Author's Note: This was originally going to be one long story but I didn't want to turn this into a novel after I realized I was making this part a little too long. Hope you enjoy anyway.



*****



For their 18th birthdays, most kids get either a car or a house if they're lucky.



Philip Carlyle got a house alright, but also a 2 thousand year old curse passed down from generation to generation. The worst part about it was that nobody bothered to tell him that last part until he got there.



Only a couple of days after his birthday a letter from an anonymous sender addressed to him detailed him as the heir to a large estate in a village named Redwall off in the countryside.



Obviously the whole thing was very suspect and Phil was no fool to believe something so convenient would land at his doorstep but both his parents confirmed his family lineage and the official channels even confirmed the estate's existence and his legal claim.



His parents even went as far as to encourage him going to the estate if only to give it a once over and offered to drive him to the village and pick him up.



Once the excitement of getting his own house, a mansion at that, died down he began to analyse the sequence of events that brought him up to the Carlyle manor.



First he noted the convenience of the letter and the fact it had no listed sender. There was nothing unusual about it save the lingering scent of perfume indicating the writer was a woman and that their use of fragrance was so abundant she may as well have sprayed the perfume on the letter itself.



The contents of the parchment weren't so unusual though it did come with an old vintage iron key which Phil could only guess was the house key.



But as strange as it was it paled in comparison to his parent's behaviour. Though they were equally as sceptical about the letter as their son, once they read the letter themselves, they did a complete 180 and began pushing for checking the house out. They weren't exactly over protective, but they'd never allow Philip to go to an unknown village by himself on the basis of a stranger's note.



When he got to the village he didn't have much of an opinion, it seemed ordinary and quiet. But when they found out he was a Carlyle, the villagers began avoiding him like the plague.



It wasn't like they treated him with spite, if anything it felt like the opposite, like they didn't want to do anything to offend him as if touching him would invoke the wrath of God.



The only person willing to talk to him and the one who told him about his family's "curse" was, as cliched as it sounded, an old crone in the local pub.



Aside from the dishevelled grey wisps of hair, she looked like your average granny; small, wise eyes hidden behind simple reading glasses, a cyan woolly cardigan over a deeper blue dress decorated in floral patterns of some exotic description and a shrivelled, frail body as if any breeze could reduce her to dust within minutes.



She came up behind him and clasped his shoulder to grab his attention. When Phil turned around she began by pointing at him and wheezing "You look just like him...No wonder she chose you..."



Needless to say Phil was intrigued.



At first he only half listened to her story, apparently his ancestor, when he lived in the estate manor Philip now owned, was alive he drew the attention of many young ladies but among them was a lonely young witch who, spurned by rejection after rejection, grew increasingly aggressive and possessive of the young man, even going so far as to declare herself his official bride without his say so.



Eventually, the young Carlyle fell in love with a different maiden and eloped with her, leaving the village far behind.



Of course the Witch didn't take this very well and laid a curse upon the very walls of the mansion and the blood of the Carlyles that one day, his descendant shall repay his scorn with her love and return to the mansion to be with her forever.



Ever since then, the estate has been sold and broken into on multiple occasions and every time, those that spend the night at the mansion will meet an unseen fate.



The most unusual thing is that whenever a woman spends her night there, she is never seen again but when a man enters, his body is found dead without any visible wounds, almost as if he suffered a heart attack or died of shock. The police have been called to the village on multiple occasions but each investigation came up short and the officers, as if possessed by an otherworldly force would leave seemingly forgetting why they came.



With a mournful and quiet tone, the frail old crone spoke about how some women feel drawn towards to house for inexplicable reasons unknown to them and recounted how her daughter was a victim of such grand hypnosis and how her granddaughter followed suit looking for her mother. She even showed him a faded photograph of the missing pair, they shared the same auburn hair and silver eyes but while the mother's was longer, her daughter cut it short and hid an eye behind her fringe.



At the end of her story, Phil did his best to remain respectful but the old lady must have guessed how sceptical he truly was.



"It matters little I suppose" she creaked dejectedly "If you are the one she has chosen then you two will be lured to the house no matter what. Your curiousity will best you, it's inevitable. But promise you'll be on your guard that you'll leave as soon as you enter."



He thought back to the old crone's warning as he advanced towards the abandoned estate. Despite their fears, the villagers must have taken great care of the mansion, it looked spotless and alive despite it's age, arrogantly defying the tests of time itself.



Stepping on the porch and before the front doors, Philip gathered his courage, pushed his doubts aside and unlocked the door with the old key.



The manor's foyer was an expansive room with little furnishings, the floor was covered with a velvet red carpet with gold ornate designs that curved and danced along the carpet. An absurdly expensive looking chandelier hung dormant in the middle of the ceiling, a gilded overseer for a forgotten home and paintings depicting men and women of a bygone era and of landscapes lost to the modern age remained on the walls. Corpses of memories from a time when the manor meant something to someone and wasn't a horror story to frighten the local children.



There was a multitude of doors around the room that lead deeper into the estate and two staircases that curved around and met at a balcony that lead into even more corridors.



Philip decided to explore the first floor and wandered around the fist corridor to his right.



He found each corridor was designed the same; expressionless and white washed with another red carpet running the entire length. To one side, windows that expanded to the ceiling running the length of the hall, overlooking the vast verdant green fields that surrounded the property and on the other side there'd be several doors leading to either the same room or different rooms altogether.



The doors in the right corridor closest to the door lead to the dining room and kitchen and on the other side they lead into a living room with the barest furnishings.



The corridors at the far end of the lobby first floor loop around and meet together towards the back of the building. The windows this time look inwards at a small courtyard with a garden, overgrown to the point where calling it a small grove would have been more appropriate and the doors lead to various different rooms that seemed to repeat after a while. Smaller dining rooms, game rooms, relaxation areas placed all around, perhaps in case a large party was to be thrown and guests wanted more entertainment.



The most unique door was a large iron construct that swung inwardly, presenting cobbled steps that descended down into an abyss, it was not a place Phil felt comfortable going in so he ignored it completely.



Oh, and there were also the Dolls.



As Phil wandered around he came across several human sized dolls scattered across the manor. They were various different heights and sizes and left in standing positions at erratic intervals, though some were seated in the chairs of certain rooms.



They weren't posing nor were they but in any artful or meaningful position that was obvious to him at first glance, they were just...there.



Each doll had hair of various colours and styles and large eyes made of a single colour, again varying between the different dolls, and full lips with crimson lipstick elegantly painted on.



The first thing he noted was that each and every one of the dolls was female, each spouting unreal curves that seemed to belong in a tasteless erotic fiction and the second being that not a single one of them wore clothing, not even underwear.



Normally a clothesless doll, even a human-sized one, wouldn't be unusual but the level of detail on it's body was far too intricate, even it's genitalia was painstakingly made into a perfect replica, so much so that Phil instinctively looked away in embarrassment from the doll he was inspecting, a ruby haired bombshell with perky tits and eager nipples, a voluptuous ass, emerald eyes and a porcelain perfect pussy. If it weren't for the fact that their shoulders, knees, elbows, neck and hips weren't visibly ball joints or that their eyes were anything but human, he might have mistaken them for human.



Once he rationalized to himself that there was nothing embarrassing about looking at a naked doll, he turned back to the red head and prodded it's arm.



It was spongy and smooth to the touch, the textured rivalled that of human flesh and skin and yet felt distinctly softer than any ordinary human. He prodded it again. First the arm a few times, then the torso, then the thigh and finally, after a nervous gulp, he grabbed a hold of each breast, handfuls of fake fat in each hand he played with the mimic mammaries for a moment then let his hand drift down it's stomach until his middle fingertip slipped between the crack of it's pussy lips.



He recoiled from the doll and inspected his fingers which were slick with unknown liquids.



He felt up the first few dolls he passed, each one provided the same results, and noted the uniqueness of each doll. Some were smaller than others with smaller proportions and one or two were taller than him. He noticed one amazon in particular, a babe of a Barbie with similarly blonde hair and blue eyes, a firm, tight rear and breasts so large he'd need both hands to contain only one.



Eventually satisfied with the first floor, Phil went upstairs to find doors that lead to a study, a library and one large empty room, likely a spot for party gatherings.



There was also two corridors which, like the ones below, looped around and met each other at the far end with windows overlooking the inner grove. Each door in the corridor lead to nothing but bedrooms, each spacious with double beds, an expensive looking cabinet, a mirror and a barren wardrobe.



There were also more dolls stationed on this floor with some in the bedrooms when he glanced in, their presence in the manor unnerved him and he wondered whether they were in the previous owner's possession or if they were brought here as some abstract joke? Perhaps someone made a bunch of life sized dolls and wanted to get rid of the surplus? Strange as it sounded.



But there was so much detail and uniqueness crafted into each doll that spoke of hard work and an artisan's passion, it was unlikely for them to be simply left behind or thrown out if someone was willing to put that much effort into them.



As Phil wondered how much he could sell them for, he came to the far end of the Mansion where he found two doors.



The first was iron, like the one leading to the basement area, only this one was locked up and wouldn't budge.



The second door was wooden like all the other doors, in fact it looked exactly like all the other doors with no noticeable distinctions that set it apart.



And yet, simply by locking his gaze onto the oak wood, Philip felt his chest tighten, heard the rhythm of his heartbeat roar in his ears and his throat turn dry. He felt equal parts terrified and excited, every part of him wanting to open this single door and see what was lying in wait while some voice in the back of his mind urged him to go back, to run down the lawn and back to the village. To call his parents and leave this place and never return.



The Old Crone's warning echoed in the back of his skull but it was swept aside by his curiosity as the young fool opened the door.



Wooden steps led up to what appeared to be an attic area, the ungrateful boards complained under his weight, unused to a guest after so many years of neglect.



Phil marvelled at how nothing had seemingly collapsed in this supposed abandoned manor, if fact it felt like no one had left it at all.



Phil emerged into a gloomy and dusty room where shards of light struggled to pierce the darkness through the chinks of the roof tiles. He could make out a few objects here and there covered in sheets; chairs, stools, tables, paintings, shelves and toys, all sorts of crap.



But directly in front of him, in the spot most of the filtered directly to, as if drawn to it's beauty, was another of the dolls, perched on a leather armchair with her head hanging low like a narcotic princess on her humble throne.



The doll itself wasn't any more or less beautiful than the previous models, it had dark hair that descended to the floor and seemed to melt into the gloom, a pretty face unmarked with make-up, a modest bust and, shockingly, was the only one wearing clothes, a wonderful ebony dress with frills and laces that looked more like something a Victorian era goth would wear.



Phil bent low to look at the doll's face, and stretched out a hand to brush away the strands of her hair that veiled her features from him.



Then it's eyes sprung open.



It jerked it's head up to look at him with such suddenness, Phil jumped back in shock, promptly falling onto his behind in the process.



"WHOAHOLYSHIWHAT?!" He could only stutter as he scrambled backwards across the floor.



The doll eyed him curiously and he looked back at it, unable to tear his eyes away from her violet orbs and barely registered that her eyes appeared more human than the other dolls before his vision began to blur and darken. As his strength seeped from his body and his mind slipped into the abyss, he became aware that the strange doll was smiling before blacking out, it's eyes burning into his very soul.



Philip woke up in an unfamiliar bed with a fading migraine. His first thought was that everything was a dream, that he was still at home or at a friend's. But when he took in his surroundings, he pushed such wishful thinking aside, the room he was in was one of the bedrooms of the Carlyle estate, though the bigger giveaway was the dark haired doll in the corner of the room.



He sat up and examined the doll, it was the same as the others except it had black hair tied in braids that hung on either side of it's breasts and honey gold eyes that stared right back at him.



It's gazed unnerved him, mostly because it wasn't looking directly off in to space ahead of it like the other dolls but it's head was twisted slightly as if to watch him.



Unnerved by his silent sentinel and the events of the day, Phil thought it wise to leave and never come back, it was a nice house but it's contents freaked him out.



As he left the room, his gaze automatically turned to the attic door, his interest in the door faded as suddenly as it appeared, not that he had any intention of returning to that room and the regal girl that slept within.



Wait, girl? I meant doll.



Philip's thoughts began to drift towards the girl again, this time in speculation of what gave him the impression that she wasn't a doll like the rest.



She was the only clothed one, sure but that didn't mean much on it's own. And while she looked like she was sleeping, there was no sign of her breathing in the first place.



It was the eyes he decided, they looked the most human compared to the dolls, albeit no human eyes glow with such intensity and he's never seen iris shine with an amethyst splendour like that before.



He frowned to himself, wondering why she left such a strong impression on him. She wasn't ugly by any means but she wasn't the hottest thing on display in this mansion either, yet Phil could feel the blood rushing to his face every time he thought of her, as if there was something in it screaming to escape his body and rush back to her.



Lost in his thoughts, Phil stumbled to the front door and pushed it.



Nothing.



It wouldn't budge.



Not even a little.



He reached into his pockets to pull out the key, maybe he locked the door on his way in, but to his surprise and growing panic, he couldn't find it.



Philip tried pulling and got more of the same result, then he threw himself into the grand oak and pounded on it with his fists. Either the doors automatically locked, which was unlikely giving the age of the thing, or the villagers were playing with him.



Phil turned to find a window he could smash, not likely to return and pay the damages anyway, and froze. In front of him, standing in the centre of the lobby with it's arm outstretched holding something was a doll.



It looked about one foot shorter than him, maybe more, with blonde hair styled into twin tails, glistening aqua eyes, a criminally flat chest but impossibly wide hips.



Though Phil was more focused on other thoughts than his lewd fantasies.



Was that always there? I wasn't paying attention thinking about that girl in the attic...No! That doll! She is a-IT, is a doll!



Discarding his thoughts for the moment he cautiously approached the doll, half expecting it to snap it's gaze to him at any moment. He took the card in it's hand and the doll remained motionless however, took a few paces backwards and began reading.



Let's play a game.



Three chances to leave, don't fall asleep.



Look inside the doll in 2F.



Someone was in there with him. The girl in the attic? It must be, he threw away all objections that claimed she was a mere doll and focused on the possibility that she was human.



Was she an intruder? No, why would she break in, fall asleep then lock Philip in the mansion while he was unconscious?



And she couldn't be living here, the villagers would have mentioned it.



She could have been one of the missing girls but why would she stay when she could easily leave?



Philip decided to march upstairs, ignoring the storm of questions and thoughts he was almost drowning himself with. 2F, he realized, was a room number. There were 20 bedrooms on the second floor and each were labelled 2A-2T staring from the left corridor.



As he walked up to the sixth room of the corridor he passed two dolls, one with short black hair and one with longer brown curls and his mind, now alert and receptive, seemed to twitch with concern. Phil ignored the warning and pressed on entering the room.



It was like all the others, except on the bed was a doll, it was the red head he first groped, it's posterior was raised, displaying it's womanhood, or what imitated it, to it's audience while it's crimson curls fanned out across the bed and it's soulless stare focused on the ceiling above.



Phil hesitated, he had a sneaking suspicion of where the key was hidden.



He stepped towards the doll and, tentatively, inserted a finger into it's fake vagina and gasped and the feeling. He didn't feel plastic like he was expecting but a moistened and spongy that he easily mistook for flesh but couldn't possibly be so. It was tight, clamping down on his finger alone and made it difficult to push on but eventually Philip felt his finger tip scrape something hard and metallic.

