The Bone Door and the Hollow Children

Aarav pressed his hand against the cold, bone-carved door. It felt alive, as if hundreds of tiny fingers were clawing beneath the surface. The door creaked open with a sound like bones snapping.

The moment they stepped inside, the temperature dropped. Maya shivered.

"This place… it feels wrong. Even more than before."

"Stay close. Don't touch anything," Aarav warned.

The room was filled with hundreds of pale, hand-crafted dolls—but these weren't normal toys. Their faces were stitched with human hair, their mouths sewn shut with thin wires.

And their eyes were real… human eyes, glassy and wide, staring right at them.

Maya's breath caught.

"Aarav… are they… alive?"

One of the dolls' eyes rolled to look at her.

Suddenly, a chorus of whispers filled the room.

"Mama… stay with us… play forever…"

The dolls began to twitch, their stitched arms reaching out. Some of them crawled off the shelves like broken spiders.

"Aarav! They're moving!"

"Back to back, Maya!" Aarav gripped his iron rod, smashing one doll that lunged at him, its porcelain face cracking open to reveal rotting teeth inside.

In the center of the room stood a large cradle made entirely of bones, gently rocking on its own. Inside was a single, pale baby doll with no face—just a smooth patch of skin where features should be.

As Maya stared, the doll's featureless face pulsed like breathing flesh.

"Give us your face… give us your soul…" the whispers grew louder.

Before she could move, the dolls swarmed around Maya's legs, pulling her toward the bone cradle.

"Aarav! Help!"

"I've got you!" He swung his rod furiously, but the dolls were crawling up his back, digging their tiny, sharp fingers into his skin.

Maya grabbed a candle stand and smashed it down, setting a few dolls on fire. The smell of burning hair filled the room.

Just as they were about to escape, the faceless baby doll in the cradle began to sing.

It wasn't a normal song—it was a hollow lullaby, like a thousand crying voices merged into one.

"Sleep… stay… bleed…"

The song made the walls bleed, and the door they came through vanished.

Aarav spotted a small trapdoor beneath the cradle.

"Maya, push that cradle over—NOW!"

With all her strength, Maya shoved the bone cradle aside, revealing a narrow passage.

They both jumped down, slamming the hatch behind them just as the dolls screamed in unison:

"You can never leave…"