Entrapment
Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Standing in the dark room, Noah, Tray, Amber, and Sussie formed a crescent around the towering animatronic doll.
Its body was covered in darkness, much like the rest of the room, and its eyes glowed a dark red, Josiah’s blood staining its plastic pupils.
“J-Josiah…” Tray let out nervously. “You messin’ with us?”
The machine tilted its head slightly, then repeated back to him,
“J-J-J-J-J-Josiah? Y-Y-You messin’ W-W-W-W-with us?”
Its voice was choppy, and its pronunciation was off.
But what caught my attention was that the poor quality wasn’t coming from the speakers. It was trying to mimic Tray’s nervous stutter and emotion.
“What the hell…” I breathed out, not fully aware that I was even speaking.
“What the hell?” it breathed back, a near-perfect mimic of my voice.
My eyes widened, and my fingers twitched involuntarily.
Grabbing my arm, Amber pulled me toward the exit. “Noah, let’s go.”
“This is private property,” the machine spoke—cycling through each of our voices with every word.
Then, without warning, it stepped forward and grabbed Sussie’s arm.
“Do not resist,” it said, mimicking Tray’s voice as it ripped her arm off.
RRRIPP!
Sussie let out an ear-piercing shriek as blood poured from the wound.
Fainting, she collapsed to the ground, where the doll lifted its foot over her head.
Tray instantly moved to shove the machine away from his girlfriend.
“Get away from her!!” he shouted, pushing the Doll with all his might.
The machine didn’t move, and Tray stumbled backward.
Then the mechanical mouth began to open, ripping away the plastic covering over its head and revealing its inner workings.
Josiah’s body was completely skinned and crushed; nothing but muscle, blood, and bone vaguely resembling a person remained of him.
And around him, caging his body and stabbing into it from every angle, was metal framing and wiring. Even while fused with his flesh, the machinery moved fluidly, almost as if it had been designed to function with a human body inside it.
Josiah’s head was unrecognizable, and a small speaker had been violently shoved through his throat, protruding from the front of his neck.
We all froze at the sight.
I tried to run, but my legs wouldn’t move.
Then the doll let out a loud, deafening, distorted shriek—mimicking the scream Sussie had made moments earlier.
But this time, it sounded more like rage than pain.
At the sound, I grabbed Amber and began running out of the room, sprinting into the mall’s main halls. Tray trailed behind us.
I looked back, and to my horror, Amber was still filming—pointing her camera behind us to capture the thing when it emerged from the back room.
Then I collided full-speed with an empty shelf, sending both myself and the shelf crashing to the ground.
And that’s when the Doll slowly stepped out of the room.
Peeking its head around the corner, it spotted Tray.
Then, letting out another deafening shriek, it tackled him, crushing him beneath its weight alone. But that wasn’t enough. It began ripping his broken body apart while repeating in Amber’s distorted voice,
“Do not resist. Do not resist.”
I instantly scrambled to my feet and started running again.
Sprinting through the mall’s massive halls, I searched desperately for any stores that weren’t connected to Dream Forge Labs.
Spotting a clothing store called Dress Ups, I immediately changed direction.
As I pulled Amber behind me, I could hear the machine’s massive metal footsteps pounding behind us at impossible speed.
“NOAH!?” Amber screamed, realizing I wasn’t slowing down.
I crashed through the store’s glass doors, shattered glass flying everywhere and slicing into my skin.
But I didn’t stop. I barely even felt the pain.
I just didn’t want to die.
I practically dove into a section of hanging shirts, burying Amber and myself beneath the old, dusty clothing.
I clamped a hand over my mouth to silence my breathing.
Amber did the same.
The Doll slowly entered the store.
Its red-tinted eyes scanned the room methodically.
Tears streamed down my face. I wanted to scream, but if I did, we would both die.
It continued searching.
Digging through piles of clothing.
Getting closer…
And closer.
Then—
It stopped.
Detecting something behind it, the machine slowly straightened and turned toward the darkness beyond the store—toward the mall’s main corridor.
The same black arm that had struck the machine earlier slithered out from the darkness once again, reaching toward the Doll.
But this time, it was impossibly high in the air.
At least eight feet off the ground.
And farther back in the darkness, two massive white eyes floated.
The Doll opened its mouth and unleashed another shriek.
The rage wasn’t mimicry anymore.
It charged forward, heading straight for the arm.
Metal clanged and echoed with every thunderous step.
Then the impossibly thin arm grabbed the Doll by its makeshift mouth, clamping tightly onto its upper jaw.
With horrifying ease, it lifted the one-ton machine into the air and hurled it aside so fast it became a blur.
CRASH!!
A deafening impact echoed throughout the mall as the Doll slammed into the floor, shattering itself—and whatever it landed on.
The white eyes stared at the ruined machine for a moment.
Then they blinked twice and retreated into the darkness.
Out of mine and Amber’s sight.
I turned to check on Amber.
She was staring at me with a huge smile on her face.
And still holding that damn camera.
“I got all of that on video,” she whispered, trembling with excitement.
I was now seething with rage. All fear had vanished.
I grabbed her shoulders and aggressively—but quietly—whispered,
“Are you insane!? Three people just died! We almost died! What is wrong with you?!”
She giggled softly before brushing my chest with her hand.
“Oh, relax… We’re okay now, aren’t we?”
My eyes narrowed—not with anger this time, but confusion.
Her behavior felt completely different now. Almost delirious.
Then she opened her hand toward me.
“Here… take one,” she said. “It’ll make you way less tense.”
I stared at her palm in disbelief.
She was offering me gummy bears.
But from the strong smell of weed, I could tell they weren’t normal gummies.
“Are you high?” I asked.
She giggled again.
“Yeeaaah….” she drawled, clearly amused.
I slowly sat back against the wall and covered my eyes with my hands.
“We aren’t making it out of here, are we…”
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