Jump The Worlds

Story 3 Pt 1: Memories Chains

  It was a doll. That's all it was. That's what he kept telling himself.

Though it did seem to move a lot for such an odd thing.

But it was still a damn doll. Nothing else. Just a doll.  

A Note from the author: I am going to be amazingly slow on posting this because I still have to rewrite chapter 3 and get NaNoWriMo done. Unlike many, I seem to be bouncing like a jackrabbit on crack between stories. *facepalm* I hope you enjoy. :D And if you're doing NaNoWriMo, good luck!

His sister's doll collection freaked him out, and there were no if's, and's, or but's about it. It was a fact of his life, just as it was fact that his sister laughed at him for being freaked out about her collection.

And he had good reasons to be freaked out about them since some of the dolls were so old that they were ugly. Some had been created by apprentices as they learned the art of doll making under a master doll maker. Some hadn't aged all that gracefully, either by neglect or by the fact that they were so old and ignored half the time. And yet others were made to creep a person out.

He was cursing his sister though. He had been conned into house- and cat-sitting for his twin. He had thought that he had immunity from the pouty face since it was so much like his own, but apparently he wasn't.

Groaning as he dropped his bag onto the bed, he opened it as Romeo, Carly's older sleek furred Havana Brown, meowed at him for daring to wake him up from his nap. Buttercup, Romeo's half Abyssinian companion, padded into the room, starting to purr the moment that she saw him as she always did. Giving the two cats a quick stroke down their backs before scratching behind an ear, he started to put his clothes for the week away. He was going to be working from the house, his sister letting him log into work from her computer, so he had just packed some jeans, enough underwear for the week, and a few shirts.

"Well, it looks like it's just you two and me," Charles said, kneeling down to scoop up Buttercup, the cat still purring away as he carried her out of the bedroom on her back and tucked in the crook of his arm. Romeo hopped down onto the floor, the soft thud of his paws on the hardwood of the bedroom floor making him smile as he headed down the stairs and towards the basement door. "What do you two think? Think I should play some games? Maybe a horror game marathon and streaming tomorrow?" he asked.

Romeo's meow was tiny as he danced around Charles' feet. It was his excited meow. He loved it when Charles and Carly played games, especially horror games. They had both grown up watching horror anything with the twins and they loved to watch when the two played. Buttercup's purr grew louder as her paws kneaded air the further down the basement steps they went.

Charles stopped in front of one of the smaller basement rooms that was Carly's doll collection storage, and shuddered at the feeling of being stared at by something. Putting Buttercup down, he closed the door after making sure that the two cats were out of the way. "I swear I do not know why your human mommy has this urge to collect those damn things," he said.

They just purred at him in return.

It didn't take him long to set up his chosen gaming station, before sitting down onto the couch that had been chosen for its size and comfort for whenever they played, either just them, alone or streaming. Buttercup and Romeo both took up their usual spots on either side of him, settling in to watch as he chose his game of the moment and opened the file that he had been working on last. Smirking at the screen, he started to work his way through the survival horror game, getting around zombies and idiots who wanted him to die.

He hand his sister had plans on doing a month long livestream sessions focusing on the series and he had to get used to playing the games again after all.

It was as he was slowly working his way through the lower levels of the mansion he was in that a sound from the doll room drew him out of his playing state of mind. The cats hissed, Buttercup becoming twice her size as her fur stood on end, looking like a hissing cat cutout before they streaked up the stairs, Romeo yowling the entire way.

They never liked any sudden noises unless it was coming from the TV so their reaction didn't surprise them.

Pausing his game, glad that he had taken the moment to save, Charles stood up and frowned, heading for the room with all of the dolls. He knew that there weren't all of the dolls that his sister was working on fixing, but just the ones that she had gotten around to. The finished ones sat in the far back room of the basement in her workshop, waiting to be photographed or shipped off. Still, there should have been any sound coming from the room since most of the dolls were either on the tables, shelves, or in boxes.

Walking over to the door, he stared at it for a moment before he pressed his ear to the door, hoping to hear something, anything, in the room, but he didn't hear anything. Pulling away, he snorted to himself and looked over at the two cats who were standing in the basement door. "I am a human man who is healthy and strong. Why the fuck am I acting like a kid who's afraid of the monster under the bed?" he asked.

All he got from the two cats was dual blinks before he turned back to the door and pushed it open. Inside, the room was the same as it had been earlier. It was, as it usually was, filled with dolls that sat in various boxes and on tables, some in the inbuilt shelves that had little lips to stop whatever was in them from slipping off.

It was all very normal looking.

Except for the fact that there was a doll lying on the ground, almost twisted as if it had been flung from the table instead of just slipping off of it. Walking up to it, he bent down to pick it up, noting that it flopped about in his hands, making him frown at it. It felt as if it was filled with something that felt like grains of rice. Bouncing it in his hand, he noticed that it sounded like rice that was rubbing against itself.

Snorting, he plopped the doll back into the spot it had been occupying before, he decided to take a picture of it as he stared. Maybe he could research the type of doll that it was. Wouldn't be the first time he had done so. And really, it wasn't all that amazing to look at. It was just a soft bodied doll that reminded him of the simpler cloth dolls that came from Japan that his sister sometimes found and brought back with her.

"Wonder where you came from, dude," he drawled. He pulled out his phone and took a picture before he saved it for the moment, tucking his phone away. Leaving the room, he closed the door, flopping onto the couch to continue to play his game. The cats would end up joining him again when they were feeling safe again, but he really wanted to get through the part that he was working on.