I got this idea from listening to Kanon Wakeshima! If you like japanese music that is slightly gothic, slightly creepy, from a girl that looks exactly like a doll, but is an awesome cello player, her music is for you! :D
Disclaimer: *insert one of Flower in the River's disclaimers here*
Hope you enjoy! Please review :) and if this scares you a bit, my job here is done.
"Go ahead, Hisana-san. Pick one."
Her bright violet eyes scanned the rows and rows of dolls. Some had glass eyes, stitched eyes, eyes that fluttered, straight hair, curly hair, frilly dresses or frocks.
They all stared at her innocently with frozen expressions, still and silent.
"I also have male dolls," the shopkeeper spoke, adjusting his dusty apron.
He led her to another set of shelves on the other side of the small antique shop. As they walked, their feet stirred up dust on the worn hardwood floor.
She could still feel the dolls' stare at the back of her head, blank and inanimate.
They reached the set of shelves. Hisana let her gaze run over them. The whispers of the dolls floated through her mind, feathers settling on paper. The male dolls gazed back at her, some sitting, some standing, all with frozen, emotion-less faces that whispered to her like the rustle of dry leaves.
She shifted from one foot to another, and walked carefully back over to the female dolls, the shopkeeper trailing behind her like a ghost.
A doll caught her eye; a girl with perfect, pale skin, a head of short, black hair that frayed outwards at the ends and had one lone strand hanging between the eyes. The head and body were made delicately of china, and the hair was soft and shiny so that it almost looked real.
The eyes were deep violet, with hints of indigo in its glassy depths. It also had eyelids that opened and closed, and a small, pink mouth painted on.
The clothes it was wearing were strange, a black kimono with white on the V-shaped neckline and a white sash around the hips. The doll was also wearing white socks and delicate, detailed straw sandals.
Hisana thought the doll looked rather like herself; not exactly twins, more like…
Sisters.
"Ah, that one," said the shopkeeper in his dry, wheezy voice that reminded her of someone on a deathbed. "I call her… Rukia."
She tried it out, murmuring the name quietly. "Rukia." the name slid over her lips easily, like water.
"I'll have her," she whispered.
The man nodded. He took Rukia off her shelf tenderly, stroking her hair. He took her over to the cash register, cradling her in his arms like a newborn baby.
Hisana turned away from the dolls, but another one captured her attention. It was a male doll, sitting a little farther apart from the rest on the shelf.
Chills crept over her.
The doll seemed to be staring right at her, its glass eyes boring into her. The eyes were a stony shade of grey, clear and piercing. Dark raven hair touched the shoulders, and its bangs fell softly over one eye. It appeared to be wearing some kind of hair ornaments, white and immaculate.
The clothes looked like Rukia's, but with a little white haori draped across its body with small black triangular markings at the ends.
If dolls had a social ladder, she thought to herself, this doll would be… nobility.
It stared at her.
"Hisana-san, your purchase?"
She was startled out of her daze, and finally tore her eyes away from the doll. Its expressionless face haunted her, and the skeleton of its features remained etched in her mind.
"My dolls are special, don't forget that." The shopkeeper handed her a plain paper bag with Rukia placed inside, and smiled. He looked like his dolls, glassy eyed, pale, and faded. Hisana handed him the money for it and his fingers briefly touched hers, bone white and cold like a corpse. "Arigatou," she quietly replied.
Hisana walked out of the tiny store, the rustling of whispers, of secrets, dry murmurs and papery mutters trailing behind her like a cape of ink words.
A little while later, she placed Rukia on her shelf in her room lovingly, along with the other figures and antiques she had collected. The doll looked back at her with empty, blank eyes, and a skeleton face.
Creak…
Hisana glanced up quickly.
Her door was slowly moving open.
Creak…
Hisana's heart pounded, and familiar chills washed over her. Fear smothered her mind, freezing her in place.
Creak…
The door opened wide.
She screamed, and beside her, sitting on a shelf, Rukia seemed to smile.
My dolls are special…