Hello, as most of you probably don’t know, I like to write in my spare time. If you happen to frequent Reddit then you probably are aware of a sub known as NoSleep. This is where I post most of my horror/thriller short stories. I posted this yesterday and I plan on making it a series, I figured you guys would like it. I’m not sharing these details because I want any recognition or whatever, just so that everyone is aware that this is not stolen content and I can prove it’s mine if need be. Enjoy.

I’m a prisoner on death row, they’re making us play ‘The Dollhouse Games’

It’s easy for someone to plead their innocence, even if they have a hard time believing the words which escape their mouths. It’s even easier when your life in on the line in the process.

Lying is a fools game in the eyes of the universe, totally meaningless in its judgement of whether you were good or evil. It’s even more foolish when you plead the truth upon the deaf ears of the US judicial system and the con artists who keep it afloat.

It doesn’t matter who you are, where you came from, what you’ve been through or how many witnesses swear you were with them on those nights which coincidence decided you belonged behind bars. I’ve been condemned to the fringes of society and I’m disgusted that my death will coincide with the true monsters who walk alongside me.

My name is Matthew Gardner and I’m a free man. Perhaps not in the literal sense, not to the onlookers who only see a haggard, red-headed man pacing the chipped tile of his minuscule cell. No, not to them.

But, to me, I couldn’t be any more free. In the eyes of what’s good and evil, my mind is void of any guilt. If there’s an afterlife, which I doubt there will be, I know that I will run through the grassy fields of forever, uninhibited by the machine which dragged me here.

This I know to be true.

Today would’ve been my third month and third day awaiting the electric chair on death row. The worry of my name being called at this point, among the dozens of others who’ve waited several years, was very slim. It’s easier for them to draw the process out, to beat the fight out of you so that you’re death could pass as unceremoniously as possible.

It works.

As I said, I’m only three months in and I’ve done all the research, presented all the facts and pleaded my innocence dozens of times. It doesn’t matter what you say or how you feel if nobody is listening, especially when there’s hundreds of others pleading their case just as loudly.

It’s a shame that I’ve been swept under the rug so easily, after hearing the other inmates tales of innocence, of the flawed system, I can’t seem to understand how I’ve been grouped along with these people. Their stories have too many holes, their character issues ever present in the way they carry themselves.

I’m not like them and that is why I’m free.

Well, I shouldn’t say all of them spew total bullcrap. Some had good reason to do the things they did, though it doesn’t matter when a book decides your fate.

If you’ll recall, it WOULD’VE been my third month and third day here with the creatures on death row. However, I’m beginning to think that the place we find ourselves now is much, much worse.

I’m not so sure what time it was when the guards ran their nightsticks along the bars of our puny prison cells, creating a symphony of wretched clattering which awoke us. I still remember the moans of my cellmates, pulled back into their hopeless reality with such force that their weary minds had forgotten this bleak place for the first few seconds they regained consciousness.

Not me, though. I can’t sleep with the lights on, which was the case for the entirety of the previous night because Andy Johnson just had to tell one of the guards he was going to “tear his throat out and eat it.”, Yep, that’ll lose everyone’s ‘lights out’ privileges for the rest of the week.

“Rise and shine, ladies, rise and shine!”, a short, husky man bellowed out into the echoing hallway of our block. Troy Bowers was a perfect example of what’s wrong with our prison system, allowing the loudest individuals to hold the most control simply because they could talk over everybody else. Nobody dared to say a word, to defy his demeaning attitude less they wanted to be beaten savagely, so savagely that there body would turn black and blue.

I could tell by the panic stricken faces of the more tenured inmates that something was terribly wrong. Most days we were left in silence, similar to forgotten children’s toys, our only interaction was the regimented feeding schedule and the occasional walks to go shower. Otherwise, it was bad news.

Our block was emptied, cuffed and shackled together before being escorted down various hallways of the prison, some I hadn’t even seen before. There was no chance to run, no chance to escape as nearly forty guards marched the twelve of us forward.

Truthfully, I was utterly terrified. As we marched along the barren, windowless hallways, my mind conjured up every possible outcome that awaited us on the other side. I was convinced they’d have us lined up and turned into Swiss cheese, it’d be easier to clear house and just be done with the lot of us anyways.

That all changed when we reached the tall, heavy double doors at the end of the maze. A small television was implanted into the wall just above the doors.

“We are ready to commence The Games”, the front most guard called out. I swear that I could hear his voice crack just a little as he spoke.

The screen lit up, offering just one simple word. “Welcome”, in a lime-colored, pixelated font. The sounds of the various mechanisms whirring and buzzing could be heard from all around us as the giant doors began to draw themselves open.

“What the hell is th-“, one of the inmates, who I’d come to know as ‘Critter’, tried to speak but was quickly subdued by one of the guards.

“You keep your god damn mouth shut, you hear me?!”, Officer Bowers screeched as he swung his nightstick over Critters head. Critter never was the sharpest tool in the shed, the hollow sound which bounced off his skull seemed like definitive evidence. Blood poured generously from the crown of his bald head, had he not been attached to the rest of us then he would surely have dropped like a fly.

Excessive force becomes the status quo on death row, as you can imagine, but even this seemed like too much. The rest of us were silent.

Finally, the doors fell completely open. The lights inside the room on the other side were nearly blinding compared to the usual dimness of our block. They marched us onward until the lights swallowed us entirely.

It took a moment before my eyes could totally adjust to my surroundings, though it felt as if the breath had been torn from my lungs upon seeing the massive extent of the room we found ourselves in. It’s hard to gauge just how large it really was, I feel like I’ve lost scale of things in the past three months I’ve spent in my cell, though if I had to guess I would say it was similar to a sports stadium.

Similarly to a stadium, the floor was covered entirely by a thick turf which shown a sickly green color under the bright overhead lights. The walls were covered in poorly painted flowers and trees which crawled to the very edges of the ceiling. It was difficult to make out what the ceiling looked like because of the massive, circular lights which casted blinding rays down upon us. Between the glaring lights I could somewhat make out a childishly painted sun and blue skies dotted with smears of white.

In the middle of the room, however, stood a building of its own. On the outside it looked like a giant, pink square without any doors or windows, though the closer they brought us had revealed the rough gray cement which the building was composed of.

If the guards hadn’t been there to promise us a swift beating, then I’m sure the panic would be even more present than the wide, terrified eyes of my ‘fellow’ inmates. Critter hung limp by his shackles still and I was afraid he was already dead, though the true outcome would prove to be far worse.

When they brought us here, to the pink building, the same guard called out those familiar words once more and a piece of the floor began to collapse and pull itself backward underneath the building. A stairway sat below it.

As we descended the stairs, into this nightmare, that’s when Critter awoke. His body seemed seemed to tighten and convulse as he regained consciousness. Thick wads of spit and blood poured from his mouth and began flying aimlessly in great showers as he began to laugh with such uncontrollable joy.

I tried my best to ignore it.

The other inmates began to panic and writhe in their shackles on cue with Critters meltdown. That’s when a cold, wet rag collapsed mightily over my nose and mouth.

Everything went dark.

I’m not sure how long I was out for, it didn’t seem like long. However, when I awoke I was completely alone, tucked thoroughly into a bed. My mind was in a haze and my body felt numb, but still I shot upward.

A desk, much like the one you would use if you were still in grade school, sat across from the bed in my small room. A spiral notebook, the very one I find myself writing in now, was accompanied by a pencil and a tiny, wooden box. Inside were a bunch of envelopes. The ceiling was suspended high above me, a single light casting a faint glow illuminated the neat room I found myself in.

It wasn’t long after I awoke that a soft, mechanical whir began to take effect. A piece of the wall began to pull itself upward to reveal a speaker.

“Good morning, ladies and gentleman”, an unnaturally deep and distorted voice came from the other side of the speaker. “I’m sure you’re all wondering where you are, but don’t fret... let us show you”. Somewhere outside of the walls a buzzer began to cry as one of the sides to my room began to jerk and pull itself up.

I think this new reality, this nightmare, really began to take hold once I saw the world on the outside. Behind my wall was a thick sheet of glass, at least I think it’s glass... it won’t break. About thirty yards across from me was another massive window, one of the other inmates was banging furiously against it. His room looked exactly like mine.

To the left and right of his window, were two more windows which revealed identical rooms with other inmates inside. Some of them I recognized, others I didn’t. I’ve gathered that we must be on the second floor because three more windows and three more rooms sit below them, all housing more terrified prisoners. Some of them screamed and tried, to no avail, to break through the glass, others simply sat or laid still on their beds. I’m not sure if they’re still sleeping.

The space between the walls was barren, save for a giant, colorful wheel with various symbols attached to each color. Some of these symbols were familiar, one was a spider and another was a thermometer, others I didn’t recognize.

“Welcome to the Dollhouse Games!”, there seemed to be an edge of excitement in the distorted voice, “You all have a debt to society that you will be given the chance to repay. You should consider yourselves lucky.” He continued.

I looked on at the chaos unfolding around me, perhaps the shock of it all had induced a sort of calmness, though I couldn’t help but notice Critter flailing and writhing painfully in the bottom leftmost room across from me. I think that’s what got to me the most in that moment.

“You each have a notebook in your rooms, on the inside of the cover is the number you will be assigned for these games. Please take a moment to regard this.” My legs moved, almost mechanically, under the command of this mysterious voice.

I flipped open the cover to the notebook. Inside, written in a fine, black script read the number ‘3’.

“You may write what you please in these notebooks, however you must seal it in an envelope and place it in the receptacle which will open at the end of each day”, the more the voice droned on and the more hysterical I saw the other inmates becoming had begun to take its toll.

My heart pounded with untethered ferocity. I was afraid I was about to faint, but I knew I needed to stay calm. There has to be an explanation for all of this.

“There are 24 participants in this years Dollhouse Games and only 1 of you will be leaving. However, there is good news”, I found myself trying, and failing, to not hyperventilate. The reality of our situation began to take hold.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

“Whoever wins the Dollhouse Games will be allowed their freedom, this means you will have repaid your debt to society and you will be given a clean slate.”

My lips and tongue were so horribly dry. I wanted to scream, to beg and plead my innocence to the man behind the speaker. Even then, however, I knew that it was meaningless.

“Since one of our contestants is already incapacitated, we will use him as an example of how the games will be played”, the audio cut out directly after he spoke.

I began pacing wildly around my room, looking for any nook or cranny that may house a key or an exit which I could escape from. It was no use, this room is completely and utterly barren of any thing other than the desk and the bed.

I almost wish they would’ve just lined us up and shot us dead.

Do you have no mercy?

A few minutes passed as I sat on the bedside, trying to collect my thoughts and steady my breathing. When I stood up again, to face the outside world, I saw two men standing directly next to the spinner wheel in the courtyard. They were adorned in white body suits which clung tightly to their skin, their faces obscured by a pink mask with dozens of long ropes of cloth sprouting from their heads and down to their shoulders. Sort of like a mass of pink dreadlocks if that makes more sense.

“Let The Games begin”, the speaker came back to life. One of the masked individuals reached a slender arm out to the wheel and gave it a mighty tug. It seemed to spin on and on, the swirl of colors nearly making me vomit from how dizzying it seemed.

Finally, it stopped.

The symbol which it stopped at was the thermometer I had noticed earlier. A ball, sort of like the balls you see in a game of pool, dropped into a basket from the tube which jutted out below the wheel. The other masked man reached into the basket and pulled it out. Without a moments hesitation, he raised it to the sky to show us.

I could just barely make out the number 17 painted on the white ball. Critters number.

The white-clad men both disappeared from my sight and were replaced now by another mechanical noise. Four TV screens began to descent from above the courtyard, each one facing one of the ‘Dollhouse’ walls. The screens simply read “5:00”, in an ominous red font.

Then, 4:59, 4:58, 4:57, and so on. It was a timer.

The light in Critters room had turned a similar shade of red which seemed to grow in intensity as the timer counted down.

I wasn’t sure what the thermometer meant at first. I still wasn’t completely sure when Critter had begun to twist and writhe with such ferocity that I was sure his bones would stick out from the skin. However, as I watched closely with sick curiosity, I could see his skin begin to bubble and pop, wisps of smoke escaping the freshly opened sores.

Soon, much like the rest of his room, Critter was reduced to a blobby pile of melted, burning flesh and bone. Even through the thick concrete of the Dollhouse, of the sound proof windows, I swear I could hear the cries of his unparalleled agony.

“Player 17 has been eliminated”, that familiar voice called out. Truthfully, I hardly noticed the wall to Critters room collapse back into solid concrete, at this point it was simply a fight to keep my mind intact.

This can’t be real, can it?

Can anyone help me?

“This concludes today’s games. Please take time to rest and recover as you will all be given a task tomorrow. Thank you for your participation in The Dollhouse Games”.

I’ve been writing in this notebook since the games ended today. I’m not sure where to go from here... I don’t know what any of this means. Just please, if anyone finds this or sees this please help. Please. Please.

The slot just opened so I think I’m through with writing for the day. Again, if anyone finds this, my name is Matthew Gardner.

I am innocent.