stare at her. I try to yell, to shout, but my voice won't cooperate. I watch as my aunt paints a smile onto the China doll.
     I get a weird tingling feeling around my lips and mouth. I reach up to graze my lips with my fingers. I feel nothing where my mouth should be.
     My aunt then begins to attach hair to the doll's head. I feel a ripping on my scalp. I feel my head and realise that I have no hair anymore. I stare at my aunt. She's giggling as she paints eyes onto the doll.
    When she finishes the eyes, I'm completely blind. The only senses I have are touch and hearing. I hear my aunt shuffling around.
     "Hush, my child. You will live forever. Just as those other girls did."
     When I wake up, my eyes refuse to close again. I'm in my cousin's arms. She's smiling down at me. My mother comes up behind her, tears in her eyes. Mother looks at me.
     "Mommy?" My cousin says.
     My mother forces herself to smile. "Hush, my child. It's fine. I just have never seen a doll so beautiful."