Mother POV

In the backwoods of Vermont, there is a small town called Phillips. With a population of roughly 700, everyone knows everyone. In that everyone, there was a family of four known as the Bufords. From the outside, they seemed like a normal family, living a normal life. On the inside, a view only the family got to see, the Rogers were a mess. The father was drunk every night, the mother was constantly hiding in case he got angry, and the children were out every night until the latest of hours. 

Until one night, when their daughter didn’t come home. 

The mother was up as usual. She never slept until both her children were home. Her husband had been passed out on the couch since 9 o’clock, having come home drunk, like usual. Her son, Monty got home an hour after midnight and he ignored her, like usual. What was unusual was that her daughter never came home. If she had, exactly an hour after her brother, then the mother would have gotten her four hours of sleep, hidden beneath the covers of her own bed. 

But the mother had never been that lucky. 

Instead, Sierra didn’t come home. 

Instead, the mother stayed up all night, wondering what “friend” her daughter was out with. 

Instead, when her daughter didn’t walk through the front door at exactly 2 a.m., the mother started to worry.

When the clock hit 3 a.m., she tried calling her daughter.

It rang and rang and rang until it hit voicemail.

No matter how dysfunctional the family could be, her daughter never missed her calls. 

Daughter POV

It was the best night of her life. 

But she had to get back to her mother soon.

She couldn’t be late. 

She tried to pull away from whoever had a grip on her.

They wouldn’t let go.

Why did she feel so tired?

Mother POV

When the clock hit 5, the mother could hear her husband getting up in a drunken haze. He had to go to work. He would just leave early and go to the bar like he always did. 

Once he was gone, the mother slinked out of her room, quiet as a mouse, to the phone in the kitchen. Picking it up she dialed 911. 

All of a sudden, she heard her husband’s truck pull back into the driveway and she slammed the phone back into the holder mid-ring. 

Racing around the creaky floorboards, she jumped under the covers and hoped that he wouldn’t come into the room. 

The mother hid until she heard the door close shakily and the truck rumbled away. 

Going back to the phone, she dialed 911 and waited until someone picked up. 

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“My daughter is missing. She never came home last night. It hasn’t been 24 hours, but she has never done this before. She has always come home on time.”

“Ma’am, what is your name and where are you located?”

“My name is Jennifer Buford, and I am at my house. 24 Lancaster Rd, Phillips, Vermont, 05905.”

“Thank you, I will dispatch some officers to your location and they will help you with your daughter. Does that sound alright?”

The mother almost nodded before she realized you couldn’t hear someone nodding.

“Yes, thank you so much.” Hanging up the phone, the mother looked out the kitchen window. She could see the whole front yard, small as it was, and there was this tug in her gut. She wanted to go outside and look for her daughter. But she didn’t have a car. Her husband took the truck and her daughter had the sedan. She had to wait until the police arrived. 

The mother had to tell the father that the daughter was missing. He may not care if he is drunk enough, but he would be mad if he found out she kept it from him. 

She pulled out her own phone and called him. On the first call, he didn’t pick up. 

She called him again and this time he picked up. 

“Monty, I know you are at work. Sierra is missing.”

The other side of the phone was silent for a second.

“Si? No. I heard her this morning in her room. She was moving around in a bed or something.”

“No, Monty. She never came home. She is missing. I called the police. They are on their way over to the house.”

“Oh. well. I don't think I can get out of work to come help. They need me, so don’t ask me to leave.” 

“I understand. I will handle it.”

The only sound she heard next was the dial tone. Her husband just needed the confirmation that he didn’t have to do anything and he had nothing to worry about. 

Bastard. 

The mother stood at the kitchen window, looking at the driveway until she finally saw a police car roll in. 

She rushed towards the door and opened it before the officer got out of the car. 

“Thank you so much for coming, I know it hasn’t been long enough to report my daughter as missing, but she has never ever done this before and I am very worried about her. Anything could have happened to her.”

The officer held up his hand. “Mrs. Buford, take a breath. Let’s talk about your daughter, and what her usual routine is like, and we can take it from there. Does that sound good?” The mother nodded. 

She opened the door for him and they sat down in the kitchen. They talked all about her daughter. What she looked like, what she was wearing, why she didn’t come home. The mother got the sense that the officer was full of himself from the way he held himself and the way he talked. But she didn’t care. She would deal with 10 different versions of her husband if it meant finding her daughter. 

Daughter POV

Her whole body was stiff. 

She could barely feel the hard ground beneath her.

There was something in between.

Mother POV

The investigation led them to the woods.

In the woods, there was a doll. 

On the doll's face was a creepy smile.

In the doll’s eyes was a human-like gaze.

On the doll’s body was a short blue dress.

In the doll’s brown hair were blonde streaks. 

On the doll’s feet were silver flats.

In the doll’s hand was a doll-sized phone. 

The more the mother looked at the doll, the more familiar it looked. 

It was an Annabelle doll, but the eyes were the same blue as her daughter’s. 

The blue dress was the same one her daughter had left the house in. 

The brown hair and blonde streaks were the same shades as her daughter’s. 

The silver flats were the same style as her daughter’s. 

The phone had the same case that her daughter had on her phone. 

The mother paused, not knowing what to do. She stood there for minutes just staring at the doll, not knowing what to feel. One of the officers helping look for her daughter came over, but she kept staring, not knowing what to say. 

The mother must’ve been there for hours.

She didn’t snap out of the haze the doll put her in until her husband showed up.

He stumbled over, tripping over himself until he reached his wife.

“What is going on, Jenni?” he mumbled, the words barely legible if she hadn’t heard the mumble for years.

“Sierra has gone missing. She never came home last night. The police are looking for her. This doll looks just like her.” Her sentences came out choppy, her words rushed as she tried to get it all out before her husband had anything else to say. 

“How? She was there this morning.” 

Of course, he didn’t notice.

“No, she wasn’t. I stayed up all night. Monty came home. Not her.”

“Are you sure? I swear I heard someone in our room last night.”

The person he heard was his wife. 

“I am sure. She is missing.” Her husband nodded. His head stayed tilted downwards. 

“Okay, well can you handle this? I need to get back to work.” 

“Yes. Go.” 

The mother knew he wouldn’t be going back to work after he had already left. He would tell his boss that he had to help the police and instead go to the bar. 

Her husband stumbled away from her and slammed the door to his car. 

She looked back at the doll. Everything about it was so strikingly similar to her daughter that she reached to pick it up.

Then it moved.

Daughter POV

The plastic was compressing the daughter’s lungs.

The screens in front of her eyes made it hard to see.

The arms and legs attached to her were so stiff that she could barely move them. 

The phone in her hand, which was normally always buzzing with notifications, was silent. 

The shoes on her feet felt tighter than usual. 

She didn’t know what to do. 

She tried to move, tried to see something. 

She felt her head move and her neck crack, but she could barely see anything. 

These things in front of her eyes were really not helpful. 

Mother POV

How did the doll move? 

The mother had tried to pick it up and it moved.

“Officer?” She didn’t turn away from the doll. “Can you come over here? I found something.”

The officer in charge strutted over, still cocky as a peacock, and stood next to her.

“What is it?” The mother pointed at the doll. 

“It looks exactly like my daughter. Same hair. Same outfit. Same phone.” The officer frowned.

“It's probably just a coincidence. Dolls get dropped all the time, it's probably a little girl's toy that she lost.” The mother shook her head.

“No, look at the face. It's not the typical doll toy. That face is too unusual.” She pointed to the smile that spread across the doll’s lips. The lipstick was Sierra’s favorite color, a deep cherry red. The doll's cheeks were sunken in but her lips were spread in a smug smile. “What parent do you know that would let their five-year-old daughter carry around something that looks like Annabelle?”

The officer shrugged. 

“All parents treat their kids differently. Maybe someone likes creepy movies so their children are exposed to that.” 

“I don’t believe that. Can you just take it back and look at it?” The officer shrugged.

“All right.” He picked up the hollow child with his gloved hand and brought it back to his car. 

Daughter POV

Something was suffocating the daughter.

She could barely. Her lungs would open and close, but the movement was constricted.

The movement hurt her lungs more than it helped. 

She could see a little more through the screens. 

Her leg twitched again. Then her arm. 

She was on a softer surface than before. 

Mother POV

Back at her house, the mother had to leave the investigation up to the police. She had told them everything she could. 

She was curious how the doll could have moved. 

She went into her husband’s office.

He always told her never to go on his computer, but she had to use it, just this once.

She started by researching the Annabelle doll. What she found disturbed her. She opened article after article and watched video after video about this doll. It had been sort of a phenomenon to those who loved the supernatural. 

But the mother had a hard time believing it. 

It couldn’t be possible.

Dolls are just toys.

People can’t get trapped in dolls. 

How could that happen? 

Her daughter couldn’t be trapped in a doll.

No one has ever been trapped in a doll. 

The police still hadn’t found her daughter, even though they had found signs that she was alive. 

The mother considered the doll again. 

It had moved when she first saw it in the woods. 

If her daughter was trapped in the doll, could she have been able to move it?

Daughter POV

She didn’t want to keep breathing.

Her lungs could barely move anymore. 

It hurt ten times worse than it did before. 

She didn’t want to keep moving.

Her limbs were stiff.

It was like they were held in place with super glue. 

She didn’t want to keep seeing.

Her eyes were no longer covered with screens.

It was clear as day for only a short time.

Everything was fading. 

Mother POV

She propped the doll up on her pillow. She doesn’t know what happened to her daughter, but this ceramic-faced toy was involved. She may never see her daughter again, but she could keep this doll. 

Daughter POV

Her breathing stopped, and her limbs went loose. 

It was over.

Finally, it was all over. 

She swore the place she saw was familiar.

But it didn’t matter.

It was all over. 

The pain was all gone.

Was that her mother?