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Curiosity. A voice calls out from the darkness, haunting and beautiful. There are no real lyrics, only notes, beckoning in the dark to be followed. Drifting after it through the empty warehouses and shipping crates, the soothing voice whispers in the mind…don’t be afraid. A music box, accompanying the sound, a child’s play thing. The door slides open with only the smallest effort, and the music grows. Following the voice deeper, deeper, into the darkness, searching for the source of that beautiful sound. And then the door slams shut behind, leaving only darkness…and the stench of blood…

Victor had been through this route before, dozens of times. A short cut home from his evening walks. Why the outskirts of his college campus was near the warehouse district, he did not know. The empty buildings led way to a dock that was no longer used, filled instead with shipping crates that seemed to have been long ago discarded. Decrepit, but it was one of the only places he could go where he would be alone, truly alone. He could sit on the dock and stare out at the sea all he liked, without a single worry of busy people hurrying to get to their destinations, or couples snuggled together on a romantic evening out. Here, it was just him, and the sea.

The salty air filled his lungs as he inhaled, his eyes fluttering shut to listen to the wash of water against the dock. The water lapping against the dock, a distant gull…and a voice. His eyes opened lazily at the sound. He turned from the water to gaze off, promptly shoving his hands in his pocket to march towards the noise. Leaving the sound of the waves behind, eyes scanned the crates and buildings.

“Where’s it coming from?” a furrowed brow graced his face as the voice grew louder, and he could not deny it was beautiful, in a chilling sort of way. The clearer it grew, the more he began to notice the perfection to it, as if whatever song it was singing had been practiced hundreds of time. It called to him, tugged at him, seemed to pull him to it. The tinkering of a music box played alongside, growing closer, until he could just hear it on the other side of one of the doors. He paused, pressing his ear to the door. It was just inside, the voice, the music, the sound. He gripped the handle of the sliding door, and tugged harshly for it to open.
It was dark inside, with shelves filled with small knickknacks or boxes left behind, and the harsh sound of the door sliding open did not stop the singing, did not even make it pause. He smiled; the sound was so soothing, almost a caress on the skin somehow. He moved forward, closer to the sound, wondering if the woman behind that voice would be just as beautiful. A siren, docked by the side of the sea, he thought for a moment, a smile forming on his face. What was she like, the captor of this voice? He closed his eyes, trying to picture it, but did not have enough imagination for it.

The song drifted down, surrounding him in its entirety. Stopping, he realized he had drifted fairly far into this place, among the shelves towering above him and the boxes, until he was in an open area, or what seemed to be open, the shelves behind him. He glanced back, no longer able to see the door he left open, and tried to determine how far in he had come, when the lights turned on above him. They were dim, sparsely spaced out, and did not truly illuminate the place very well at all. Yet, when he glanced up, there was a single form illuminated perfectly.

A woman…thin and fragile sat on a simple wooden swing hung high above. But truly, it was no woman. Stitches running through her skin, thread as if she had been sewn together, hair draped about her form that must have reached the floor when she stood…was nothing compared to those eyes. Green. Lifeless. Porcelain orbs staring down at him, piercing into his mind and soul with a cold that made him catch his breath. She held a music box in her hands, sitting so still she truly looked like a doll. And then, she begun to turn the handle on the music box, and he noticed the other forms around her…all around her, all across above him. Hundreds of human forms, life-sized dolls strung up above him, though each had something as wrong with it as her form.

She turned the music box, her face holding no expression, and something filled the air. The dolls above him began to move as she had, began to twitch and groan to life, all at once as if someone had given them permission. He stared as the forms began to grope in the darkness, adjust on the wires that held them in place, eyes moving downwards to sweep the ground, eyes falling onto his form. All was still when they found him. Hundreds of pairs of eyes staring down at him in the growing cold. He took a single step back, cautiously, and the heads turned to follow him. He took another step back, gauging if he could run, when a crash sounded behind him, making him jump as the shelves all came crashing down on top of each other.

He ran. Away from the sound, without thinking it through, he ran towards the back of the building, and the human dolls reached for him, groped for his form, lowered themselves to try to grasp at him with pathetic murmurs from sewn lips. He did not look up to see that the woman had risen from the chair to follow him in the rafters, he knew only the pursuing forms, the handless arms or stubs of hands reaching for him, the bloated lifeless forms mixed in with the rest as he passed, the arms on him as he squirmed and fought his way out of their grasp. There had to be another way out, every place had a back door!

He came to the wall, slamming against it and groped in the dark for a door handle, eyes searching desperately for a glimmer of light from a door crack. His hand closed around a notch, the same kind on the door up front, and he tugged on it without a second thought, only to find chains holding it in place. Laughter, echoing in the dark, as he turned just in time to see several forms drop from above, their wires cut. They flopped like dummies, and he wondered if they might be dead, but then they began to move. Despite the fall, despite the broken or missing limbs, despite the blood, they crawled and slithered over each other, reaching for him.

He tugged at the door fiercely, determined to get out, groping at the chains to feel for the lock. There was a dead bolt, perhaps he could knock it off? He turned to search for something, anything, he could pry it open with, and felt a clammy hand grasp at his face. Flailed, hit, he fought to get the hand off of him, but more joined him, as the forms swarmed in on him, their hands gripping him as if he were a life vest in a raging sea.

“GET OFF OF ME!!!” shouting, cursing, fighting, but they held strong, and for every hand he pried from his form, another would join, until one hand touched him above the rest. The grave. This was the hand of the grave, and from the moment it touched him, he knew there was no way out. He knew it even before the voice spoke, the words sliding down his spine like an eel.

“Hallo, mein kind. So good oft you to join us here…” She brushed a few stray strands of hair from his face, like a mother, and his vision began to swim. He didn’t even notice the first p***k of a sewing needle piercing his flesh. The dolls gave a fear filled coo, and lifted his form, helped the woman carry him. She sewed the wires into his flesh with precision and care, singing to him the same haunting melody, holding him gently like a child or a lover. They hoisted him up, up, and the others must have returned to their places, because they were no longer on the ground. She set him in her lap as she reclaimed her seat. He tried to move, but his limbs refused to listen. He tried to scream, but could only manage a rattle of a breath. Somewhere the music box began to play again, and she began to sing. He drifted off to sleep, and knew he would never awake again.