20 years ago:
Funny thing, I used to have this doll when I was six. I used to play with it a lot.
Then the nightmares came.
The same nightmare returned every night. The doll stood beside blood-covered bodies before slowly turning her head towards me. Her eyes were bloodshot and her mouth stained red. Then she would smile and say,
“Daddy, may I have a taste of this murder?!”
Because of this nightmare, I threw the doll away and forgot about it.
Or at least, I thought I did.
Little did I know what would happen twenty years later…
Present Day:
Murder, murder, murder.
That’s what I had been hearing about for the past week in my village. Someone came in the night, killed a person, and vanished before morning. There was a strange thing about these murders too. There were teeth marks on every victim, and all the people who had been murdered were twenty-six years old.
That gave me the willies.
Because I was also twenty-six.
Yesterday, the sarpanch announced to the village, “No one is going to leave until these murders are solved. And all twenty-six-year-olds will remain under protection.”
The last part gave me immense relief.
That night, not a single murder happened.
But a body went missing.
And that body belonged to my best friend, Ahimsa.
The news hit me hard. Ahimsa wasn’t just my best friend. He was family to me. I spent hours mourning him and wondering who could have done such a thing.
Then I heard it.
A girl’s giggle.
Soft.
Playful.
Wrong.
“Daddy, may I have a taste of this murder?!”
My blood ran cold.
The voice dragged an old memory out of the darkest corner of my mind.
The doll.
Before I could even process it, the voice spoke again.
“Come to the village hall at exactly midnight, Daddy. I have a surprise for you.”
That creeped me out.
Every instinct told me not to go.
But if there was even a chance of stopping these murders, I had to try.
Even if it meant risking my life.
At 11:59 PM, I left my house carrying only a torchlight.
The village hall stood silent beneath the night sky. No lights. No movement. No sound.
Just eerie silence.
I stepped inside.
Nothing was there.
Then suddenly —
THUD.
Something crashed onto the floor.
I spun around.
A body lay there.
Instinctively, I looked upward.
Nothing.
Only the jet-black sky.
Then I heard it.
A wet squish.
Another.
And another.
The sound was coming from the body.
My hands trembled as I pointed the torchlight towards it.
Something small crouched beside the corpse.
Drinking.
The doll.
My breath caught in my throat.
It looked exactly as I remembered. Its mouth was covered in blood. Its eyes were bloodshot.
Slowly, it turned its head.
Then kept turning.
And turning.
Until its face hung completely upside down.
The doll smiled.
“Daddy, may I have a taste of this murder?!”
Goosebumps raced across my skin.
My torchlight shook as I looked closer at the body.
My stomach dropped.
It was Ahimsa.
Before I could react, the doll vanished.
Just disappeared.
At that exact moment, torches lit up all around the village hall.
The entire village came rushing in.
And there I was, standing beside Ahimsa’s body.
The crowd fell silent.
Then the sarpanch pointed directly at me.
“He’s the murderer!”
Panic erupted.
“Hang him!”
“Cut his head off!”
“Uh, sire,” one villager asked. “Which one should we do?”
There was a long pause.
Then the sarpanch shouted,
“I don’t know! Just kill him!”
The angry mob charged towards me.
I didn’t wait around to find out what they had decided.
I ran.
Luckily, I was the fastest runner in the village.
I sprinted to my car, jumped inside, and drove away as fast as I could.
For the first time all night, I felt relieved.
Then I glanced at the passenger seat.
The doll was sitting there.
Waiting.
It slowly turned its upside-down face towards me.
“Now it’s your turn to play, Daddy.”
Before I could react, it lunged.
Pain exploded through my body as the doll sank its teeth into me.
I screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.
But nobody came.
Eventually, everything went dark.
The strange thing about being dead is that nobody believes you.
Especially when you are trying to warn them.
Because even now, I can still hear her giggling beside me.
And if you can hear giggling too…
You should probably run.
Author: Krishiv Chandak, 11 years old