Chapter 1: The Souvenir

Chapter 1: The Souvenir

The scent of stale coffee and gasoline clung to Remi Vance like a second skin. It was the perfume of her 2 a.m. existence, a miasma she couldn’t scrub away no matter how hot she ran the shower. She fumbled with her keys, the metallic jingle echoing in the pre-dawn stillness of the apartment building’s hallway. The lock on her door, 3B, gave a familiar, protesting groan before clicking open, and she stumbled inside, dropping her bag and keys on the floor with a clatter.

Home. Her sanctuary. It wasn’t much—a cramped one-bedroom with a mountain of unfolded laundry on the armchair and a teetering stack of TV dinner boxes by the recycling bin—but it was hers. It was the one place in the world where the constant, gnawing anxiety that shadowed her every step was supposed to recede. Here, she could kick off her worn-out sneakers, collapse onto the lumpy sofa, and lose herself in the mindless drama of a forgotten telenovela until the sun came up.

But tonight, the sanctuary felt… different.

A cardboard box sat squarely in the middle of her welcome mat, a stark, brown interruption to the worn linoleum. It was addressed to her in Jenna’s loopy, carefree scrawl, plastered with colorful customs stickers from Narita Airport, Japan.

A groan escaped Remi’s lips. A package from Jenna was never just a package. It was a prelude to a punchline, a setup for a gag only her older sister found funny. Last time, it had been a box of individually wrapped garlic cloves disguised as expensive chocolates. The time before, a “singing” greeting card that shrieked heavy metal for three days straight until Remi had been forced to drown it in the toilet.

With a sigh of weary resignation, she nudged the box further inside with her foot and locked the door, sliding the deadbolt home with a satisfying thud. For a moment, she considered leaving it, letting the potential prank fester unopened. But curiosity, that persistent and often-punished instinct, got the better of her. She grabbed the discarded keys and slit the packing tape with a vicious jab.

Inside, nestled amongst a cloud of white packing peanuts, was a layer of delicate tissue paper. Remi pulled it back, her brow furrowed. This felt too… careful for one of Jenna’s jokes.

And then she saw it.

It was a doll. A vintage Japanese geisha doll, about a foot tall. Its face was a perfect oval of flawless, pale porcelain, so smooth it looked like polished bone under the dim light of her single ceiling fixture. Its eyes were unblinking orbs of black glass, capturing the light without reflecting any of it back. A pair of lips, painted a serene, blood-red, were fixed in a slight, unnerving smile. It wore a faded, dark silk kimono embroidered with what looked like decaying cherry blossoms, and its black hair was piled in an ornate, traditional style.

Remi stared at it, a cold knot forming in her stomach. She hated dolls. Had always hated them, a deep, primal revulsion that traced back to her grandmother’s spooky bedtime stories about porcelain figures with souls trapped inside. Jenna knew this. Of course, she knew. This wasn’t just a prank; it was a targeted strike.

Hesitantly, as if reaching for a venomous snake, she lifted the doll from the box.

The moment her fingers brushed against the cool, smooth porcelain of its face, a chill swept through the apartment. It wasn't a draft from the window. This was a deep, penetrating cold, the kind that felt like it was emanating from inside the walls, from the very air itself. It settled into the room with a damp weight, raising goosebumps on her arms and making the fine hairs on her neck stand on end. The familiar, stuffy warmth of her apartment vanished, replaced by the atmosphere of a cellar.

Remi snatched her hand back, her heart hammering against her ribs. She placed the doll on the coffee table, shoving aside a stack of magazines to make room. It sat there, perfectly balanced, its serene smile seeming to mock her rising panic. The cold didn't dissipate. If anything, it deepened, pooling around the doll as if it were the source.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, making her jump. It was Jenna, a video call. Of course. She wanted to see her reaction. Remi’s thumb hovered over the ‘decline’ button, but a surge of anger propelled her to answer.

Jenna’s bright, smiling face filled the screen, the blurred lights and announcements of an airport terminal behind her. She was in her crisp flight attendant uniform, looking infuriatingly vibrant.

“Surprise!” Jenna chirped, her voice tinny through the phone’s speaker. “Did you get it? Did you get my present?”

“I got it, Jenna,” Remi said, her voice tight. She angled the phone so the doll was in view, sitting amidst the clutter of her living room. “What is this? You know I can’t stand these things.”

“Oh, lighten up, Remi! Isn’t she beautiful? So authentic! I found her on my layover in Kyoto.”

“Beautiful? It’s terrifying. It looks like it wants to steal my soul while I sleep.”

Jenna laughed, a bright, careless sound that grated on Remi’s frayed nerves. “You and your drama. She’s a work of art! The old woman I bought her from said she brings comfort.”

Remi stared at the doll’s placid, painted face. Comfort was the last word she would use to describe it. “Where, exactly, did you find this ‘work of art’?”

“Okay, so, ‘bought’ was maybe the wrong word,” Jenna admitted, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “I was exploring, you know how I do, and I found this amazing little ruined temple way up in the hills. Totally abandoned. And she was just… sitting there. On this little stone altar, all by herself. I couldn't just leave her there!”

The unnatural chill in the room seemed to intensify. “You took it? From a ruined temple?”

“Well, yeah! Finders keepers! Besides, the old lady at a little food stall nearby saw me with it and said it was a… a kind spirit, or something like that. That it was good I took it.” Jenna shrugged. “See? I rescued her. Now she has a new home.”

Remi’s blood ran cold. A doll, abandoned on an altar in a ruined temple. The scenario felt like the opening scene of a horror movie she’d be too scared to finish. “Jenna, that is so much worse. You can’t just take things from a temple!”

“Relax! It’s just a souvenir. A really cool one.”

It was then that Remi heard it.

A soft, deliberate thump.

It came from the direction of her short hallway, which led to the bedroom and bathroom. Her apartment was tiny; there was nowhere for a sound to come from that wasn't immediately identifiable.

She froze, her breath catching in her throat. “Did you hear that?” she whispered into the phone.

“Hear what?” Jenna asked, distracted by someone off-screen. “Hold on, they’re announcing my boarding.”

Thump.

There it was again. Closer this time. It wasn’t the building settling or the radiator groaning. It sounded like the soft pad of a bare foot on her cheap wood-laminate flooring.

“Jenna, be quiet for a second,” Remi hissed, her eyes darting towards the dark maw of the hallway. “There’s someone in my apartment.”

“What? Remi, don’t be ridiculous, you just got home. You’re just spooking yourself out because of the doll.”

Thump… thump.

Slow, measured steps. Pacing. Someone was pacing in her hallway, just out of sight. A wave of ice-cold terror washed over her, so potent it made her feel dizzy. She was on the third floor. The fire escape was outside the bedroom window, which was locked. The front door was deadbolted. She was alone. She had to be.

“I’m not kidding, Jenna! I hear footsteps!” Her voice was a strained, panicked whisper. She backed away from the coffee table, pressing herself against the far wall, her phone clutched in a white-knuckled grip. Her gaze was locked on the hallway, but her peripheral vision was filled with the silent, smiling doll. It sat there, watching. Waiting.

“Remi, you’re scaring me,” Jenna said, her own voice losing its breezy edge. “Are you serious? Call 911.”

The footsteps stopped.

The sudden, absolute silence that followed was somehow more terrifying than the noise had been. It was a heavy, listening silence. A held breath.

“They stopped,” Remi breathed, her heart feeling like it was trying to beat its way out of her chest.

“Remi? What’s going on?”

Remi opened her mouth to answer, to scream, to say something, anything, but before she could, the line went dead. Not with the usual fizzle of a dropped call, but with a sharp, electronic click.

Call Ended.

She stared at the black screen, her own wide, terrified eyes reflected back at her. The silence in the apartment was absolute. The building’s hum, the traffic from the street below, the tick of her kitchen clock—it had all vanished, swallowed by a profound and unnatural stillness.

Slowly, shakily, she raised her head. Her gaze traveled from her phone, across the cluttered room, and landed back on the coffee table.

The geisha doll sat exactly where she had left it. Its black glass eyes stared directly at her. And in the suffocating, terrifying silence of her violated sanctuary, its serene, painted smile seemed wider than before. She was no longer alone.