The old house on the corner of Elm Street had always been an object of dark fascination for the neighborhood kids. It sat slumped under the perpetually gray sky, its windows like vacant eyes staring out at nothing. Everyone knew the stories: the previous owners, a quiet family of three, simply vanished one cold November night, leaving their dinner half-eaten on the table and the front door unlocked.
Elias, eighteen and too proud to admit he was still scared of the dark, scoffed at the superstitions. He'd been dared by his friends to spend just one hour in the house, a simple challenge for a cash prize that felt too easy to pass up. With a deep breath and a cheap flashlight, he pushed open the front door, which groaned in protest like a tired, old man.Inside, dust motes danced in the weak beam of his light. The air was heavy and still, smelling of mildew and something else—something metallic and unpleasant. The dining room was exactly as described in the local legends: three plates, silverware neatly arranged, food reduced to an unrecognizable, petrified mess on the porcelain.He wandered upstairs, each step on the creaking floorboards echoing in the silence.
He was in the master bedroom when he first heard it. A soft, rhythmic thumping from the adjacent room. His heart hammered against his ribs. Just the house settling, he told himself, though the rationalization felt weak even to his own ears.He edged towards the door, his flashlight beam trembling. The thumping grew louder, faster. It sounded like something hitting the inside of a closet door. He placed his hand on the doorknob, the metal cold and slick with a strange moisture. He turned it slowly and pushed the door open.The closet was dark, but he could see a shape huddled in the corner. As his light found it, the air was instantly filled with a high, keening wail that seemed to vibrate through his very bones. It wasn't a person, or a ghost, or a monster with fangs. It was a doll, a child's doll, with wide, glassy eyes and a painted, smiling mouth that now seemed stretched into a rictus of pure terror. The thumping had been its head hitting the wall.Suddenly, the closet door slammed shut, plunging him into darkness. He scrambled backward, heart seizing with panic. He fumbled for the doorknob, pulling and twisting, but it wouldn't budge.Then a whisper, so close to his ear that he felt a cold breath on his neck, said,
"You're in my room."Elias didn't scream. He couldn't. He just stared into the void of the closet, the doll's vacant eyes the last thing he saw before the darkness consumed him entirely.When morning came, his friends found the front door ajar, the half-eaten dinner still on the table, and the house as silent as the grave. No sign of Elias. But in the upstairs bedroom, the doll was sitting on the dresser, its eyes now bright and vibrant, its painted smile seeming a little wider.