TW: Creepy stuff, Spiders, Rats, Dolls, Children's Screams/Laughter, Blood... A lot of stuff is here.
I don't know how to specify things, but read if you want and stay safe. If you really enjoy creepy things, read late at night with no lights on underneath your covers, or outside at night with the wind blowing around you.
Listen to the music and put it on loop if you please.
I'm truly sorry for writing this, as I know most people aren't here reading this book for it. But I enjoy writing these type of things.
The smile of the doll sitting on my nightstand seemed to glow slightly, as if it was alive and truly smiling at me.
Clothes were littered on the floor, lights were off, and the only sound that was heard throughout the abandoned hotel was wind.
I had settled here for tonight, against my own wishes. Tomorrow I would get back up once again and stay on the trail, hoping to find a place to finally stay and sit down in.
The doll, it was the only thing I had left from my childhood. Despite how unnerving it may seem, it had gotten me through many things.
I thought it might be alive honestly, after all the laughter I heard in my head each night, the distinct laughter of children.
The laughter would overlap and seem as if it was smiling, just grinning at me.
I could sometimes hear my own laughter mixed in with the children's, and then my own face would appear for a split second in front of me.
Of course it as all just a figure of my own imagination, I knew I was going insane years ago when I got kicked out of my apartment.
Things had gone downhill every since I turned 18, ever since I had to move out of my childhood home and get a job.
Mother only let me take one thing, and that was my doll.
The doll, was it's preferred name.
Blonde hair and unblinking eyes, it still meant everything to me.
I had moved around the world after getting kicked out of my first apartment, living in places where no one should, moving around every night, stealing food from homes, barely surviving.
There was a thrill to it, after all, who knew when the police would catch up?
They had been searching for me day by day, but I was always a few steps ahead. It was still thrilling though, the scare of getting thrown into prison keeping my insane thoughts going.
So I kept moving, I kept living, and now I was here, in this abandoned hotel in this abandoned town, living in one of the rooms for one night.
Everything was run down and there were rats and spiders skittering throughout the whole places.
I scrounged around until I found the least run down room, settling here and putting my belongings on the bed with me, and the doll on my nightstand.
It was staring at me, I positioned it that way. It would look over me, with it's unmoving eyes and glowing smile. It would make the insane thoughts cower in fear and the pain leave through the door.
Or it would make them hurt more, and make it so that I saw things like the doll reaching towards me.
I would be fine regardless, everything scary about this certain doll I held was made up in my head and my imagination.
It would never hurt me anyways, I had had it for too long.
I smiled at the thought of going to the beach with my mother when I was young. It was before she had figured out who I was, what my father had brought on me.
We had gone hunting for seashells. I had picked up the most pretty one there, because it reflected my doll.
The, doll.
Mother had picked up a slightly cracked shell, but she loved it nonetheless.
It was one of my best memories.
I had laughed along with mother and the two of us had gotten ice cream.
It was silly, really. How much fun I had.
My eyes started to close slightly and the noise of children laughing started in my mind once more.
I started to find it comforting, the sound of the children.
It was what I went to sleep with every night, and just as I would slip into sleep a scream would come from all of the children.
And then I would be asleep, not a worry in the world on my mind.
The doll would look over me silently, giving me comfort and making the children scream.
The children's screams came earlier tonight.
I wasn't nearly close to falling asleep as I heard one of them scream, then the next, and then another.
They were all screaming, until quickly being silenced by an unknown person.
Then my scream came, and it was the scream I let out when my father got pushed out of the house by mother.
My eyes opened slowly and I looked to the nightstand, about to scold the doll for not knowing when to make the children scream tonight.
But the doll wasn't there.
It must've moved of course.
I shifted slightly in my bed, looking towards the door in front of me, a noise finally starting to fill the hotel.
The sound of a piano playing.
It was terribly out of tune and slightly creepy, but nonetheless I smiled.
The tune I recognized, I recognized oh too well. It was one that had played in my mind as a child, one that I had heard on a music box that father gave me.
The doll must've remembered me listening to the music box, oh what a sweet friend!
I smiled and stood out of my bed, not worrying for a moment that something might kill me.
After all, death wasn't too scary, was it?
I walked slowly through the hallway, enjoying looking at each of the paintings on the walls, until a thought crossed my mind.
Now why would the hotel be abandoned so soon?
Oh well, who knew. Now it was mine and I could use it, remember where it was of course. I wouldn't stay here for much longer than tonight.
My feet creaked across the floor, my smile only growing as the noise of the piano got louder.
Creaks and cracks were littered across the hotel as I walked through it, my feet brushing over a crack every now and then.
The carpet that was laid on the ground was torn up, as if nails scraped across it, ripping it up. As if some little girl was getting dragged away from her parents and family, her nails becoming bloody as they were desperately broken and peeled off.
My hand drifted away from my side and gripped onto the railing that kept you from falling piteously down from the stairs.
Some parts of the railing were diminishing though, so who knew, I could fall from the stairs if I really wanted to.
The ripped up carpet continued on the stairs, as if the little girl wasn't going to give up despite the fact that her fate was sealed.
I reached the bottom floor, turning towards where the music was coming from.
Oh my, how rats were scurrying about the place, but how beautiful it was! There were pictures hanging on almost every wall, and there were mirrors scattered about.
Smiles seemed to radiate back at me as I walked through the hallway and into what I presumed was the ballroom.
My my, how fancy this hotel must have been.
I started dancing, waltzing to be exact, into the ballroom, my eyes catching onto the doll as I came in.
"Thank you for playing the music dear, truly it is a masterpiece." The doll didn't respond to my thanks and continued to play, it's hands slowly moving across the out of tune piano, it's smile never moving as it played.
It's nails were broken and had dried blood on them, what a shame.
I knew how to dance the waltz, thanks to my mother when I was a child. She desperately wanted me to become a famous dancer after I showed interest in it, so she let me go to dance classes.
Those soon started to end as father left, since he was the one who had the best job.
My eyes closed, a laugh trickling from my mouth, and once I opened my eyes again I was in a fully lit room, a dance partner in front of me, matching my moves and dancing along with me.
People were all around inside of the now busy ballroom, people were flocked around and dancing along with me and my partner, and I wasn't so alone.
The same music was playing, and as soon as I could I glanced over to see the player.
It was a small girl, around the age of 6, and yet you could tell she was extremely talented. Her blonde hair was curled and rested carefully on her shoulders, moving slightly as she played.
Her hands looked perfect as she played the masterpiece, her smile never failing as she played.
I had to move my head away from the girl as I continued to dance with my dancing partner, and I smiled.
I truly, truly smiled.
The music started to cue it's ending and I started to slow my dance, the person in front of me doing the same.
I dipped down and looked up at them, their skin slowly fading away until all left was a skeleton, and their arms that were holding me up starting to fade as well.
"Goodnight." They said, barely above a whisper, the place where there mouth was on the skeleton they now were moving slightly with their words.
I started to plummet through the ground as their arms disintegrated into nothing like the rest of their body, my nails scratching the side of the hole I was falling down.
My nails broke and my smile faded, blood seeping from my nails as I felt myself fall, the laughter of children quickly returning to my ears and the smile of the doll seeming to appear and glow around me.
"Thank you for releasing me, I hope you have a fun time too." The doll's voice- No, the little girl's voice who was playing the piano said, her smile glowing like the dolls.
I started to grasp around for anything to stop my fall, anything at all, my nails starting to break only more as I scratched the walls desperately and piteously, my mind starting to frantically panic.
The laughter of children only consumed my thoughts and my ability to hear, only getting louder, and louder, and louder-
Until the screams of all of them cut through, and everything went black.
I don't know if I'll publish this chapter.