Morgan

by Valentina Abate

"What were you saying about the dolls again?" Morgan snapped out of her trance, meeting the gaze of the woman with glasses sitting across from her.
"Those things are alive!" Morgan swallowed hard, undoing the last button of her shirt while the woman let out a high-pitched laugh, "Come on now. Don't be silly!" Morgan shook her head, looking around nervously.

"You don't understand, Pamela. They tried to kill my baby."

The woman stared at her, pursing her lips. "Morgan, we talked about this, they’re just toys." Morgan's eyes darted toward the other end of the hallway, where she swore she could see those tiny wooden faces staring at her. "No." She got up quickly and moved away from the table. "I will prove it to you." She nodded, glancing one more time at Pamela, then walked in the direction of the dolls, standing at the end of the hall.

"I should've never come here. My baby doesn't like you." She growled, pointing a finger at the puppets, which were looking right back at her. Their lips curled into evil grins, their eyes wide open. "She cries every night. You make her cry. Every. Single. Night." She reached for one of the puppets, the female, grabbing it and throwing it against the wall. That was when the male puppet started to laugh, [Nobody is going to believe you, Morgan. Everybody loves us! You saw it for yourself].

The doll she had just thrown against the wall sat up on the floor, its neck unnaturally bent, one of her eyes now cracked. [Everybody loves us, Morgan]. The doll laughed and laughed until Morgan couldn't take it anymore. She covered her ears and ran the other way.

"I'm getting out of here!" She screamed as loud as she could, deciding it was time to go. She only needed to find her baby.

Pamela quickly approached the girl, trying to take a hold of her arm, "What are you talking about, you don't have anywhere else to go!"

Morgan wouldn't have it. She walked away from her and tried to put some distance between them. "We are going. I won't stay here one more night!" Opening one door after another, she kept calling for her daughter, hoping to hear her cry. Except, she was nowhere to be found.

*

"Morgan? Morgan, can you hear me?" A deep male voice called her name.

Morgan frowned, she didn't want to open her eyes.

"Morgan? You got us all worried over here. You hit your head pretty hard." Morgan gave up. She uncovered her eyes with her hand as she opened them. The light from above was too bright. "No! I need to find her."

The Doctor standing by the side of her bed looked into Morgan's eyes with a small flashlight. "You are going to be alright. Gauze please." He held his hand out to a nurse in glasses standing next to him. "Right away, Dr. Schneider." Pamela picked up some more gauze from a tray then handed it to him. She glanced at the girl with a worried face. "She was going on about the dolls today. I am so sorry, I shouldn't have let her run around the first floor."

The doctor bandaged Morgan's wound. She started struggling.

"No! Not here, not safe." She pulled a knife she had stolen from under her pillow. She’d stolen it from the cafeteria earlier that day. She tried to slash the doctor's arm, but Dr. Schneider held her down. "Nurse, we are going to have to sedate her." Morgan felt tears falling from her eyes. She tried to fight his hold, but the doctor was stronger and with the nurse's help injected the sedative into Morgan's arm. "I want to go... I just want to go..." Morgan still struggled to get away, but she started to feel weaker and weaker.

Then everything went black.

*

When she opened her eyes again, Morgan realized she was sitting in a wheelchair. She was drowsy and couldn't see very well. She looked up and met the gaze of the Doctor, sitting behind his desk, "Can you hear me, Morgan?"

"Mm," she mumbled. It was hard to put words together.

The doctor scolded, "You can't run off like that. Have you been taking the medication I prescribed you?"

Morgan looked around him, noticing the details of the office, which were looking familiar to her. She had, in fact, been there many times.

"Morgan? Can you answer me?"

But she really couldn't. She was staring at those two ugly puppets sitting on a corner table, just staring at her with their eyes wide open and their evil smiles. Morgan trembled, "M-my baby..?" She whispered, remembering all at once that she still needed to rescue her child and escape.

"Morgan..." The doctor brushed his hand over his forehead and took off his glasses. "Morgan." He whispered her name, setting the glasses on the desk. "You don't have a baby. You never had a daughter..."

Morgan looked up at him and Doctor Schneider could swear he heard the sound of her heart breaking.

She looked down.

Recognized the familiar straight jacket.

Screamed.