It took a little while for Taryn to compose herself. Even though she knew that crying had helped with her stress, she still couldn’t help but feel embarrassed that she broke down the way she did. Similar to how Taryn did with Toya when she could no longer keep hold of her emotions. Not to mention how she just blurted out that practically died startled Rachael into a near panic attack when it had fully clicked for the other woman.

Even still, the memories of those people and their final moments still clouded in her mind, she could catch glimpses of it behind her eyelids whenever she closed her eyes.

To cope when dealing with a horrible situation, she would tamper down her emotions, and her feelings, so she would be able to get out of whatever problem they were in as logically as possible. But sometimes, it would be just too great for her. Like with that girl, and this…

During the night, Toya had come back to check on them. On Taryn specifically, seeing her earlier still caused the man to worry.

It took Rachael’s convincing that Taryn would be fine, that there wasn’t anything to worry over, even if it was a lie to just get him out of the room.

Now with it being the early morning of the next day, the two women had started to pack their belongings. They’d make up something along the lines of Taryn being needed back for her brother’s trial since everything had to be looked over again.

It was the most credible way to leave without an issue that they could think of, and with Taryn’s parents also being known in law enforcement, if Taryn were to vanish, her parents would stop at nothing to find out the truth. And they wouldn’t be subtle either.

Taryn glanced at her phone, it still had no signal, but she had sent a message to her parents, bodyguards, her grandfather, Isaac and her uncle.

We’re coming home, something happened. Call when you get this.

Messages like this were often a form of code in her family. It was a shorthand to tell them that Taryn might not be safe wherever she was and to contact her right away. She had done this on multiple occasions growing up, be it when a stranger followed her or the like.

Letting out a breath, she pressed her head to her phone. How she wished she wasn’t on the other side of the globe right now, that this place was just some small little secluded historic village with a mansion as a great tourist attraction and no dumb bullshit attached with missing people, curses and demons that looked like human dolls.

What did I do to get in a situation like this? She asked herself, knowing full well that there wasn’t an answer. All just luck of the draw. A chance, as crappy as it was.

They had just finished gathering up their things when the door to their room opened, and Stephanie quickly entered, breathing heavily and dark blue eyes filled with concern. “Have you guys seen Robert? I can’t find him.”

This brought both girls pause; they looked at each other before Rachael answered.

“What do you mean you can’t find him? He’s not in your room?”

Stephanie shook her head. “He didn’t come back last night; I woke this morning, and the futon that was laid out for him hadn’t been disturbed. I tried calling him but couldn’t get through. I think something happened.”

Without saying a word, Taryn stood up. “I’ll go look for him.”

“Look for him?” Stephanie repeated in surprise. “I have no clue where he could have gone, and this place is huge. You don’t honestly expect to find him, do you?”

Her gaze drifted to the compact mirror she always carried. “I have my ways. It’s not the first time I’ve gone looking for someone.”

That’s the truth. Rachael thought, though Taryn didn’t specify that it was those of the living that she had found, not that it mattered.

“I’m pretty sure I can find at least something that can lead us to Robert.” Taryn paused, hesitating on what she needed to say next, only to say it in the end. “But it’s better if I go alone.”

Stephanie, on the other hand, wasn’t too happy with that idea. “You can’t be serious. What if someone grabs you like that creepy doll? For all we know, that’s what could have gotten Robert, what if it goes for you again?”

She did have a point. But Taryn wasn’t about to let someone else disappear or go missing. “I know it’s risky, but I have a better chance of finding him on my own.” Taryn then looked at her friend. “Rachael, I want you to stay with Stephanie. Better to just have me go search for him.”

“And if he can’t be found?” Rachael asked to which Taryn answered just as quickly, clearly already formulating a plan in her head.

“Then we leave and contact the police. The problem is who the police send if we manage to get out of this place. While I was gone, an officer showed up alone. And he did a less than half-assed job in going about getting information or clues of my assault. Which is a problem within itself, but that’s only if we can’t get out.”

“I still don’t like it,” Stephanie admitted. “People have gone missing before, and I don’t want him or you to be just another statistic.”

“I don’t think I could be even if I tried, given my family. They wouldn’t let this go. And if my uncle got word of this? Well, I don’t even want to know what he’d do.” Or Isabella and Bob for that matter… she thought knowing full well how they were was practically on the same level as her uncle, especially Isabella.

“Given how protective he is of you, or I should say the entirety of your family, I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to torch the place,” Rachael said flatly, not as a joke, but as a fact since she had met the man four years ago.

Probably trap whoever did this inside too... Taryn thought, before getting back to what was at hand. “Okay, look, we’re wasting time. Let’s head to Stephanie’s room, and see if we can find any clues. And Stephanie, would you be able to be our lookout? For anything out of the ordinary?”

“Like a walking killer doll?” Stephanie answered rather sarcastically but agreed anyhow. “Yeah, more than willing to be on the lookout for it or any other creep.” She then turned to leave. “Let’s find that dork and get the hell out of dodge.”

Taryn followed after the two women as she peered down at her compact mirror as something pulled at her. An unsettling feeling of dread.

They needed to find Robert, she only hoped that he was all right.

* * *

The room that Robert and Stephanie shared was identical to their own, as Taryn went through Robert’s belongings while Stephanie remained in the hallway, acting as though she was merely sitting in the hallway reading a book. She merely sat there as if waiting for someone, pretending to read a magazine to make it look more convincing.

Rachael merely watched her friend while making it look as though she was trying to help; the intense look of Taryn’s stare as she concentrated on finding an object that could help them, could offset a total stranger, it even threw Rachael the first time, now she was just used to it.

A faint frown formed along Taryn’s brow as she pulled something out of Robert’s bag. It was part of his keyring something he always carried no matter what. The fact that he left this behind, stirred concern, she had to push that aside for now. Closing her eyes, she concentrated while holding it in her hands. After a moment or two, she could see Robert placing something in his pocket and muttering to himself.

“Okay… now to head down to see Taryn. Just hope she hears me out.”

Then it was gone.

“So?” Rachael asked as Taryn placed the keyring back where she had found it. “Did you see anything?”

“He was heading to the room I was in on the ground floor. He didn’t know about the change.” She got up by pushing her hands off her knees from where she had crouched and left the room. “I’m going to look around the ground floor,” she said to Stephanie when she entered the hall. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Shouldn’t you have someone go with you?” Stephanie offered, the note of concern evident in her voice. “Hell, we should all go together.”

It was the logical thing to do, but something kept screaming at her to not let them follow.

“No, you both need to stay together.” Stephanie didn’t say anything back as Taryn grasped the blonde woman’s hand. “I know it’s dumb, but I’d feel better knowing that you two are together and safe from all this.”

Still, the woman hesitated. “Even when your life is on the line?”

She gave her a faint half-smile as sadness remained in her eyes. “Especially then.” She hesitated in letting go of Stephanie’s hand when the other woman’s grip became tighter, a vain attempt to try and stop her from going. Only for Taryn to effortlessly step away and bring her hand free before walking down the hall, not looking back.

“How do you handle this?” Stephanie asked Rachael as she gripped her right hand with her left. “Just… letting her go like that?”

“With a great amount of restraint,” Rachael said as she gripped the hem of her T-shirt. “It’s tough to let her go alone. When she smiles like that, it makes it even harder.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“But what if she gets hurt? Or even killed?”

Rachael could only look at the floor, admitting this was probably okay to do. “She’s already died once before. Stuff like this doesn’t seem to scare her. But it’s the people behind it that do.” Rachael then looked up to the hall from where her friend had walked down and left them. “She’s seen enough to know that already.”

Stephanie fell silent, surprised at what she had just heard, unable to say anything as she looked back down the hall. Before, her hands balled into fists as she stomped her feet in her anger. “Damnit, god… fuck.” Before taking a deep breath and sighing in defeat. “Okay fine. Until she comes back, I’m packing. And Robert’s stuff too.” She turned to Rachael. “Mind helping me? We can do the same for yours, and Taryn’s too when we’re done.”

She nodded. “Sure, I’m fine with that.” Better to do something than just waiting.

* * *

Taryn made her way through the hall along the ground floor, glancing every so often into some of the empty rooms but could feel no residual emotions within any of them. Even though there had been faint signs of life, it wasn’t enough for her to see anything.

The sounds of her footsteps against the groaning of the wooden floors were all that came to her ears as she walked at a steady pace, blue eyes scanning the corridors as she moved.

It was quiet. Eerily so.

Her concern persisted when she reached the front entrance where everyone’s shoes were. Robert hadn’t taken his shoes; when she touched them with her fingers they little damp, he had done the same thing she did. He cleaned them too. That’s a good sign, at least. He has to be somewhere in the mansion still; the question is where.

She paused noticing something in one of his shoes, taking it she found a blank key tucked inside. Robert must have left this on purpose, but why?

Then another thought came to mind when trying to understand what Robert was doing. Ever since she came to the ground floor she hadn’t seen a single one of the staff, as though the people who worked here vanished without a trace.

Where is everyone? She thought as she glanced around to the outside. The warm late summer breeze blew softly as she looked at the small garden alcove. Her eyes narrowed as a nearby hanging windchime rang out.

There were no signs of life within any of the rooms as if they were leavening no trace of themselves. Almost as if everyone had merely stopped what they were doing and just left a long time ago. It was even evident when she found herself in one of the many small kitchens, catching a rather lucky break for someone who had eaten here, but the food had been left in a rush unable to clean up. Like when a person flees from an earthquake or other type of disaster.

The people that were here had left a while ago. An hour? No, probably less than that. It must have been something extremely urgent. It couldn’t have been when she had gone with Robert into the underground tunnels; there would have been flies all over this if it was.

With the way things were, the staff just disappearing bothered her. Thankfully, she could feel something residual coming from the rice bowl, meaning she could get a read and possibly find out where these people might have gone to. Or maybe about Robert, though that seemed very unlikely.

She picked up the almost empty bowl of rice in both of her hands, closed her eyes, and let out a long deep breath concentrating on that feeling of faint confusion and surprise.

Within this silence, nothing could break her concentration, giving her an even greater focus than before. A moment passed. Then another. Then finally, something came to her.

A woman eating her meal is abruptly interrupted by a man when he saw her, a look of bewilderment on his face. “Hey, what are you doing? Come on; we need to go.”

“So soon? I thought we had more time.” said the woman as she quickly got up and entered the hallway. “Are you sure it has to be now?”

“It is, and yes, he said so. If we don’t, everything will be ruined.”

The image faded as the woman and man disappeared. Taryn’s frown returned as she got up and re-entered the hall, looking in the direction of where the two went. What was that all about? Her feeling of unease grew as she continued to stare down the empty hall.

What was so urgent that they had to leave this quickly? Taryn thought. What would be ruined if they didn’t act when they did? It didn’t seem to be connected to anything that Taryn was aware of. It could have been something completely insignificant, yet alarm bells continued to go off inside her head.

Taryn glanced back into the empty room. She didn’t like this, not one bit.

A sudden creak in the floorboards sent a chill down her spine, and her hair stand on end, the deep groan meant a heavier weight. She turned and looked to the other end of the hallway. Someone had been there only moments before. Watching her.

For a solid five seconds, she did not move, for it had sounded familiar, causing her to become on edge. She didn’t want her mind to play tricks on her, but she couldn’t help but feel as though it had been the Doll. Against her internal instincts, she followed after the sound.

Quickly but quietly, she hurried to the end of the hall changing how she walked to make the sound of her steps almost invisible, which rounded around the corner to another long-ended hallway. Only to see the tail end of what she assumed to be a kimono before the sliding door slowly came to a close. However, what Taryn saw she recognized.

It was the Doll. The pattern of the long black haori was embroidered with white spider lilies. Her first instinct was to go back to the others, but another thought caused her to freeze.

What if Robert had encountered it?

And if not, he might have been somewhere still on the other side of the hall, possibly hiding. As small as that chance could be, it was something that persisted. Internally, she chastised herself for what she was about to do, but she needed to be sure that Robert wasn’t here.

Hands covering her mouth and nose, Taryn slowly made her way past the room that Doll was in.

When she got to the end of the hall, she rounded the corner and picked up speed in her walk. Robert, where the hell did you go? Her mind raced as she kept pace, trying to think of where Robert could have gone. If he had seen the Doll, but it hadn’t noticed him, he would have done what she did. But if it had, he would have run, try to lose it, and either hid, which was the more likely option or ran back only to get lost.

All these thoughts came to an abrupt halt when she saw him standing there in the middle of another hallway.

“Robert?” she said aloud but kept her voice in a low whisper. “Robert, where the hell have you been? We thought you went missing or something… happened to you.” she trailed off when getting a better look at him. Something about him was off. He looked rather pale, almost sickly. His hazel brown eyes looked vacant. “Robert, what happened to you?”

He merely looked at her and stepped out of her reach when she tried to place a hand on his shoulder when she managed to get close enough. He was acting like she wasn’t even there.

“This way…” He said before turning and heading down the hall away from her. She followed, trying to keep a brisk pace, yet Robert was somehow faster than her even though it looked as though he was walking rather slowly.

“Robert, stop!” she called out to him in a harsh whisper as he rounded the next corner. “Where are you going? We need to get back to Stephanie and Rachael and leave this place.”

He stops to look at her. It was so sudden it caused Taryn to stop as well. “This way… hurry.” He repeated before continuing to lead her, now even faster than before.

“Wait damn it!” she snapped in that same harsh whisper, agitated about how Robert was acting, she broke into a run to reach the room in question only to skid to a stop when noticing that there was something dark on the floor, with a familiar copper smell.

It was blood.

Like a deer caught in headlights, Taryn didn’t move as her gaze went to Robert, who stood in front of a sliding door just twelve feet away. He glanced at her before going inside.

“This way…” The door then silently closed behind him, barely making a sound. Like it never opened. A knowing feeling washed over her as she slowly made her way to the door in question. Only to catch a familiar odder as she did so.

A smell she knew all too well.

The reality of that smell was just beyond this sliding door, a door that, for all intensive purposes, she was afraid to open and see what was inside. She knew better, and yet that a small optimistic side of her hoped it wasn’t the case.

Swallowing the sudden lump in her throat, a now cold shaky hand went up to open the door as the early morning rays of the sun shined through a window. The smell was overpowering, but it had little to no effect on her, for she didn’t breathe. The air tightly locked in her chest as her heart sunk to her stomach, her face slowly turned from dreaded caution to a painful regret.

“This is what you wanted to show me? Why you had me follow you?” she refused to look away as tears stung her eyes, hands tightly balled into fists at her sides. “Robert… why…? Why are you dead?”

For what now lay before her in a small tatami room, blood soaking into the woven mat floor was the torn bloody remains of her old friend. His eyes open wide staring vacantly at the ceiling as his body, which seemed to have barely any clothing remaining above his waist, had been split open for all to see. Internal organs and flesh had been ravaged as if by some kind of wild animal, ripped viciously apart with no remorse.

Slowly she moved into the room and went down on her knees her eyes unable to look away. As stupid as it was, it reminded her of her brother Roy, of being in the same position kneeling before the dead body of someone she knew. But there was no shooter this time, no one to lunge at in a fit of burning rage and anger.

This time all Taryn felt was cold emptying regret.

They should have just left. They should have… done what? What else could have been done instead?

She hissed out a breath and fought back the urge to scream. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to end up like this! It was then that she noticed something. In Robert’s left hand, he had held on to something, clutched it so tight like a vice, a death grip refusing to let go, clinging so hard to it at the end of his life.

Something that could very well lead her to know what happened. But could also have the same effect as what happened back in high school. Even now, the mere thought of picking up someone else’s eraser made her ill.

This was different. Robert learned of her ability, accepted it, and believed it. That must have been the reason for this, but then she could never really know.

The pungent smell of rot, decay and blood filled her nose. It mattered little to her as she hesitantly reached for Robert’s hand. It was the last thing she wanted to do, contaminate an obvious crime scene, yet she felt that he had purposely left something for her. She could feel it coming from his tightly gripped hand. Letting out an uneven breath, she pries open his bloody fingers, trying to ignore the coldness of the skin and the cracking of cartilage from bone and stiff muscle from the onset of rigour mortis, to see what lay in the palm of his hand.

It was a pendant.

A small silver pendant with an amethyst stone in the center, this was originally Stephanie’s before she gave it to Robert when they first met. The only reason she knew that was because Stephanie herself told Taryn way back at the hotel, thinking if she gave something to him it’s keep him going for the next day. He never took it off, even when he bathed.

Letting out another small breath Taryn reached for it, picking it up with her index finger and thumb. And that’s all it took.

Like a lightning bolt that struck her skull, wave after wave of images flooded Taryn’s mind. Emotions and feelings filled her heart as though they were her own. She fought against it, trying to gain a clear picture. To see what he saw. But it was too much, all of it coming at once.

Joy, love, hope. Anger, anguish, fear and regret.

Images of his friend who had died of Taryn and their relationship falling apart, Stephanie and how he grew to deeply love her. Conflicting emotions when realizing that ex would be coming to Japan. Of relief that Taryn was still alive after her sudden collapse. Confusion about what she had kept hidden from him in all the years they had known each other. And a hope that they would go back to being close friends like before.

Then finally, she saw it. Though muddled haze, she could hear Robert’s struggles against what he was fighting. The Doll that now had him pinned to the same floor where he died.

He fought and pushed but to no avail, it would not give him the freedom he craved. His voice entered Taryn’s ears as though he was still alive.

“Taryn!” his voice echoed. “I know you can see this! You need to run, get out of the mansion! Get others away from this place! Save… yourselves… run! Run from… Toya!”

Her hand pulled away, taking the pendant with her. Her breathing laboured as her heart hammered in her ears. All else had gone black; she couldn’t see anything else. Not that she would have wanted to. To die in such a way must have been excruciating, yet he still left a message with his dying breath.

She grasped the pendant tightly in her left hand, clutching it as she moved back out of the room, unable to break eye contact with Robert’s body even though Taryn knew that she should. Only to stop when she felt something large pressed along her back, impeding her path. Someone was there, right behind her.

Her head snapped upwards, ignoring the pain in her neck, thinking it was the Doll only to see that it was Toya, looking at her with his green eyes. His hands rested along her upper arms, keeping her in place as he asked softly.

“Are you all right, Taryn?”

She couldn’t respond; even as Toya continued to ask her questions, she couldn’t hear any of it for Robert's words still rang clear in her mind.

Run from Toya!