A little shop.

It's a little shop. It sits down a shadowed, winding side street and people don't really notice it when they pass. The lights are almost always off.

You enter it on the way home from work one day and as soon as you step over the threshold a feeling you can't quite describe washes over you, like walking through the door is a trap. You shake your head, almost laughing at yourself. The air is icy and stale and damp. The products are old and... indescribable: trinkets and small wooden carvings, notebooks, keys, mirrors; they would all be considered antiques anywhere else, but here they rot and they whither.

You do not notice the man at the till, if man is the right word at all. It's trying so hard to be human, it copies the gestures but they appear clunky and delayed. Eventually, when you are about to leave he speaks in a voice that isn't, see anything you like?

You turn around, jumping slightly at the noise. Unsure if he was always there or if he simply appeared from the shadows.

You shake your head, mouth dry and fear beginning to grow in your stomach. He smiles like he expected nothing else, and gestures for you to come closer. You approach, wondering why every cell in your body is screaming at you to run.

Slowly, from under the till he pulls out a doll and places it gently on the counter, how about this? The doll is perfect, small and beautiful, nothing like the other items left to decay. You swear its eyes are almost... alive.

Shadows begin, slowly, to reach out from the walls, from the corners of shelves, out from under the tables. They have thin, sharp fingers that move in jolts stopping and starting, always coming closer, closer.

You don't notice. Your eyes are still on the little doll. A small step forwards, you’re almost touching the fabric of its dress. The shopkeeper smiles his not-quite-smile and waits, patiently, for you to speak.

“I want to--” you don't know what stops you from finishing the sentence. The air is tight around your throat and the longer you stand there the more you feel like... like prey. But the doll is so beautiful, you want it. You need it. The man’s smile widens, yes?

And then you realise.

His mouth doesn't open when he speaks.

You stumble back, breath coming in sharp, painful gasps, “I’m sorry… I - I have to go”

His smile barely falters.

It's all you can do to stop yourself from running as you leave. You hear as the door swings shut behind you,

Come back soon.