Episode Four: Where the Doll Sleeps

The Hollow Names

Episode Four: Where the Doll Sleeps
By Candle Light Chaos

Previously on The Hollow Names (Episode 3)

Amber, Lena, and Nico returned to Elmhurst—driven by dreams, cryptic letters, and the desperate hope of saving Joel. Instead, they uncovered chilling archives that revealed Joel’s identity was never truly his; he had inherited a name that belonged to someone else. Deep below Elmhurst, they found Joel changed, stitched eyes, a smile not his own, calling himself Enoch. Dr. Halbrook, the surgeon who twisted names into new shapes, confronted them with his warped philosophy of balancing guilt through identity transference. The trio barely escaped with their lives, but a final note left on their truck warned:

“Enoch was made. Joel was stolen. One must remain.”

1. THE HOTEL ROOM

They hid in another roadside motel, two counties away. This one stank of stale cigarettes and bleach, carpets worn thin under countless uncertain guests.

Amber set up her laptop, frantically scrubbing through all her old video footage. “There has to be something we missed. A clue. Anything.”

Nico paced. His eyes were red, skin sallow. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

Lena just sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the slip of paper she’d pulled from her coat pocket. It hadn’t been there before. Same jagged script:

“Where the doll sleeps, the name returns.”

On the back was a charcoal rubbing. A circle, bisected by a jagged line. A small ‘x’ marked a point on its edge.

She knew exactly where that was.

2. THE DRIVE BACK

None of them wanted to return to Elmhurst. But it felt inevitable, like a tide pulling them under.

As they approached the asylum, Lena gripped the seatbelt so hard her knuckles whitened. The building looked worse than ever—roof partially collapsed, windows punched out like missing teeth.

The iron gate wasn’t just open this time, it was gone. Ripped off its hinges.

Trees had pushed closer too, pine needles littering the cracked drive like funeral confetti. The scent of sap and mold was thick enough to choke on.

“Where the doll sleeps…” Lena whispered.

“We should burn it down,” Nico muttered.

“No,” Amber said. Her eyes were hollow, but resolute. “Not yet.”

3. THE LOWER ARCHIVES

They entered through a maintenance hatch at the back. Their flashlights swept over storage rooms bloated with rot. Entire walls had slumped inward under the weight of time.

Lena led them, map still burned in her mind. They passed through the old records hall; down stairwells slick with condensation. The air grew colder. Each breath fogged.

At last, they found it, a reinforced door half buried by fallen ceiling tiles. Above it, almost hidden under grime, was a placard:

SUB-BASEMENT 2 – EXPERIMENTAL CONTAINMENT

Nico forced it open with a rusted pry bar. The door groaned like something in pain.

Inside: rows of steel shelves, most collapsed. Broken jars littered the floor. Floating in thick, brackish fluid were lumps that might once have been organic. Limbs. Faces. Some human. Some… not.

4. THE GLASS ROOM

In the center of the chamber stood a sealed glass enclosure. Its walls were fogged with condensation and handprints—small, child-sized.

Amber found the controls. With a flickering whine, the door slid aside.

Inside, on a low pedestal, was a doll.

Its porcelain face was cracked, painted mouth frozen in a neat, blood-red smile. Tiny stitches circled its throat. A paper hospital bracelet lay curled beside it, stamped:

ENK-043

Lena reached for it. The doll was surprisingly heavy. As she lifted it, a faint shudder rolled through the floor. Somewhere, deep in the building, something began to whir.

“It’s awake again,” Amber breathed.

“What is?” Nico demanded.

“Elmhurst,” Lena said. “Or whatever’s inside it.”

5. THE WHISPERING FILES

On a whim, Lena checked under the pedestal. There, half-buried in dust, was a small wooden box. Inside: dozens of index cards, edges browned.

They weren’t ordinary records. Each card was written in looping script that seemed to crawl under the skin:

“Patient 043-E. Subject renamed by decree. Original designator purged.”

“Stage IV induction failed. Partial transference: emotional residue remains.”

“Where identity ruptures, so blooms the Hollow.”

Amber pulled out a card at random. On the back was a rough sketch—a child with no mouth, surrounded by grasping hands.

“They didn’t just rename him,” Lena said, voice brittle. “They hollowed him out. Made room for something else.”

6. THE BACK STAIRS

A sudden thunk echoed from the far end of the containment room. Metal on stone. Then another.

Heavy footsteps.

Amber snatched the doll, clutching it to her chest. They ran, weaving back through the shelves. Lena’s shoulder slammed into a support beam, leaving a smear of blood.

They found a stairwell hidden behind stacked boxes. As they stumbled upward, the doll seemed to twitch in Amber’s arms.

Nico nearly dropped the flashlight. Its beam swung wildly, catching on a shape at the bottom of the stairs.

Joel.

Or the thing wearing him.

His stitched eyelids had been cut open. Black fluid dripped from empty sockets. When he smiled, teeth were too sharp.

“Bring him back,” Joel rasped. Voice layered, multiple speakers grinding over one another. “Bring Enoch home.”

7. THE SURGERY THEATRE

They burst out of the stairwell into what once was a surgical observation room. Broken chairs formed tiers around a stained operating table. Overhead lamps still swayed gently, though no wind blew.

Amber backed to the table, doll pressed tight to her chest. “This is where it ends.”

The walls flickered. For a heartbeat, they weren’t in a ruin anymore, but a pristine clinic, sterile white tiles gleaming. Dr. Halbrook stood at the far end, masked and immaculate.

“Naming is a surgery of the soul,” he said. His voice echoed through speakers that weren’t there. “You can take it away, stitch it new. All to ease the burden of guilt.”

Lena shook her head violently. “It’s not guilt. It’s theft.”

“Same thing,” Halbrook sighed.

8. THE DOLL’S SECRET

Amber laid the doll on the operating table. For a moment it almost looked peaceful, as if it might wake and speak.

The bracelet on its tiny wrist flickered under the flashlight. Letters blurred, shifted. From ENK-043 to JOEL M.

Nico recoiled. “That’s ...”

The doll’s eyes snapped open. Crimson glass. It turned its head toward them, mouth widening.

From deep inside its ceramic chest came a tiny voice—fragile, hopeless.

“I don’t want to be Enoch anymore.”

Amber reached out, hand shaking. “Joel? Is that you?”

“He’s so close,” the doll whimpered. “He wants to finish it. Wants to wear me forever.”

9. HALBROOK’S HAND

The lights snapped off. Complete darkness swallowed them.

Then hands, cold, surgical, closed around Lena’s shoulders from behind.

“Shh,” Halbrook whispered in her ear, breath smelling of old copper. “Let it happen. It’s easier.”

She screamed, bucked backward. Amber lunged, swinging the flashlight. It shattered against Halbrook’s face but found only empty air.

Light returned. Halbrook was gone.

But the doll sat up on its own.

“Bring me to him,” it said in a hollow echo of Joel’s voice. “Before he finds you first.”

10. THE DOLL RETURNS

They carried it through twisting corridors that seemed to rearrange underfoot. The floors throbbed, soft in places like bruised flesh. Whispering filled the air, thousands of overlapping voices, reciting names.

They reached the room where they’d first seen Joel stitched and smiling.

He waited for them there. Eyes weeping black tears. Hands clasped politely.

“You brought him back,” he rasped. “Thank you.”

The doll climbed down from Amber’s arms, toddling across the floor on stiff porcelain legs. It reached Joel, held up tiny hands.

Joel collapsed to his knees, hugging it fiercely. The lines of stitches along his face began to unpick, thread unwinding.

11. WHERE THE DOLL SLEEPS

Lena felt it first, a pressure lifting off her chest. The building seemed to exhale.

Joel’s form blurred, then sharpened. The doll melded into his chest, vanished beneath his ribs.

When he looked up, his eyes were wet. Human. For just a moment.

“Lena?” His voice cracked. “I’m so tired.”

She stepped forward, but Halbrook’s hand shot out of the shadows—yanking Joel back by the throat. The doctor’s mask was gone now, revealing a pit of writhing faces beneath.

“He doesn’t belong to you,” Halbrook hissed. “He belongs to the Hollow.”

Joel screamed once, then both he and Halbrook dissolved into the darkness, leaving only blood-slick footprints behind.

12. THE ESCAPE

The walls groaned, splitting to reveal an exit. Without thinking, they ran.

They didn’t stop until they burst into daylight, lungs burning, hearts racing. The asylum stood quiet behind them, sun glinting off shattered windows as if nothing had ever happened.

Amber collapsed on the grass. Nico sat beside her, shaking. Lena stood staring at Elmhurst, waiting for Joel to come walking out.

But no one did.

TO BE CONTINUED…