When time should have sped by, it dragged on and on, like it was going to stop.
The clock was tormenting them. It was pointing it's hands out in the wrong directions on purpose, it seemed. Even after a filling lunch at the campus, it still lingered on.
The clock was paining them, and maybe, it needed to.
Time passes as quickly or as slowly as it wants in the Twilight Zone.
People themselves have a say in nothing. Nothing at all.
The clock finally stuck four thirty, and the dash out the door went faster than anything else in their lives.
Thoughts raced up, down, left, and right in Harper's head. Like a neurological racetrack.
"Quinn doesn't care. She doesn't care about anybody. Except herself, as she thinks she's the epitome of child pageant beauty. She acts like she loves you and then rips off your plastic limbs like you're nothing. But that's what people do, because they don't think that we're people too.
We're people. We were born human and wanted to die human. They search for the secret to immortality like it's some kind of holy grail. Like it's sacred.
The truth is, they've been making it for thousands of years.
Out of leather. Out of cloth. Out of husks. Out of wool. And even out of sticks and stones!
They've been making the fountain of youth out of plastic.
They've been making the fountain of youth out of plastic because they've been making human beings for years, and years, and years.
But do they see us? No! Because we go missing, and they turn us to foot tall plastic toys with their eyes.
You think, 'Well, so people can perform real magic now? What's next? Will they turn me into a doll? '
Yes, possibly. I think so. I think that one day, all of us Will be pawn in the wretched game of immortality. When they find out the truth. *If* they find out the truth.
Because truthfully speaking, we are all just toys for the universe to play with."
She couldn't jot down anything. She had to pay her bus fare. And choose a seat. And stare out the window, before she could write anymore.
The buildings of Chicago didn't look as appealing. Even Eldred's touch couldn't cause her to even bat an eyelash.
"We are all just toys to play with. God's little trinkets. And maybe he's got some kind of trick up his sleeve.
What if he's Quinn?
What if he's the devil?"
All thoughts came to a screeching halt.
"Harper.. We're at our stop."
Harper looked up at Eldred, a bit dazed.
She took his hand and they walked off the bus together. They had a few minutes to spare and sat together on the bus stop bench.
"Are you okay, Harper? You went a bit.. You became a little comatose on the bus there.. I was a bit worried.."
Harper was still silent at first, but then spoke softly.
"I get into these moods sometimes, that I can't really come out of. It's the opposite of writer's block. In a way. I'm sorry I've worried you, El. We need to get going before it's too late. And I become a doll. Like the others."
"Of course! Of course! Let's go, quick!"
They ran another dash, speeding across the uneven, weedy sidewalks.
They made it to the house at 4:59pm. One minute early.
Harper knocked on the door and Kathy answered, breathing a sigh of relief.
"I thought you'd never show up! "
Harper nodded her head and sighed, "Well, ma'am, the bus traffic was awful! I didn't mean to be late. "
"You're not, dear, you've still got a whole minute to spare! I'll be going now! You have a good evening, dear, get to work! Goodbye! "
"Goodbye..." Harper shut the door behind her slowly, waiting for her to leave.
Meanwhile, Eldred was hiding behind one of the bushes in the yard, waiting for the coast to clear.
As soon as Kathy's car disappeared, Eldred walked in the door, and stayed there.
Hours went by, and all seemed normal. Quinn never noticed the man hiding in the linen closet, and she never noticed him. The dolls knew nothing of what was yet to come.
Finally, after dark, Kathy came home. Quinn was sent to bed and Harper was fast asleep on the couch.
"Harper? Is that you? "
Harper woke up, "What? "
"I'm home. I'll get you your money, just a moment. "
"Okay.. " She sat up on the couch. "Thank you."
It took a minute to remember her objective, as Kathy ran to her bedroom to get bills from her safe.
"We are just toys to play with..."
She got up and retrieved Eldred from these linen closet, what he was playing Tetris on his phone.
When Kathy came back, she was shocked to see yet another man in her house.
"What's going on?" She crossed her arms in anger. Her temper was just beginning to flare.
"Kathy, we know about the dolls." Harper tried hard to stand tall and looked her in the eye. I've known, and he knows. "
Eldred was frightened, but realized he had to speak too.
It was the only way to save the dolls.
"I know. They're in that wicker basket in your daughter's closet. And they're also people. *Living*, breathing people, trapped in plastic bodies!"
Afterwards, he took a deep breath.
And Kathy, well, Kathy took Her last breath.
She fell onto the hardwood floor. Her body aged and she eventually turned into a pile of ashes.
Harper put her hands over her lips and gasped.
Eldred looked away and became squeamish.
"What about... Quinn? And... The dolls?" Harper asked, remembering the website she read with Eldred. He knew more than she had.
For a fact.
"I don't know.. I think Quinn ages too.. Doesn't she?"
Before they could figure it out themselves, Quinn hobbled into the room.
"What... Have you done? "
She had turned into an old woman. At least sixty years old. Her glasses no longer her head and she had become weak.
Even with her weaknesses, she was still able to make a point. She was, after all, once a holder of the secret to immortality.
She never planned to be weak. She wanted nothing to do with it.
"You... You.. Monster!" She pointed at Harper.
The students became scared huddled close to each other.
Voices came from the other rooms, rejoicing.
They were free. Finally free, after all of those years.
When they first became human, all of the dolls were in a pile, on top of each other and extremely uncomfortable.
When they all filled Quinn's bedroom, they started cheering.
They could do what they wanted again. They could walk among the people as they always had, and they hadn't aged a day either.
"It's been so long.." Rhonda ran to one of the windows and opened the curtains. "I can see the sun! I can't believe it! We can see the sun!"
"We can go outside!"
"We can breathe again!"
"We can sing!"
Normally, these things wouldn't bring much excitement to any human. But these girls, these women, hadn't been human for a long, long time. And they were going to embrace it as they never embraced anything before.
Meanwhile, in the other room, in Kathy's bedroom closet, Anthony hit his head on the wooden shelf, having been in a standing position, alone, twelve inches tall, for more than thirty years.
"What the hell?"
He then felt his head, and his arms, and his feet.
He was human. And he couldn't believe it.
"Molly! I'm coming! Molly, I've missed you!"
They were reunited, right in front of the linen closet. They held each other and wouldn't let go.
"It's over." He said, "It's over. And now, we can start our lives again."
Jade was the last one to walk out of the bedroom, and was shocked to see what was in front of her.
A girl she saw from school, one who passed by her quite often after class, in the arms of her friend, Eldred.
She saw a pile of ashes on the hardwood floor, and she saw the elderly Quinn on the couch, withering away.
"How did you do it?" Jade stared at the scene, almost unable to take it in.
"We just told her we knew about you. That's all." Eldred explained, barely in a whisper. "Harper wanted to save you for a while, and that's all."
Oh, really, that is all. All that ever happened in the world of the dolls, ever. Nobody would ever again hold the powers the Behr family possessed. Never again, not in the Twilight Zone.