"..."

The silence in the vast space was deep and gloomy, a darkness that enveloped everything, broken only by the ghostly moonlight that filtered through a broken window. In the center of the room, a walnut wooden pedestal supported a glass display case. Inside, a black velvet pedestal held a porcelain doll, a work of craftsmanship that defied reality.

"...."

The porcelain of its face was a translucent white, flawless and so soft that it looked like living skin. Its cheeks were tinged with a delicate pink blush, and its lips, a dark crimson, were shaped in a half-smile that didn't reach its eyes.

"....."

And its eyes. The doll's eyes were closed, covered by two porcelain eyelids, thin and so realistic that it seemed they would open at any moment. Its hair, a jet black, fell in perfect curls over its shoulders, each strand carved with a precision that bordered on madness.

"......"

But the most terrifying thing was not its beauty, but the atmosphere that surrounded it. The air in the display case seemed heavy, weighted with the sensation of a sleeping evil. The doll's smile, which seemed harmless at first, now felt sinister, almost as if it were dreaming of something horrible. The posture of its body, with its hands intertwined on its lap, was too human, and its bare feet were placed with a chilling delicacy.

"......."

Everything about it, from the beauty of its porcelain to the serenity of its pose, seemed like a trap. A beauty made for someone to approach it, only to then discover that the purity was merely the surface of something deeply perverse and dormant.

However....

"...There's someone here."

The silence, which until that moment had been a tangible presence in the room, was broken. It wasn't a sudden sound, but a reverberation that seemed to emerge from nowhere. A voice, soft as a murmur but with the hollow resonance of a tunnel, filled the space. It was not a whisper, but an echo that vibrated in the very air, as if the words were not spoken, but manifested.

"Intruders...?"

The statement, uttered with a disturbingly childlike cadence, seemed like a question, but there was no trace of curiosity or emotion in it. It was an assertion of knowledge it could not have, of a consciousness it should not possess. The doll, with its eyes still closed, remained perfectly still, but the sensation of an immense and predatory attention radiated from its display case, filling the room with unbearable tension.

"They're..."

The doll, with its eyes now crying black oil, turned its head millimetrically. Its gaze, fixed on the dark wall beyond the window, seemed to observe a space that was not there. Then, the hollow and disturbing voice sounded again.

"...Two... humans."

The words were not directed at anyone in the room. They were a comment, a simple observation uttered into the void.

"I see them..."

The perspective shifted in that instant, as if the doll's consciousness had jumped to another place, to another vision.

"... There really are a lot of mannequins."

"I told you."

The image became sharp, showing a vast and gloomy place, the Mannequin Walkway. Surrounded by shelves filled with clothes and endless rows of motionless figures, Leo and Taher walked cautiously.

"Stay alert."

"... Yes."

The atmosphere was so heavy that they could almost feel it, but they couldn't see what was looming over them.

"I feel like they're watching me."

"Because they are."

Even though the mannequins had neither eyes nor faces, each of them seemed to be watching. Their heads were slightly tilted, their arms extended in unnatural poses, their bodies rigid, but the sensation of being watched by hundreds of pairs of eyeless sockets was overwhelming.

"No... I recognize them."

The doll's voice returned, a murmur that materialized in the air like a chilling shiver.

"...They're... intruders."

At that moment, there was no longer any doubt. The doll, which was observing them from the darkness of its room through the mannequins' eyes, had reached a verdict.

"That means..."

The doll's voice faded as its vision retracted from the walkway and the unnatural silence returned to the room.

"Taher..."

"What?"

Meanwhile, Leo and Taher walked along the long, dark walkway. The air, dense and laden with dust, was heavy and contained a strange 'feminine' scent concentrated in the place.

"What do you mean they can see us?"

At the same time, among the shadows, mannequins rose in rows, rigid, faceless figures that loomed over them. A shiver ran down Leo's spine, as he felt a sense of being watched that he couldn't explain.

"......"

Taher did not respond immediately. He stopped in the middle of the walkway, surrounded by the cold immobility of the mannequins.

"Ugh!... Listen."

He exhaled slowly, as if he were carrying an invisible weight. With his eyes still on the ground, he murmured:

"Leo... even if they look like simple lifeless mannequins, the reality is a complete lie."

At that moment, he lifted his head, and his eyes met Leo's, filled with a resigned fear.

"They're not just mannequins. They're actually alive."

"......"

Leo fell silent, his eyes wide open, his brain struggling to process the new and horrible truth.

".... What intruders are."

Meanwhile, in the vitrine, the porcelain doll, with its eyes of black oil tears, turned its head to the west, the direction from which Leo and Taher came. Its voice, now more a whisper than an echo, slid through the air.

"The intruders... must leave."

After saying those words, the doll seemed to feel a deep anger, an emotion it should not possess. Its porcelain body, created to be a symbol of love, felt flooded by a memory that was not its own, but had somehow been transmitted to its being. A man's voice, breaking with sadness.

"Sofia... please, don't go..."

The doll was not Sofia, but it could feel the sadness of the craftsman, its creator. It could feel the love fading, the connection breaking. It could feel the pain the man had put into his creation, and that pain, in turn, filled it with a deep hatred. How could the daughter of such a loving man consider him and his art "outdated and terrifying"?

The doll, in the darkness of its display case, was filled with a singular purpose, a mission that had consumed it from the moment it was given life. It would defend the craftsman and his legacy from his daughter, and from all who considered him outdated. The creator's blood ran through its veins, the love from his heart beat in its chest, and the sadness from his soul was the oil that flowed down its cheeks. The craftsman, its creator, was the only one who mattered. And those who threatened him... had to be eliminated.

It was in this way, through the passion and effort the craftsman poured into his creation, that the doll gained a soul. And from that soul, a purpose was born: to defend and protect its creator at any cost.

"But what kind of demon have I created...?"

However, the doll did not truly understand what the man desired. It misinterpreted his pain and his despair. It confused his wish to get his daughter back with the longing for the pain to end, for the source of his suffering to disappear.

"You're a monster!"

The doll, in its terrible logic, decided to fulfill that misinterpreted wish. One night, while the house slept, it freed itself from its display case and, with a porcelain cruelty, ended the life of Sofia, the beloved daughter of the one who had created it.

"I should never have created you!"

The revelation of its terrible mistake led the craftsman to total despair.

"Sofia... Sniff... My sweet... Sofia..."

The doll, in its innocence, presented its creator with the severed head of his daughter, the "source of his pain," as a gift.

"What have... I done...? I... don't deserve... to live..."

The man, with a broken heart and a shattered mind, could not bear the horror of his own creation and ended his life.

In this way, in the end, the doll was left alone, lacking the love for which it had been created.

"The intruders..."

After what happened, it passed through different hands, different owners, different children who cared for it with love. But in the end, in none of them did it find the care and warmth that its soul longed for, and the darkness in its eyes grew with each rejection.

"...Must be."

The cycle repeated over and over again. There were those who accepted it and gave it love, but over time, they invariably cast it aside for someone else. One time it was a new pet, another time a best friend, and on one occasion, a youthful love that left it alone on a dusty shelf to pursue romance. Each time, the doll felt the same betrayal, the same abandonment. The love it yearned for was taken from it.

"ELIMINATED"

It was at that moment that the doll, with its soul twisted by pain and obsession, recognized all those people as "intruders" in its happiness. They were thieves, thieves of love, and it would not allow it anymore.

With that fervent will fueled by a twisted desire for possession, the doll awakened its "ability."

Its power, a manifestation of its longing to hold on to companionship and affection, manifested as a manipulation of existence itself. The doll could "mold" the souls of those it considered intruders, separating their consciousness from their physical form and trapping them in a lifeless mannequin body. Through this process, the doll not only eliminated the threat, but also created a new silent companion, an eternal slave forced to witness its own isolation.

An example of its power occurred with a young man who had loved it with all his heart. However, the young man fell in love with a girl and began to spend more time with her than with the doll. The doll, consumed by jealousy, activated its ability. A crackling sound was heard, and the girl's body hardened, her skin turning a pale, shiny color, like porcelain. Her eyes, once full of life, became motionless, like those of a mannequin. The young man, horrified, fled, but the girl, with her consciousness trapped in her new mannequin body, was forced to stay, forever, as one of the many soulless figures before her.

Due to its behavior, the doll was quickly recognized as an anomalous object of extreme danger, so, in an act of desperation, it was attacked with the intention of being eliminated.

"I WON'T ALLOW IT"

Thus, betrayed by those in whom it had placed a false trust. Its delicate porcelain body was reduced to broken, dismembered, and worthless pieces, cast into oblivion among the junk, awaiting its end.

"NOT AGAIN"

The doll, motionless in the darkness, accepted its fate. It believed that its miserable and empty existence would finally end, that silence and nothingness would free it from the torment of its soul.

"THEY WON'T TAKE IT FROM ME"

But what it never expected was for the light of day to greet it again.

At that moment, a small straw doll found it, a humble and faceless figure.

(doll?)

The porcelain doll, with the long experience of its existence, immediately recognized it as a low-ranking curse, a malicious spirit designed for torment.

(is this... how... I'm... going to... die?)

It closed its broken eyes, waiting for the end that the curse would bring.

"What do you have there, little one?"

(mommy!!)

But what it never expected was that the curse would not destroy it. Instead, the straw doll led it toward a human, the first person who had sought and found it.

(gift!)

"Huh?! For me?!"

And so, for the first time in its existence, the porcelain doll saw the face of its true owner.

"Thank you very much, it will be my treasure!"

And in that instant, in the center of its broken soul, it knew that it had found the love it so longed for, and it knew that, at last, it had found its home.

"Repaired!!"

From then on, the porcelain doll was carefully cared for, repaired, and treated with a love its soul had never known. The cracks in its body were sealed with a golden adhesive, a sign that its past did not need to be erased, but embraced.

"Let's go to sleep!"

It slept next to its new owner on the few nights it slept in solitude, surrounded by many beings as unique as itself, for in its new home, it was normal.

"That doll is interesting."

"It's a gift after all!"

"I can tell by how you treat her and by the energy you imbue her with"

"Did you say something?"

"Nothing~"

Thanks to the immense energetic abundance of its bearer, its ability evolved. It no longer needed the physical presence of a victim to create a mannequin. Now it was capable of recreating those broken or shattered mannequins it had used in the past, who now lived in tranquility in their new home, functioning as silent guardians of their place.

"THE INTRUDERS!!"

And now, in the present, while the porcelain doll observes them from a distance, those same silent and faceless mannequins, who were once victims of its pain, are now part of its defense.

"THEY WILL DIE!!"

And before its new "intrusos," they will show no mercy.