Story 1240: The Dollhouse Prison

The room was too quiet.

Harper stumbled backward, away from the vent, watching it tremble as something inside whispered her name. She scanned the lab—its walls sealed, doors chained shut, windows blocked with rusted metal. Only the flickering fluorescents above gave her any sense of reality.

And then she saw it. In the corner of the room sat a dollhouse.

Old, cracked, with peeling white paint and splashes of red that weren’t part of the design. Something about it pulled her in. Unnatural. Compelling.

She crouched before it.

It was a replica—of the very school she was trapped in. Complete with tiny classrooms, desks, even little paper students painted with frightened expressions. One of them had a red streak across its face… just like hers.

Harper blinked.

The figure moved.

Not just that one—all of them.