Chapter 2: The Watcher in the Living Room

Chapter 2: The Watcher in the Living Room

Sleep never came. How could it, when every creak of the old building’s pipes sounded like a footstep, every rustle of leaves against the window a scratching claw? Remi had spent the hours before her shift huddled on her sofa, a thick blanket pulled up to her chin, her eyes locked on the doll. She had tried calling Jenna back a dozen times, each call going straight to voicemail. The phone line, however, worked perfectly fine for a test call to the automated time-of-day service. The click had been deliberate.

The doll remained on the coffee table, a silent, porcelain sentinel in the gloom. The unnatural chill that had invaded her apartment lingered, a persistent dampness that her rattling space heater couldn't touch. In the dim light, the doll's painted smile seemed to twist with a knowing, secret amusement.

She couldn't go to work and leave it sitting there. The thought of it having the run of her apartment, of coming home to find it in her bed or staring at her from the shower stall, was enough to make her physically ill.

With a surge of desperate resolve, Remi shot to her feet. She grabbed a dusty pillowcase from the laundry pile, refusing to use anything clean on it. Keeping her eyes averted from its glassy stare, she approached the coffee table, her movements stiff with dread. She held the pillowcase open like a snake handler’s bag, and with a swift, clumsy motion, she scooped the doll up and dropped it inside. The porcelain made a soft clunk as it landed. The fabric did little to muffle the cold that seemed to radiate from it, seeping through the cotton and chilling her fingers.

She cinched the top of the pillowcase tight and marched to the hall closet, a cramped space smelling of mothballs and old coats. Shoving aside a vacuum cleaner and a box of winter boots, she tossed the bagged doll into the far back corner. She slammed the door shut, the sound echoing in the pre-dawn quiet, and twisted the flimsy lock on the knob. It wasn't much, but it felt like a victory. Contained. Imprisoned.

Her shift at the gas station was a special kind of hell. The fluorescent lights hummed with a new, menacing frequency. Every customer’s reflection in the glass seemed to distort for a moment, their smiles stretching too wide. The eight hours crawled by, each minute thick with a paranoia that chewed at the edges of her sanity. She kept picturing the closet door creaking open, the pillowcase slithering out. The memory of the footsteps—so soft, so deliberate—played on a loop in her mind. She was jumpy and irritable, snapping at a customer who asked for the bathroom key twice, earning a scowl that she barely registered.

By the time the sun rose, casting a sickly grey light over the city, Remi was hollowed out, a walking ghost fueled by cheap coffee and pure adrenaline. All she wanted was her bed. She wanted to burrow under the covers and sleep for a day, to wake up and find this was all just a nightmare brought on by exhaustion and her sister’s cruel sense of humor.

She unlocked the door to 3B, her shoulders slumped with a weariness that went bone-deep. She pushed the door open, ready for the comforting, stuffy embrace of her own space.

And she froze on the threshold.

The first thing she noticed was the sound. A low, melodic murmur she couldn't immediately place. The second thing she noticed was the flickering light.

The television was on.

Her heart seized. She never, ever left the TV on when she went to work. It was an expensive habit she couldn't afford.

Her gaze swept the living room, and a gasp of pure terror escaped her throat. The closet door was ajar. And there, sitting perfectly upright in the center of the coffee table, was the doll. The pillowcase lay discarded beside it like a shed skin.

It was positioned facing the screen, its little porcelain head tilted ever so slightly as if engrossed in the program. On the television, a lavish historical drama was playing. Men in powdered wigs and women in elaborate gowns moved through opulent ballrooms, their dialogue a soft, cultured whisper. It wasn’t one of her usual, loud telenovelas. It was something she’d never seen before, something refined and quiet. The whole scene was a tableau of quiet, domestic horror.

Remi’s mind scrambled for a rational explanation. A power surge that turned the TV on? A faulty closet latch? Had she been so sleep-deprived she’d forgotten taking the doll out again? No. None of it made sense. The cold dread that pooled in her gut told her the truth she didn't want to face.

This wasn't a prank. This wasn't her imagination.

A wave of fury, hot and sharp, cut through her fear. This was her apartment. Her sanctuary. She paid the rent here. She worked the soul-crushing shifts to keep the lights on—lights that were now being used to entertain a cursed thing from a goddamn ruined temple.

“No,” she whispered, the word a ragged tear in the quiet room. “Absolutely not.”

She stalked forward, her exhausted mind fixated on a single, defiant goal: turn it off. Reclaim control. She snatched the remote control from the arm of the sofa. Her thumb went for the red power button, a symbol of her authority in this space. She was a hair's breadth from pressing it down.

And then the remote was gone.

It wasn't dropped. It was wrested from her grasp. An invisible, impossibly strong force clamped down on her hand and yanked. The plastic remote flew through the air, clattering against the wall on the other side of the room before landing on the floor with a final, defeated thud.

Remi stood, her hand still tingling, her fingers still curled in the shape of the object that had been ripped away. She stared at her empty palm, then at the remote lying uselessly across the room. The air crackled with a sudden, palpable energy. The melody from the television drama seemed to swell, filling the silence where her scream should have been.

She was no longer a participant in her own life; she was an audience member, forced to watch.

Her terrified gaze was drawn back to the coffee table. To the doll. It sat there, impassive, its black glass eyes fixed on the screen. The flickering light from the television danced across its porcelain face, illuminating the smooth, pale cheeks and the serene, blood-red smile. In the shifting glow, the smile seemed to deepen, to curl at the edges with satisfaction.

The watcher in her living room was not her. She was the one being watched. And the show was just beginning.