Large brown eyes stared unblinkingly toward the empty corner of the room where the evening sun was shining against dusty off-white walls. The sun’s rays were moving lower ever so slightly as the eyes stayed wide and the owner remained motionless because, after all, they were practically dead to the world during the day. As the rays moved lower, the body began to awaken little by little, but not enough to cause motion. He could feel the tingles shooting through his body as he came to life once again.

In the corners of the room hung grey cobwebs, created from years of filth and abandonment. They hung in large clumps and occasionally fell to the floors that were covered in inches of dust and grime. Wind blew in from broken windows, moving the tattered curtains that made shadows dance along the worn walls and the cobwebs rock back and forth.

Years and years ago the room was occupied by a small child, one who had more toys than any child ever needed. He was spoiled, yes, and his parents were rather rich, and every time he gained a new toy, the old ones would be put away and forgotten: action figures, bouncy balls, stuffed animals, a rocking horse, building blocks, and dolls, to name a few.

Countless dolls littered the room back then, for this little boy never wanted to play with them; dolls were for girls, not little boys. Nevertheless, he had dozens of them. Some had blonde hair and blue eyes, others had brown hair, green eyes, and hats, but the one that stood out the most was the one with curly black hair and large brown eyes. It was a gift from his grandmother. At the time she was in her nineties, and the little boy, Mizuki was his name, held out his little hands as she passed the doll to him with care. 

The doll was special, she said, it was very old and belonged to her ever since she was a child. Her grandfather had given it to her with a little piece of paper strapped to its’ leg that read ’Aki’ and nothing more. As she placed the doll in Mizuki’s hands, she told him to take good care of it, and, being the nice boy he was, he promised he would take care of the doll and never let anything happen to it.

But promises were made to be broken.

The doll’s lifeless eyes were odd, Mizuki decided, and he didn’t care much for the toy. It wasn’t just because he didn’t like the eyes because the doll itself was disturbing. Those eyes, as lifeless as they were, bore into him as the doll sat on a shelf beside the window. Every night he felt as if he were being watched, and he knew it were silly because his family lived in the middle of nowhere in a large house. His room was so high up that no one could possibly look at him, so he shrugged off the thought and proceeded on with his day.

But the more Mizuki looked at the doll, the more he didn’t like it. 

As he laid in bed at night, clutching his blankets between his fingers and pulling them up to his nose, he would watch the doll. Aki would sit still, just like any other doll, and for days, and even weeks, Mizuki would watch. There was something off about that doll, and he knew it. Aki had the appearance of any normal doll save for his big eyes that took up over half of his face and the mass of black curly hair that moved around when the wind blew. But just as his grandmother had said, Aki was special.



The eyes blinked as the sun had set and the moon’s light peered in. Aki tilted his head, looking left and right, as his body tingled and woke up. He never strayed away from his spot on the shelf where Mizuki had originally placed him, even though the child had long been gone. Aki supposed he was the reason the family packed their things and left, although it wasn’t his fault that Mizuki had discovered that he wasn’t just an ordinary doll.

Unlike all the other toys that laid on the floor or sat in the toybox, Aki sat high up on a shelf and watched the room though his big eyes. He appeared to be normal during the day, and as night fell, he came to life. He never uttered a word while Mizuki slept soundly, but he moved. Sometimes he simply sat and moved his legs back and forth as they dangled from the shelf. Other nights he would stand up and walk from one end of the shelf to the other before quietly sitting in his original place. His feet would make soft clicks as they met the wood, and they seemed loud in the quiet room, but Mizuki was a deep sleeper and would never wake up to see him moving.

Of course he was wrong one autumn night when he awoke and stretched his arms high above his head, completely unaware that Mizuki was only pretending to be asleep. From across the room, Mizuki laid with his blankets to his nose and his eyes open just enough to see the doll. He had always thought there was something strange about Aki, and he couldn’t just throw the doll away because his grandmother had given it to her just before she had passed away. Throwing the doll out would be disrespectful, so he kept it in one place and never touched it until that night when he saw Aki stretch before standing up and walking across the shelf.

The next day as Aki returned to being motionless, Mizuki walked around his room with his eyes constantly trained on the doll. Part of him was too afraid to look away should it do something, and part of him knew he had to get rid of it. It wouldn’t be disrespectful if the doll fell off the shelf and shattered into pieces. It would have been a believable story because of the storm brewing outside. The winds were heavy and the rain was pouring in sheets so thick he couldn’t even see out the window. As he walked backward, watching the doll still, he grabbed as many toys as he could so he could stand on them and reach them, just like he had when he placed the doll on the shelf in the first place.

“You’re a bad dolly, Aki.” He muttered, hesitantly holding his hand up. He couldn’t be for certain if this doll would do something to him. “I don’t want you.”

And Aki watched as Mizuki’s hand made contact with the back of his head, pushing him off the shelf and to the floor. His porcelain face cracked upon impact, and his left hand had lost all of its fingers. Mizuki jumped down to the floor with a triumphant smile because now he could throw the doll away.

‘He isn’t broken, Mizuki. Your grandmother would be upset if we threw him away.’ 

Upon his mother’s wishes, the doll remained on the shelf. But Mizuki wasn’t done trying to get rid of the doll just yet.



Every night Mizuki tried to keep himself awake just to watch the doll that looked at him through confused and hurt eyes. He tried to ignore the emotion he saw, but Aki never looked away; when Mizuki moved, the big eyes moved.

Aki moved his legs and let the fingers of his right hand tap along the wood beneath him as Mizuki stared in an almost petrified state. His left hand, complete with jagged edges where his fingers used to be, moved up to his face. As a doll, he couldn’t actually feel the pain from the fall or other harsh treatments from Mizuki, but he knew his face and neck were decorated with black cracks. His arms and legs were close to falling off, but he could pull himself together enough to still move around without too much effort. It angered him how someone would try to break him when he was practically harmless. He wasn’t a bad doll, as Mizuki had said, he hadn’t done a single bad thing.

“Stop looking at me.” Mizuki’s soft voice cut through the stillness of the room, and Aki smiled.

“You broke me.” Aki tilted his head to the side with a childish giggle similar to one he heard Mizuki let out while playing with his other toys.

In the bed, Mizuki squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the blankets closer to his body, thinking that nothing could possibly get him while he was under the covers; monsters couldn’t get under there, and Aki was nothing less than a monster.

“You broke me,” Aki repeated, standing on the shelf and walking to the end. The clicking of his feet was loud on purpose as he grabbed hold of the edge of the shelf with his right hand. He dangled above the toybox where stuffed animals sat. Seeing that Mizuki’s eyes were still closed, he let himself fall and land on a stuffed rabbit with bored eyes and a cheerful smile, one completely uncharacteristic of an actual rabbit.

Mizuki whimpered as the clicks began moving across the wooden floor. 

“And I’m going to break you.”



The large eyes blinked again as Aki stared at the dusty walls through the dark. Mizuki was a bad kid, Aki had decided. He wore a sweet smile on his face and skipped around the room. He did all his chores and listened to his mommy and daddy, but Mizuki was a bad kid. The little boy pushed Aki off the shelf two more times, grabbed him by the leg and tried to smash his face, dropped him out the window, and even let the family dog play with him. And that was why Aki had to break him.

As night disappeared and the sun rose again, he watched with his lifeless, unblinking eyes, as Mizuki laid motionlessly on the bed. His eyes were open as they looked at the shelf where the doll sat, but Mizuki wasn’t actually looking at him, and Aki wasn’t bothered.

Aki watched as the boy’s parents came into wake him up. 

He watched as they screamed and became hysterical. 

He listened as they damned anyone and anything they could. 

He sat perfectly still when police arrived and searched the room.

As night fell and Aki came to life, he sat still as Mizuki’s parents came in the room and looked around. “Mizuki was a bad boy.” Aki swung his legs around and smiled at the two adults as they stood in the doorway with shocked, frightened, expressions on their faces. “I didn’t want him.”

Before the sun could rise, the family had packed their bags and left.

Aki didn’t mind, though, because as they left and the story of Mizuki and Aki gained popularity, no one ever entered the house again. He never had to tolerate another child who would try to get rid of him or harm him. 

As his body ceased to tingle, he stood up on the shelf and walked to the end before walking back. He wasn’t a bad dolly, he was practically harmless.