Mommy said I shouldn't play in the basement.
It smells funny down there, like wet socks and old rain. But yesterday, when she went to the grocery store and Uncle Ben was asleep on the couch again, I went anyway.
I wanted to see the boxes. Mommy keeps all the good stuff in the boxes — Christmas things, my old toys, and sometimes things that belong to Daddy before he "went away."
She doesn't talk about Daddy much.
I like the way the air feels in the basement. Cold and soft. Like the walls are whispering secrets.
That's where I found her.
A doll.
She was sitting on an old wooden chair, all by herself, under a sheet that looked like spiderwebs.
Her dress was pink once, but now it was gray and dusty. Her hair was yellow, like mine, but tangled and stiff.
She was big, too — almost as big as a baby.
When I took the sheet off, she smiled at me.
At least… I think she did.
"Hi," I whispered.
Her glass eyes looked at me, one straight and one a little sideways. She had a crack on her cheek, shaped like a lightning bolt.
I named her Lala.
That night, I cleaned her up in the bathtub.
Mommy would be mad if she saw me wasting water, so I did it quietly.
When I pressed her tummy, I heard something inside — a thump. Like a heartbeat, but slow and far away.
I giggled. "You're alive," I said.
She didn't answer, but I thought I saw her blink.
The next morning, I showed her to Mommy.
Mommy's face went white like the flour she uses for pancakes. "Where did you get that?" she asked.
"In the basement."
She grabbed the doll from me so hard that it hurt my fingers. "You don't ever touch that again, Kiki. You understand? That belonged to someone else."
I pouted. "Who?"
She looked like she wanted to say something, then turned away."Just —
someone who's gone."
I didn't like that answer.
That night, I sneaked into her room and took Lala back.
Lala slept beside me. Her head was heavy.
Her skin felt strange — not like plastic, but something softer. Warmer.
Sometimes, when I closed my eyes, I thought I heard her breathing.
The next few days were fun. Lala listened to me talk about school and about Mommy and Uncle Ben.
I told her I didn't like Uncle Ben. He smells like old beer and he shouts a lot.
When I said that, Lala's head turned a little — just enough for me to see her good eye.
It looked angry.
Mommy started acting weird, too. She cried a lot at night when she thought I was asleep.
Once I heard her whisper: "Why did I keep it? Why didn't I burn it?"
I think she meant Lala.
*********
Yesterday, something happened. Uncle Ben came into my room when Mommy was out.
He smiled, but his smile didn't reach his eyes.
He said, "Hey, sweetheart, wanna show me your new doll?"
I didn't answer.
He sat on my bed. "Come on, don't be shy."
Lala was on my chair, staring at him.
Then he said something bad. Something I didn't like. Something Daddy used to shout before Mommy locked her door at night.
Lala fell off the chair by herself.
Uncle Ben froze. "What the hell—"
Then her hand twitched. I saw it. Her fingers moved.
Uncle Ben screamed.
Mommy found him later that night. He was lying at the bottom of the basement stairs.
She said it was an accident, but I saw the bruises on his neck. They looked like little fingerprints.
Lala was back on my bed, smiling again.
*********
Mommy didn't talk to me for a whole day.
She kept muttering under her breath, pacing back and forth. "Not again. Not again."
I asked her who "again" was, but she slapped me.
She never slaps me.
That night, she took Lala away again. I cried so hard that my nose bled.
But when I woke up this morning, Lala was back beside me.
Her hair was wet.
It's nighttime now. Mommy's downstairs. I can hear her moving boxes in the basement. She keeps whispering, "Please stay dead this time. Please stay dead."
I think she's talking about Lala.
I went downstairs quietly. The light was flickering.
Mommy had a big knife in her hand. She was standing near the old wooden chair, crying.
I saw the sheet again. The one I found Lala under. Mommy pulled it off — and I screamed.
It wasn't just a chair.
It was a person.
Or what was left of one.
The skin looked dry, like paper. The hair was yellow and messy, just like Lala's.
The body was small. A little smaller than Mommy.
There was stitching all along its arms, its face, its stomach — big black thread that looked like spider legs.
And in the body's lap… there was an empty space. Like something had been cut out.
Mommy saw me and dropped the knife. "Kiki—please, go upstairs."
But I couldn't move. I just stared.
The body's eyes were open. Glass eyes. One straight, one sideways.
Lala's eyes.
I don't remember what happened next. Mommy says I fainted.
When I woke up, the police were there. They took Mommy away. They said things like grave desecration and insanity. They took Lala too.
But they didn't find the other one. The one in the basement.
Because when they carried Mommy outside, I saw something move in her bag.
A little pink shoe.
Lala's.
*********
It's been three weeks. I live with Grandma now. She says Mommy is in a "special place."
But at night, I still hear the thump-thump sound under my bed.
It's slow, like a heartbeat.
Sometimes I wake up and feel something warm beside me. Something that smells like dust and rain.
And this morning, when I opened my eyes…
Lala was there.
Her dress was clean again. Her hair was brushed.
She looked new.
And in her tiny cloth hands, she was holding a picture.
It was a photo of me — sleeping.
(Pause)
Mommy used to say dolls were made to keep children safe.
But Lala doesn't want to keep me safe.
She wants me to stay.
Forever.
And i…. Like that.
Sometimes, it feels like we are….sisters.
Stream Commentary; Tape #58. "Kiki's Doll"
(The stream crackles back to life. The chat explodes — theories, fear, and a scrolling storm of emojis. Kai's voice comes through slow and heavy, like someone speaking from underwater.)
So… Kiki found her doll.
Or maybe the doll found her."
(He chuckles softly.)
"I was reading the comments. 'Is Kiki's mother insane?' 'Is there really a body in the doll?' 'Is Kiki even real?'
Let's talk about it."
[@Jaija: I don't get it, kai! Was the doll alive or just… full of that dead body? And—ew, did Kiki's mom make it herself?!]
[@Ovesix: The mother's behavior implies guilt. There's something ritualistic about her words — 'Please stay dead this time.' It wasn't just grief; it was punishment.
Perhaps the doll was stitched from the remains of a child she couldn't let go of… maybe Kiki's twin]
[@642: Hah. Or maybe the doll wasn't anyone at all. Maybe it was Kiki. You heard the way she talked, right? That sweet, dreamy voice? That's how the insane remember themselves. What if the doll was the real child, and Kiki's the sewn one — stitched up with someone else's soul?]
[@Enchomay: Or both of them were pieces of the same being. A mother trying to rebuild her lost child, but it split — one body became the doll, the other became Kiki. Neither whole, neither human.
That's why the heartbeat continued after death]
(Kai smiles faintly)
"You're all right… and all wrong.
The truth about 'Kiki's New Doll' isn't in the body or the sewing. It's in the grief.
You see, grief doesn't rot like flesh does — it lives, even when the person it belongs to can't.
Maybe Kiki's mother couldn't bear to bury her child completely. So she did what humans do best — she pretended she hadn't lost anything.
She made something to fill the silence.
But the silence learned to breathe."
(He leans forward slightly, his voice lowering to a near whisper.)
"You think you'd never do something like that.
But tell me — if someone you loved died tonight, and you had one more chance to make them move again… even if it meant the smell, the stitches, the wrongness — would you really say no?"
(The chat went silent)
[@Ovesix: I've been reading the viewers' theories, Kai. Some believe Kiki's mother wasn't grieving a lost child — but hiding evidence. Maybe Lala wasn't a memory… but a victim]
[@Jaija: But that means Kiki grew up playing with someone her mom… killed? That's messed up! Wait—does that mean the doll was trying to tell her? Like, 'Hey, that's my body!']
[@642: Or maybe the doll wasn't warning her. Maybe it wanted her to join. Ever notice how Lala always came back? The heartbeat under the bed? It didn't want to be alone. Dolls never want to be alone.]
[@Enchomay: There's another possibility.
What if Kiki was the dead one — and the mother stitched another child from what remained of her grief? The 'heartbeat' could be the mother's guilt trying to keep her creation alive. But guilt, like love, is a dangerous power. It feeds on what it can't fix]
"Hm. You're circling closer.
But let me tell you something you didn't notice."
(He lifts a finger. The audio distorts slightly.)
"When Kiki said the doll's skin felt warm — that wasn't imagination. That wasn't memory.
That was flesh remembering it used to be alive.
You see, when grief refuses to let go, the dead sometimes answer. Not out of love — but out of hunger."
(He leans forward)
"Lala didn't come back because she wanted to.
She came back because Kiki's mother called her."
[@642: So the mother made a doll out of her dead kid's body, but the soul came back wrong?]
"No soul comes back right, buddy. That's the rule. Once something crosses, it never returns clean."
(He taps the desk twice — the same heartbeat rhythm from the story: thump, thump)
[@642: I like the idea that the police never found the basement body. It's still there, right?]
(Kai didn't answer, he just smiles)
(A faint scraping noise cuts through the stream. Kai pauses. His goggle's reflection flickers — for a split second, a child's silhouette appears behind him)
[@Jaija: …Kai. Did something move behind you?]
(Kai shrugs)
"Probably just the wind. Or maybe the doll found a new home."
(He smiles, softly, almost kindly)
"Remember this, everyone.
Not every lost thing wants to be found.
Not every child's laughter means they're happy.
Sometimes, when you hear a toy heartbeat at night —
you're not the one it's meant for."
(He sits back, voice dropping to a whisper)
"Sleep tight. And if you see a pink-dressed doll on your shelf tomorrow…
don't throw it away.
It already knows your name."
(Static fills the screen, slowly fading into the faint outline of a tower — tall, black, endless.)
"Next time, we climb."
THE BLACK TOWER.
STREAM ENDS