Dibs: Doll House (Part One)

Dan wakes up groggily, blinks his eyes open to the unfamiliar surroundings. The bed feels weird, like it’s not even a mattress but made of something way too hard to be a bed.

Wait, is this blanket and pillow fake? The whole bed seems to be made of plastic. Looking around at the room, everything is in strangely bright pastel colours. What the fuck is this place? How did I get here? And why am I naked?

He wanders out of the bedroom and the dimly lit hallway is bizarrely narrow. He can’t find a light switch anywhere as he squeezes through it to a flight of stairs, which he follows down into an equally bizarre kitchen.

Wanting to splash some cold water on his face, he goes to the sink. Still groggy, he tries for way too long to figure out how the faucet works. The handle won’t seem to budge - do you have to pull it up? No. Do you twist it?

He strains to remember where he was last. He was at home, doing homework. His younger stepsister Amy had been bothering him. God he hated her - she was such a spoiled brat. He couldn’t wait to finish college and move out. Having been left alone with just her and her mom was almost worse than the mere fact of his dad’s mysterious disappearance.

She’d been taunting him about how fast the shrinking virus was spreading through the male population. Gleefully telling him what her friends do with the “doll men” they’ve claimed, and saying that his dad was probably somewhere being tormented by some girl who…

Oh fuck.

He looks at the faucet more closely - it’s definitely made of plastic. He looks around with horror, frantically tries the cabinets, touches the table and chairs - the cabinets don’t open and everything is made of plastic.

He rushes over to the one window in the room, above the dining room table. It’s hard to see through it, it’s weirdly hazy. Peering through, his heart racing, he recognizes the horrifyingly familiar girly decor of Amy’s room, everything massively magnified in size. He’s in Amy’s fucking dollhouse, on the floor next to her closet. It dawns on him that the stupid window is hazy because it’s not glass, it’s some cheap translucent plastic.

Suddenly there’s a sound, so big that he feels it more than hears it. It’s like thunder, but repeating at a regular pace. It seems to be getting closer and closer. Oh god. As it approaches, a more familiar sound, dismayingly familiar, also comes into focus.

It’s Amy’s voice, chatting and giggling happily with who he can only assume is her best friend Becky.

He hates Becky almost as much as he hates Amy. The spoiled little brats never seem to get tired of taunting and teasing him. It doesn’t seem to matter that he’s older than them, or that he has a promising career. Because they’re so pretty and popular they always seem to casually dominate every interaction, and trying to ignore them just seems to make it worse.

He watches with dread as their enormous bare legs step into focus, each one like a skyscraper. They stand there for a few minutes, giggling and chatting.

“Oh my god really?”

“Yeah, she’s like super into doing it too, she said it feels like, amazing. He’s gonna end up spending like, half his life in there.”

“Oh my god, like, not gonna lie, that’s actually super hot.”

“I know right? I thought so too.”

“I super wanna try that.”

“Well,” Amy giggles. “Speaking of which…”

He watches with horror as Amy squats down in front of the doll house.

“I can’t wait to play with him!” says Becky cheerfully.

“I know, like, me too.”

He backs instinctively away from the window and turns to run back up the stairs, the only avenue he seems to have with the dollhouse closed like this. Maybe he can find somewhere to hide and they’ll just go away.

He’s halfway up the stairs when the entire house shakes violently and he tumbles backwards. He comes up against a window, not sure if it’s the same one he was looking through before.

“Is he in there?” he hears Becky ask.

“I mean like, I’m positive he can’t get out…” Amy says. She giggles. “But I just wanna, like…” The house shakes violently again and turns sickeningly on its side, landing him right up against the window. Through it, the horrifying sight appears of what can only be Becky’s enormous eye. He watches as it settles on him and then slightly changes shape - it’s strange to see at this huge size but with a sinking stomach he recognizes it as a smile.

“Yep, he’s here!” Becky says cheerfully. The house shakes like an earthquake again and then there’s a huge thud, gravity returning to normal, light streaming in as Amy opens the dollhouse.

He blinks his eyes open and finds that he’s landed in the “living room” of the dollhouse, lying on his back. With it closed, this “room” must have been cut off from the section he’d been trapped in.

The girls are both wearing their cheer uniforms. They giggle down at him, sitting on their knees on the carpet.

“Hi little dolly!” says Becky.

“I told you it was just a matter of time,” says Amy with a smug smile.

“Just leave me alone!” he yells. He’s excruciatingly aware that he’s naked, and tries awkwardly to cover himself.