Broken Porcelain

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Broken Porcelain

Copyright 2020 Albert Oon

Published by Albert Oon at Smashwords

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Chapter 1 – Dolls Just like Me

Parents are supposed to take care of their children and the ones that don’t are considered some of the worst people in the world. Elena was raised by an abusive family before a fire destroyed her home. She was then adopted by a better family who treats her better. On one day, she did something that she wasn’t supposed to and was about to be scolded by her family. Fearing being hit or yelled out again, she runs away from home and into the woods. In the woods, she finds what appears to be an empty mansion that she goes into. The door behind her closes. She tries to open it but is unable to. When she turns around, she sees young dolls like her that come out of the darkness, though these dolls have cracks in their shells.

“Who-who are you?” Elena asks.

A single girl walks out from the crowd with a maid outfit and a headwrap that makes it look like she has cat ears.

“My name is Mia and you look like you’re one of us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have a mom and dad who hate you?”

“Not exactly. I mean I did, but my new family is nicer.”

“That can’t be true if you ran away from them.”

“Um. I don’t know about that.”

“Then why did you run away?”

“Because I didn’t want to be hurt or scolded at again, even though I think I may have deserved it. Is there a way out of here?”

“There is, but an adult is preventing us from leaving. The first floor is the only safe place with many of us trying day in and day out to get to the third floor to get the adult and its lapdog to break the spell on this place. You can help if you want. It is dangerous because of all the traps that were set for us.”

“Um. I don’t think I can do it. I’m not a very brave person.”

The crowd of young dolls disperses as they go back to what they were doing.

“That’s fine. You can make yourself home with us. We’re all friends here so there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Elena is hesitant to do anything as she looks around then outside the windows hoping that someone will open the door from the outside. Mia approaches her and holds out her hand.

“Come on. I’ll show you around. What’s your name?”

“Elena.”

“Well, Elena. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Um. It’s nice to meet you too.”

“You can take my hand. Haha, I won’t bite.”

Feeling a little pressured and uncertain of what to do, Elena takes Mia’s hand. Mia smiles a comforting smile to Elena, and she returns the smile while feeling a bit uneasy about the slight coldness in Mia’s hand. Mia leads Elena to a dining hall with plates of food and cups of drinks floating in the air. The flying tableware flies from the kitchen back to it when the food and drinks are finished as a continuous supply of food is put on a long table for all the dolls to enjoy.

Amazed by what she’s seeing, Elena says, “Wow! There’s so much food flying around!”

“We were able to steal some of the magic from the adult to make this happen. Pretty neat, ain’t it? It’s an infinite supply of food. We desperately need it because of how long we’ve been stuck here and because we don’t know how much longer we’re going to stay.”

“Hm.”

“Do you want to eat anything?”

“I’m okay.”

Mia then leads Elena to a large outdoor area where the dolls are playing with stuffed animals and toys that have come to life to play with them. With Elena’s hand still in hers, Mia takes her to play with the animals.

“Woah, hey!”

“Come on, this is going to be fun!”

The two fly through the air and through an obstacle course before landing on the ground.

“I bet you’ve never done anything like that before. Wasn’t that fun?”

“Yeah, it was.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t fly out of here, use the toys to help us with the toys, or bust out of here with the toys. I wish I could say everything is fun and games down here, but…I’ll just have to show you.”

Mia takes Elena to the bedrooms that double as the medical room.

“The dolls who try to make it through the traps and fail end up here. You can see the terrible things that might happen to you here. I’m sorry if this scares you. It’s a good thing us dolls don’t die unless each piece of us shatters, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…”

“So, this is it. Most of us just stay down here and wait for someone to beat all the traps and set us free.”

“I’ll help.”

“Really? You will? I thought a sight like this would’ve made you too scared to.”

“It’s better than doing nothing. Besides, I can’t stand to look at people in pain and do nothing. It’s part of the reason why I got in trouble.”

“Then you didn’t do anything wrong and your parents were going to scold you for no good reason.”

“I guess.”

“I’ll lead you to the first floor since this floor has traps too.”

“It does?”

“Not in our safe area, but the area that leads to the stairs has traps. We’ve pretty much figured out everything about it, so we know how to safely get passed them. The traps on the other floors are more difficult and unpredictable though.”

“Oh.”

“You won’t be on your own though. There should be other people on the other floors that will help you.”

“Okay. Can you let go of my hand now?”

“For now, I can, but I’ll need to hold onto your hand for the next room.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see.”

Mia leads Elena to a hallway with many doors and a floor with different colors and symbols on the tiles.

“Do you see how the tiles on the floor have different colors and symbols?” Mia asks.

“Yes,” Elena answers.

“It may look confusing, but it’s simple. Can you guess what we have to do?”

“Uh. Ummm. Does it have something to do with the puzzle games in the playing room?”

“That’s what we thought, but it doesn’t. It was a red herring Instead, this about going through this trap together. We figured that out two of us went through the trap together while holding each other’s hands. They walked all on all the tiles and nothing happened to them while something happened to the dolls that walked by themselves. That’s why I need to hold your hand. You can’t do it alone.”

“What happens to you if-”

“Oh, it looks like someone tried going through here on their own. I’ll take this foot back to them after I get you to the first floor. Did you say something?”

“N-no.”

“Oh. Is that a head over there?”

Mia and Elena go to the head.

As Mia picks it up, she identifies it. “This is a friend of mine who’s a little rash. Let’s see if her body is around here.”

Mia and Elena walk around the room and put together the doll.

When she’s together, Mia says, “I told you not to do this trap by yourself. You know you can’t pass it without someone.”

“Whatever. I knew someone would eventually find me and put me back together.”

“Don’t be so reckless.”

“I don’t take advice from you. You’re not my parents!”

“Wait, don’t open that door!”

The doll opens the door and walks into an abyss of darkness. A loud shattering sound is heard before the door closes.

“Whelp. It’s going to take some work to put her back together or maybe it’d be better if we left her that way until we get out because of how much trouble she causes,” Mia says.

“Um.”

“Oh, that’s right. There’s only one right door. The wrong doors lead to different horrors like; the door eating you, monsters, and-”

“Can we just go?”

“Okay.”

Mia finally leads Elena to a door that opens up to reveal a spiraling staircase that goes up to the next floor.

“Here we go. This is where we part ways for now. I’ll catch up to you later,” Mia says.

“Wait, won’t something happen to you on the way back?” Elena says.

“Nope. If you go through the traps on a floor, then you can safely go through them on the same day. It’s a weird rule, I know. Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Mustering whatever bravery she can manage, Elena ascends the stairs ready to face whatever horrors and traps the house may have to escape.

Chapter 2 - Distractions

Elena walks through the halls of the second floor while watching her every step. What she saw on the ground floor startled her even though she was already startled to begin with. All the halls appear to be the same with the same kind of wood floors, doors, ceilings, and walls. After hearing and seeing what choosing the wrong door can result in, she’s hesitant to even go near one, but the seemingly looping nature of the first floor forces her to pick a door. She slowly opens it and startled to see a girl behind it.

“Haha, I’m sorry. Did I scare you?” the doll asks.

The doll is has a very elegant look to her with a long dress and her hair in a bun though she appears fidgety. One of her irises seems bigger than the other and there’s a weird grin on her face.

“Kind of,” Elena says.

“Well, there’s no reason to be afraid any longer. On this floor of the mansion, if you want something, then you’ll find it behind the next door you open. That’s how I got this wonderful dress. I’m collecting lots of gold and toys in my own personal mansion that I can get to by traveling through these doors. By the looks of it, you wanted company and an explanation on how this floor works, is that right?”

“Yes. I want to try to get to the third floor to get out of here.”

“Why would you want that when you can open a door and get everything you want? Actually, that’s not completely true. You can’t find the way out even if you want it. Every place that you see that isn’t this floor or the ground floor is a made up dimension along with the people, but that doesn’t matter. This place is Heaven. I don’t know what Mia and the others are so worked up about.”

“Yeah, but still. I want to go home.”

“If you say so, you can always join me in my mansion if you want. Just think of me and my mansion and you’ll be there.”

The girl closes the door on Elena. Elena opens the door again to see her parents.

“Elena!” her dad says.

Elena raises her hands in defense.

“What are you doing that for, sweetie? We aren’t going to hurt you.”

“Come here, Elena. You’re home,” Elena’s mom beckons.

“No, this isn’t real,” Elena says.

She then closes the door and opens it only to be hugged by her parents.

“It’s okay, Elena. We’re here for you.”

“We’ll always love you. We promised to give you a better life, didn’t we?”

“Stop!” Elena yells as she pushes them away.

Again, she closes the door then opens it to see Mia.

“Hey, Elena. Do you need anything?” Mia asks.

“Can you help me get through this floor? I keep opening the door only to see my family,” Elena asks.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with that. That floor only allows people to go through it by themselves. Watch.” Mia walks into the door and into an invisible wall. “See? I can’t enter. What I can help you with is controlling what you want. Just imagine the next floor and focus on your want to escape. Don’t focus on anything else. Don’t let your other wants get in the way. Okay?”

“Okay…”

“You can do it, Elena!”

“Thank you.”

Elena closes the door and tries to do what Mia said. She opens it to find a set of stairs that go up. After breathing a sigh of relief, she goes up the stairs. As she goes up, she skips the other floors since the stairs keep going up. She keeps going up until she reaches a hatch in the ceiling that allows her to exit the mansion. Before she can think this is a trick, the other dolls that she saw from before come running out of the mansion along with Mia.

“I can’t believe you did it, Elena! You found a secret exit! I knew there was something special about you when we met.”

“I uh. I guess I did.”

Mia and the other dolls climb down the mansion’s walls by using the various holes in it as if it was a climbing wall. Elena descends to the ground and watches as the dolls run into the forest. She looks back at the mansion to see a single girl still inside. Going closer, Elena sees that the doll doesn’t have any eyes and her mouth is stuck in a creepy smile. The doll is dressed in a nurse’s outfit with a bowtie and double buns for a hairstyle.

Unsure if something is wrong with her, Elena taps on the window separating them and asks, “Are you okay?”

The doll doesn’t respond or move.

“Aren’t you going to escape? There’s an exit on the second floor.”

The face of a much larger doll comes out of the darkness next to the young doll. This face is cracked, doesn’t have eyes and has rows and rows of sharp teeth. Just looking at it, scares Elena to the point where she can’t move. With its large blade-like fingers, the large doll tries to carve words into the glass. Elena covers her ears and closes her eyes while this is happening to bare the sound of the doll scrapping the glass. When she opens her eyes, she sees that the doll has drawn a pair of eyes and what looks to be the face of a demon with horns on its head.

“What does that mean? Should I watch out for a demon?”

The large doll nods its head.

“There’s a demon in the mansion? Who are you?”

Elena goes to the front door and opens it.

“Don’t worry about the demon and just leave.”

Elena waits for the two mysteriously creepy dolls to leave but doesn’t see them coming out. When she turns her head to where they were, she sees that they’re gone. She looks inside the mansion only to be pulled in by the large hand and back into the first floor of the mansion.

“What? Was that all fake?”

Wanting immediate answers, Elena closes and opens the door she came in to see Mia with the dolls still in the mansion.

“Hm? Do you need something else, Elena? Are you hungry?”

“N-no. I was just seeing if I was still in the mansion.”

“Ah, I see. It was messing with you. Let me guess. You thought you found a secret exit?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just adjust your wants slightly and you’ll make the stairs to the next floor appear.”

“Hey, um…”

“Yes?”

“Do you know about an eyeless doll with a creepy smile on her face and a larger cracked doll? I saw one and the bigger one told me to watch out for a demon.”

“A demon, huh? Hahaha! Don’t listen to them. That was the adult and its little lapdog that you saw.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. If they’re communicating with you personally, then that means that they have their eyes on you probably because you’re the newest doll here. Maybe they think they can convince you to join them. Just ignore them and keep moving. Remember that they’re the reason why we’re stuck here.”

“Okay.”

“See you later.”

Elena closes the door and takes a breath before opening it again. This time she finds another set of stairs. She goes up the stairs to find herself on another floor with a singular door. Through this door is a room with puppets. Elena hopes that this is really the next floor as she walks further into the room. As she takes a couple steps into the room, tiny little threads come from above and pierce her arms, legs, then head to knock her out.

Chapter 3 – Eyes Forced Open

As a light begins to hit her eyes, Elena wakes up in her bed. She looks around the room to see that she’s back home.

“Is this real?” she asks herself as she struggles to remember where she was before.

Her mom and dad enter the room with a bowl of soup and a glass of water.

“Mom? Dad?”

“Hello, Elena. We’ve brought you some food to help you feel better,” her dad says.

“Your friend came over to see how you were doing,” her mom says as Mia enters the room.

“Mia?”

“Hey, Elena. I told your parents everything about what happened, even the parts you missed.”

“What did I miss?”

“A doll managed to make to the third floor and helped be free from the mansion that we were trapped in. It was all thanks to you.”

“Thanks to me? What did I do?”

“You triggered a trap that the other doll was going to walk into. Don’t you feel anything?”

Elena looks at her legs and arms to see that they’re cracked. She’s barely able to move them though she has more movement in her arms.

“Take it easy. We’re going to properly put you back together, so you don’t lose your original arms and legs. Once you’re all better, we’ll throw a big party.”

“Doesn’t that sound great, Elena?” her mom asks.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well. I’ll let you rest for now so you can get better quicker. See you later. Elena!”

“See you.”

Elena’s dad puts the tray of food on Elena’s lap.

“Eat slowly, honey,” her dad says.

Her mom and dad sit by her bedside and hold her.

“We’re sorry if we scared you,” her mom says.

“We promise not to anymore. We’ll be gentle with you even when you mess up,” her dad reassures.

Despite the warming feeling, Elena feels that something is off. Her eyes feel a tingling in them as if they’re telling her things aren’t how they should be. She moves her arms around and pushes her head forward only to hit an invisible wall.

“I knew it,” Elena says.

“I can’t fool you anymore, can I?” a feminine voice says.

The illusion of her home fades as Elena begins to see that’s she’s in a box that collectible dolls in except this one is her size and her hands, legs, and head are strapped to keep her from moving. She sees that she’s on top of a shell with other dolls who are in the same position. In front of her is the same eyeless doll that she saw before that Mia said was the adult’s lapdog except, she appears normal with eyes where they should be and her mouth not in a permanent smile.

“You’re that girl Mia told me about.”

“What did she say? That I’m a lapdog?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, do you believe her?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Why did you try to come up to the third floor if you don’t know?”

“Because I want to try to talk to you and the adult to set us free.”

“Really? What were you going to tell us? Do you have a big speech for us?”

“No.”

“So, you were just going to wing it?”

“Kind of.”

“Do you know that no one has been able to reach us on the third floor?”

“No.”

“Hmm. Are you still going to try in spite of what I told you?”

“Yes.”

“Ha! You were going to just go up to us without a plan?”

“Yes. I want to go home to my parents.”

“So, you don’t hate your parents?”

“No. I love them.”

“Huh. That’s a first. Every other doll that I talked to hates their parents because their parents hurt or abused them.”

“Why does this place attract those kinds of dolls?”

“It’s Mia’s doing. She’s the real villain here. She believes that her parents abused her and she thinks that she can use the other dolls to help her get to them.”

“How? Didn’t you and the adult set up these traps for us?”

“No. Mia did it or rather, she set up the ground floor and third floor’s traps, while we made the first and second floor’s trap.”

“Why?”

“To stall until Mia’s powers exhaust themselves. Take a look at this.”

A vision enters Elena’s mind of Mia with two mature dolls who she assumes are her parents. She watches as Mia’s mom hits her then apologizes. Mia runs away from her parents in tears before running back and morphing them into the same body. Her parents count Mia’s magic with magic of their own that causes an explosion.

Once the vision clears, Elena asks, “What happened there and after that?”

“Look, I can’t explain everything here. That’s the best that her parents could give me to give other dolls like you. You’ll have to trust me especially when you get to the third floor, okay?”

“Okay. You can trust me.”

“I hope so.”

“I’ll show you that you can.”

The box that she’s trapped in falls off the large shelf and onto the ground. Elena’s strings are gone and the box she’s in is opened. Once she crawls out of the box, she looks up at the high heights that she fell off and survives without a scratch. Looking up, she can see that a least a hundred dolls are trapped on the shelves in a disillusion.

“Is this supposed to be convincing? Well, at least they aren’t being hurt or having nightmares,” Elena says aloud.

She looks around the room for an exit and sees only two doors behind her. One leads back down while the other leads up. In the room with the staircase that goes up, Elena finds another door. Wondering what the door leads to, she opens it to see a room where Mia is playing with the other dolls.  Mia sees Elena and runs over to the door.

“Hey, Elena! You made it past the trap on the second floor!”

“I wasn’t really a trap like the ground floor. Neither was the one on the first floor.”

“There are other kinds of traps than the ones that hurt you. The traps on the first and second floors are meant to pacify you. To make you want to stay in the mansion and to trust the evil people keeping us here.”

“Oh. What about the third floor?”

“The lapdog told you that I set that trap, right? And the ground floor one too?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s funny she thinks that because I have no clue what’s on the third floor. You’d think that if I was the real villain, I would know what it is, but everyone who comes back from that floor says something different. Isn’t that right?”

Several dolls tell Elena differing tales of the kinds of things on the third floor such as a monster, a maze with all dead ends, and a freezing cold that would somehow make pieces of them fall off.

“I see.”

“Be brave, Elena, because a bad attitude will get you nowhere.”

The dolls cheer on Elena as she nervously walks up the stairs bracing herself for whatever comes next.

Chapter 4 – Abused and Abuser

Once Elena arrives on the third floor, she sees that the floor is gone and the only thing that she can walk on to explore further are spikes that jut out from below.

“Am I really supposed to walk across these?” Elena asks herself.

She looks around to see that there’s no way around the spikes and makes sure what she sees isn’t an illusion by touching a spike with her finger.

“I guess I don’t have a choice.”

Elena carefully walks across the spikes to discover that they don’t hurt her feet.

“I just have to walk like the princesses in the fairy tales. Soft steps. Soft steps…”

With soft and careful steps, Elena makes it through the spikes and steps on a platform only to see nothing to step on ahead of besides darkness.

“Now what…”

“Now, you trust me,” a familiar voice says.

Elena looks in the darkness to see the faint face of the girl who is supposed to be working with Mia’s parents.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to fall into the darkness. You will shatter, but I will put you back together.”

“I’ll…shatter?”

“This is what scares away everyone and convinces the other dolls to hate us. I wish this could be done differently, but Mia has set it up this way. The only way, so you’ll have to trust me.”

“…Okay. I see. You’ll have to tell me one thing for me to trust you.”

“What is it?”

“What’s your name?”

“My name?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Camilla.”

“My name is Elena. It’s um. Nice to meet you.”

“Now will you trust me?”

“Yes...”

Elena takes a step into the darkness and falls until she shatters on the floor. She’s then put back together with magic. When she regains consciousness, she takes a breath of relief.

Camilla walks out of the darkness and says, “You are the strangest doll I’ve ever seen. You seem so shy and scared, but you’ve done something that even the bravest dolls refused to do.”

“That’s because I want to go back home to my parents. Now tell me how I can be free along with the others.”

“I don’t have any control over that. Mia does.”

“Mia’s parents are here with you, right? Can I talk to them?”

“Go right ahead. You’ve shown them that they can trust you.”

The same large doll that Elena saw before comes out of the darkness except now she sees all the deformed limbs and other cracks and holes on the doll that would suggest that it shouldn’t be living or living comfortably at least.

“E-excuse me. Can you talk to Mia to free us from this place?”

The large doll touches Elena’s forehead and shows her the full memory of what started this. After their magical clash, Mia’s parents forced her and themselves into this mansion to contain Mia’s rage.

“I’ll make sure no other doll suffers because of their abusive parents!” Mia proclaims, “I’ll do the same thing to them that I did to you when I get out of here!”

Mia places a spell of her own on the mansion that attracts hundreds of young dolls who have suffered because of their parents.

Once the vision is gone, Elena says, “So, you placed the spell that trapped Mia and yourselves here.”

“We did it to trap our dangerous daughter in here. We did it to make her learn her lesson,” Mia’s parents say in a combined and pained voice.

“That’s not going to do anything.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I suggest that you go talk to her.”

“She’ll just fight us. Do you see what she did to my face?” Camilla says.

“You have to try,” Elena persists.

“What makes you think she’ll listen to us?”

“You’re her parents. You love her, don’t you? If you can do all this magic, you can make your daughter see that you love her, right?”

“…We’ll try.”

Mia’s parents make a large door appear in the darkness that they open.

“I hope you’re right about this. Otherwise, things are going to get really messy,” Camilla says.

“This should work,” Elena says with some confidence.

Mia’s parents, Camilla, and Elena walk through the large door that leads to where Mia and the other dolls are on the ground floor. The dolls scatter in fear as Mia stands her ground.

“I see that you monsters now have two lapdogs and you say I’m the one with devil horns. I wonder where I get them from,” Mia says.

Mia’s parents clench their fists. Elena holds their hand to calm them down.

“Mia…We want to apologize to you for what we did,” Mia’s parents say as they get down on one knee to lower themselves to her.

“I want to apologize to you for hitting you. I lost myself in my anger again despite promising not to,” her father says as his voice becomes dominant, “Can you please, forgive me?”

“I…I won’t!”

“Mia,” her mother’s voice says as her voice becomes dominant.

“What?!”

“We love you. We’re sorry that we’re not the parents that you want, but we’re still your mom and dad. It’s our responsibility to take care of you and love you no matter what, so that’s why we promise to try harder this time. Can you forgive us?”

Mia begins to break into tears.

“Your-your magic isn’t going to help you convince me! This is a trick! I…I…”

Mia’s parents embrace her as she cries.

“Mia. We love you,” her parents say in one voice.

Mia continues to cry until she gives in to her feelings and hugs her parents. The other dolls come out of hiding and in tears wishing they were with their parents.

“I…I love you too, mom and dad,” Mia says in a pained voice.

With Mia’s confession of love for her parents, they turn back to normal and the doors of the mansion open as the entire place is filled with light. Mia and her parents promise to help the dolls with their abusive parents as they get rid of their magic powers.

Elena asks, “Aren’t you going to use your magic to help other people?”

“Magic didn’t help us come together. It only separated us. Instead, it was the love between us that solved everything. Magic shouldn’t be used by anyone anyway. It’s too powerful and evil,” Mia’s dad says.

“Oh. Well, I’m going to go back home to my parents. They’re probably worried about me.”

“I’ll see you in town, Elena, we’ll be around. If you need help or a friend, don’t be afraid to ask,” Mia says.

“Okay. I hope to see you soon!”

Elena says goodbye to Mia, her parents, and other dolls as she goes back home. She’s hesitant as she nears her house and is shocked to see her parents waiting at the front of the house. As she cautiously approaches them, they catch her in their sights and run towards her.

“Elena! You got us so worried when you ran away!” her dad says.

Elena’s natural reaction makes her close her eyes and raise her hands, but instead of being scolded, she is embraced by her mom and dad.

“Are you okay, Elena?” her mom asks.

“Y-yes. I’m sorry for running away, mom and dad. I was afraid of getting hit by you for no good reason.”

“Don’t worry about that. We forgive you, Elena.”

“Please, don’t scare us like that again, okay?”

“O-okay.”

Elena says as she begins to cry. Her parents pick her up, take her home, and make her a big dinner to celebrate her return.

The End