"And then, he looked into their graves and found nothing but his own clothes and shoes. The End."

"That was a terrible story," Amy whispers from under her covers. She knows to keep her voice low and to hide. She doesn't know where the eyes in the wall are watching her from and doesn't realize they can see and hear her still. It's half-past nine and she's supposed to have been fast asleep an hour ago. But Phoenix promised her a good story to help keep her mind off the horrible lies Phoenix has told about her father. So, she stayed up, hoping the story would be worth it. It isn't.

"What do you mean 'terrible'?" Phoenix

"I mean, it was sad. All that blood and fighting and sadness. Stories are supposed to be fun! Where'd you even get a story like that?"

Phoenix does the thing whereby his face twists into an expression without moving at all. This time, the expression is thoughtful.

"Dunno. I think one of the others told me the story."

"Which one? Charlie? Leo?" She glanced at her other dolls from the other side of the bed.

"I think Charlie did, yeah." Amy carries Charlie gently so she can look into her glossy pink button eyes.

"What'd you mean by that Charlie?"

Nothing. She looks to Phoenix for translation of the silence.

"She saw it as a vision before she woke up trapped here with the others," Phoenix said.

I still get the visions too, Charlie. Oh, I'm so sorry.

"I really don't know how to feel about all of this. How do I know you aren't lying to me? How do I know whether or not I'm making this up or it's all a bad dream?"

Amy should have listened to the voice in her at the back of her mind that told her to tell her father the truth. She shouldn't have covered for a stupid doll

But she loved those dolls. They were her friends.

How could she be so sure that her "friends" weren't lying to her? That they weren't trying to destroy a good thing in her life?

How can anyone be sure you are telling the truth?

I'm sure our listeners can make up their mind on who they trust.

"He has a scar on his neck. Your father. I saw it while I was down in your basement."

"We don't have a basement. I never saw one here when growing up. And my father doesn't have any scars."

"You do, that's where I came from. Where we all came from."

Amy frowns disapprovingly.

"If you see the scar, you'll know I'm not lying. I gain nothing from lying to you."

A wise girl would have seen that as an obvious trap. But Amy is not a wise girl, as you have seen. She can't even do simple math problems that she's been taught without consulting a -

You are going off track. She is not pleased.

As I was saying, Amy can't see the trap before her. She will find out that her foolishness will cost her so much more.

Amy turns in her bed, mulling over everything that's happened today. She glances at her dolls, wondering how long they'd been trying to talk with her. How long had they tried to tell her about her father? She looks at Kate, who she thought was Jason. Phoenix told Amy that she had been put into the doll and shown off as a boy by Amy's father. None of her friends can completely remember their lives before they were changed into dolls.

She wonders if her father is truly hiding something sinister beneath the house as she drifts to sleep.

She wondered if anything in her life was what it seemed.

*

Johnathan used to be a man of simple means; eating average meals, teaching at the University, drinking at the local pub, and sleeping late were the only things on his schedule. Not necessarily in that specific order, but it was still a mundane life. He enjoyed the predictability. He knew what was going to happen, when it was going to happen and how it was going to happen.

Amanda took that away from him when her mother brought her to his doorstep.

This scenario sounds familiar...I wonder why

Please let me speak.

It wasn't that he minded. He was glad that Amy was with him. Johnathan only wished she was with him under different circumstances.

You see, Amy had an affliction-

Liar.

- a very rare type indeed-

Liar!

- that was draining her life force away ever so slowly-

LIAR!!!

THIS IS MY STORY, GODDAMMIT AND I'LL SAY IT MY WAY!

As I was saying before I got sidetracked, Amy's illness was indeed a queer case. It was one that kept her bedridden, with tubes tying her down like chains and kept her mind numb at times. She could still function like the average person some days; talk, eat, read, write and even walk around her room a bit. But unlike the average person, she could not go outside. Her body could not handle sunlight, whether from the beams of a bright afternoon or the reflection of the silver of the moon

Her condition didn't start until a few years prior when she was nine years old. The impact of her father's death weakened her immune system, and the disease slowly took her on. Around the time the sickness had begun, Johnathan had become close with her mother, -

A little too close if you ask me.

Well, no one was asking you, so just shut up, will you?

Johnathan helped the family financially, seeing as the major source of income was cut off, -

He wasn't helping. Amy's mother was doing just fine, doctor. She only wanted Amy to know Johnathan better. This was her only mistake in life.

Please, Doctor, ignore her for now.

Johnathan, however, had not realized what he had signed himself up for. Amy's mother died in a "tragic accident", leaving the "sorry little child" to the excuse of a human being Johnny was. He was stuck with a child that wasn't "really" his and it screwed up his life. A lot. Medical bills ate away at his wallet because of the "failed surgery", stress leads him losing his precious job at the University, and of course, Amy was just a general embarrassment. He couldn't bring dates or friends home without explaining why he had a different voice every time.

You stop that right now-

Johnathan said so. You and I both know that.

How many times do I have to say-

Finish the stupid story. Or do you want her to know what happened to the real Amy? How many years she was left in that room to die? How painful it was when she-

Quiet! Do you want her to punish you? She can do it without the wand!

My apologies Doctor, the procedure pushes us to reminisce on...unnecessary details, I'll get back to the story you want to hear.

*

It's twenty minutes past seven in the morning according to the clock. It's time to see whether Phoenix was telling her the truth. She knows her father drops food off every Saturday currently, regardless of how busy he was.

An hour passes. Three hours pass. Another hour passes and still no sign of her father.

"Where is he?" Amy wonders aloud. Her stomach growls and grumbles, crying out for its denied sustenance. Her father never let her go without food for so long.

The door unlocks without a single knock on its body, and her father walks in with a large tray of plastic containers. He does not have his usual calm demeanour around him. His shirt is untucked, his eyes are bloodshot, his hands rattle the tray around.

"I'm so so sorry Amy. Exam prep has started, and I had to get everything over. You know I'd never leave you without food." He slams the tray down on her desk and Amy jumps. She studies him and concludes that the look in his eyes is not one of exhaustion.

It's lunacy. It's the look of a man who has lived in delusion and isolation for so long he loses sanity.

"It's okay, Dad, really, it is."

"Finish your Arithmetic?" She nods

"I'll check it later then" He eyes Phoenix again suspiciously, then looks at Amy with violence. She is frightened to the core of what he might do.

"Reach for his neck!" Phoenix whispers from behind her.

She reaches her arms for his neck and wraps as if to give him a very odd hug. He pulls away quickly at the gesture and mutters something about setting questions, but just before he can pull away completely, Amy brushes a part of his skin with her sensitive hand. The sensation that courses through her is alien and scary. The best way to describe it is lightning burning through the veins and setting the heart alight. It moves through every inch of your body and makes it come alive with terrible anguish. A feeling I know all too well.

Amy also saw things. Visions of a young girl with fiery red hair flashed in quick succession in her consciousness. The first showed the girl with a young man and woman in a photo frame. She was smiling big, holding the woman's hand, while the man had a distant and neutral look.

Then it showed the girl covered head to toe in black, crying over the mangled body of the woman, while the man watched from afar. He has an all too familiar smile peaking from a dark brown beard.

Then it shifted, the girl in the vision was tied down to a bed in near darkness, muffled screams suppressed by the tube snaking down her throat. The man watched over her, scratching notes down in a thick black leather book. His glasses glint in the light of the machine.

Amy sees herself with two other girls and a different man and woman. There was a pink cake on a table beside them with the name 'Nina' scrawled on it in red. The group was holding her in an embrace that feels warm and loving and human. They sang for her a soft sweet sound.

Another shift and Amy is in a crowded field alone. There is laughter, the sounds of giant contraptions and the distinctly strong smell of fresh cotton candy. Amy hasn't had cotton candy in a very very long time. She can't find her father, in the sea of people. Then she spots him in a secluded clearing, standing beside the red-haired girl. Her skin looked like Amy's, all mangled and tarred and bumpy. The man has a steel cable rope in one hand and a long metal rod in the other. The girl looked at her through the vision with a forced smile and blood dripping from her eyes, and calmly gave Amy a one-worded command through her clenched teeth.

"Run."

Ah, so you are the one who corrupts her. I see.

I wanted her to have the chance that the others didn't have. The chance I didn't have.

Amy stands there in shock as her father locked the door to her room, no her prison, it was a prison you aren't allowed to spew your lies anymore.

I'm still in charge here, Amanda.

Amy runs for the door past her father into the hallway. As she passes by the hallway, she sees an open curtain with sunlight streaming through it. Sunlight streams gently through it. She stops dead in her tracks, knowing one more step could lead to her demise.

Then she heard it, the voices from her dream. It was coming from the room behind her, it was coming from Phoenix who lay in her arm and it was coming from within the man who wasn't her father.

"Run! Run! Don't let him catch you!"

By the prompting of the voices, she pushed forward into the hallway.

She gets to the open window, but she already knows.

It won't hurt her. It never really did.

With no clear plan in sight, Amy makes her way down the stairs to what she assumes is the living room

"Amy, we can't play around like this. Get back here now!"

She saw bloodstains and red mass splattered across the white carpeting and moved faster. She felt pain swim through her gut as she tried not to vomit.

She tries to unlock the door. It won't budge

He grabs her traitorous head by her hair and drags her down the creaking basement old stairs screaming and pleading.