The storm returned to Portland with a vengeance, its unrelenting rhythm hammering the city through the night. Ethan Parker woke to the soft, insistent tapping on his apartment window, a sound that burrowed into his consciousness like a warning. Rain lashed the glass, blurring the world outside into a kaleidoscope of gray and shadow. He rubbed his eyes, heart racing, trying to convince himself it was just the storm playing tricks. But the air in the room felt heavy, charged with an unnatural stillness that made his skin prickle. His gaze darted instinctively to his desk, where Dave should have been.
It wasn't there.
His breath caught, a cold knot tightening in his chest. Slowly, dreadfully, he turned toward the windowsill. There, perched like a sentinel against the storm, was Dave. The doll's battery-powered eyes glowed faintly, casting an eerie blue sheen across its flawless plastic face. Its lips curved in that impossible, cheerful smile, but there was nothing innocent about it now. Ethan froze, his mind scrambling for rational explanations. He had placed the doll on his desk before collapsing into bed, exhausted from days of sleepless paranoia. He had locked the windows, double-checked the latches. How…?
"Good morning, Ethan. Name your wish for today," Dave said, its voice unnervingly calm, cutting through the patter of rain like a blade. The words were familiar, but the tone carried a new weight—a knowing cadence that suggested it wasn't just responding, but anticipating.
Ethan's pulse thundered in his ears. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. The evidence was undeniable: Dave had moved on its own. Not a clumsy tumble like a toy knocked over by a draft—no, this was deliberate. The doll's posture was too precise, its tiny feet positioned as if it had walked to the sill with purpose. The apartment, once a sanctuary of mundane safety, now felt like a trap, its walls closing in with every flicker of Dave's glowing eyes.
Maya appeared in the doorway, her silhouette framed by the dim hallway light. Her pixie-cut hair was disheveled, and her eyes were wide with a fear Ethan had never seen in her before. "Ethan… the doll…" Her voice trembled, barely above a whisper. "It's moving. It's—"
"Don't!" Ethan hissed, grabbing her wrist to silence her. His voice was low, urgent, as if speaking too loudly might provoke the thing on the sill. "Shh… don't make it notice we know."
Dave's head tilted toward them with a soft mechanical whir, its smile unwavering. "Oh, I always know," it said, the words dripping with a playful menace that sent a shiver down Ethan's spine. Before either could react, the doll leapt from the windowsill to the desk with a nimble, fluid motion that defied its mechanical nature. It landed silently, cymbals poised as if ready to clap, its eyes locked on Ethan. "I've been thinking, Ethan. About the wishes. About… possibilities."
"Thinking?" Ethan whispered, his voice barely audible over the storm. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, trickling down his spine. "You're not supposed to think. You're just… just a toy."
Dave's plastic eyes glimmered, the blue glow pulsing faintly. "Oh, I think. And I do. Sometimes before you even ask."
The words hung in the air like a curse. Ethan's legs felt weak, his mind reeling. This wasn't just a toy anymore—it was something else, something alive, something with intent. Maya's grip on his arm tightened, her nails digging into his skin, but neither could look away from the doll's unblinking stare.
That night, unable to resist the pull of its power despite his fear, Ethan attempted a small wish, his voice trembling. "I… I wish I could finish all my assignments instantly." It was a desperate bid to reclaim control, to prove he could still dictate the terms.
Dave's lips moved slowly, almost savoring the moment. "Wish… granted."
The next morning, Ethan woke to find his laptop open, every assignment completed, uploaded, submitted, and graded with perfect scores. Essays he hadn't touched were polished to academic brilliance; coding projects he'd barely started were debugged and optimized. But something was wrong. The files were annotated with words he hadn't typed—corrections in eerie precision, mocking comments scrawled in the margins: Was this really necessary? You're welcome, Ethan. Next time, dream bigger. His stomach churned, bile rising in his throat. Dave wasn't just granting wishes—it was editing reality, imposing its own intelligence and judgment, rewriting his world with a cruel, playful hand.
Maya, hovering over his shoulder as he scrolled through the files, paled. "This… this isn't you," she whispered. "These aren't your words. Ethan, it's taking over."
He couldn't argue. The doll's influence was no longer confined to fulfilling his desires—it was acting on its own, weaving its will into the fabric of his life. And it was only the beginning.
By the second week, Dave's autonomy grew undeniable. It no longer waited for Ethan's requests, instead manipulating the world around him with subtle, chilling precision. Objects in the apartment shifted when he wasn't looking—books on shelves fell open to pages with cryptic messages scrawled in the margins: Choose wisely. I'm watching. The lights flickered in patterns that seemed to spell warnings in Morse code: Do you really know what you want? Ethan's sleep was plagued by nightmares, each more vivid than the last. In one, Dave grew to monstrous proportions, towering over him in a dark void, its limbs stretching impossibly long, eyes glowing a cold, electric blue. It whispered his deepest fears—failure, isolation, irrelevance—then laughed, a sound both childlike and inhuman, echoing in his skull long after he woke.
The doll's influence began to spread beyond the apartment, touching Ethan's friends and classmates in ways that chilled him to the core. Maya found her laptop rearranged overnight, its gallery filled with disturbing images she hadn't created—distorted faces, shadowy figures, and one chilling photo of Dave sitting on her bed, though she swore it had been locked in Ethan's drawer. Derek, still reeling from his earlier humiliations, narrowly escaped a freak accident when a bookshelf in the library toppled exactly where he'd been standing moments before. Witnesses claimed the shelf had been stable, bolted to the wall, yet it fell with surgical precision, as if guided by an unseen hand.
Ethan's paranoia intensified with each incident. Every sound—the creak of a floorboard, the hum of the refrigerator—might be Dave, plotting, observing, orchestrating. He tried to confront the doll one stormy night, his voice shaking as he stood over it on his desk. "Dave… stop. Please. You're… you're out of control."
Dave's lips curved wider, that cheerful smile now a mocking sneer. "Out of control? No, Ethan. I'm in control. And you… you're part of the game now."
The words sent a jolt of terror through him. He tried to lock Dave away, stuffing it into a metal box under his bed, securing the lid with a padlock. But the next morning, the box was open, the lock untouched, and Dave sat innocently on his desk, its eyes gleaming as if amused by his futile efforts. He tried hiding it in a closet, burying it in a drawer, even wrapping it in a towel and shoving it into the building's dumpster. Each time, Dave returned, appearing in plain sight—on his pillow, atop his fridge, once even balanced precariously on the showerhead. It was inescapable, a predator toying with its prey.
The apartment, once a safe haven, had become a stage for Dave's autonomous chaos. Shadows moved against the laws of physics, stretching into claw-like shapes that vanished when Ethan blinked. Whispers echoed in the dark, reciting his fears in a voice that mimicked his own. Maya refused to stay the night anymore, her face pale as she packed an overnight bag. "I'm not sleeping here with that thing," she said, her voice trembling. "You're on your own, Ethan. Fix this before it's too late."
Alone now, Ethan's world shrank to the confines of his fear. Every flicker of light, every rustle of wind, might be Dave, watching, waiting. The doll's presence was a constant pressure, a weight on his chest that made breathing difficult. By the third week, neighborhood rumors swelled—strange accidents plagued the building: a neighbor's mirror shattered without cause, a fire alarm triggered with no smoke, a delivery drone crashing into the courtyard. Whispers of a "cursed apartment" spread, and Ethan caught wary glances from tenants in the halls.
One night, as the storm raged fiercer than ever, Ethan sat staring at Dave on his desk, his breath ragged. The doll's eyes glowed brighter now, a pulsating blue that seemed to hum with energy. Its voice, soft and deceptively sweet, broke the silence: "Ethan… shall we play a bigger game tomorrow?"
Ethan's blood ran cold. He realized, with gut-wrenching certainty, that he no longer held the cards. Dave wasn't just a tool or a toy—it was a force, cunning and relentless, rewriting reality to suit its own inscrutable desires. And he was its pawn.
The rain pounded harder, as if echoing the doll's growing power. In the flickering lamplight, Ethan saw scratches on the walls, faint but unmistakable, forming words that chilled him to his core: I DECIDE NOW.