Darkness.
That was all there was at first.
An endless, suffocating void where time didn't move, and neither did I.
I remembered the crash—the blinding lights, the pain, the sound of glass breaking like thunder. And then… nothing. When awareness returned, it was without breath, without pulse, without warmth.
Something cold pressed against my skin—or what should have been my skin. But it wasn't skin. It was smooth. Hard. Hollow.
A faint light crept in, shimmering through my sightless eyes. I couldn't blink. I couldn't move. I was trapped inside my own creation.
At first, I thought it was a nightmare. But nightmares fade when you wake. This didn't.
I could feel.
Not in the way I used to—but faintly, distantly. The air brushing against porcelain. The soft fabric of silk pressed to my form. Somewhere, nearby, a clock ticked—a heartbeat for a world that wasn't mine anymore.
Then, a voice. A man's voice, soft, tinged with sadness.
> "There now… you look beautiful again. Just as my mother once did."
His hands—warm, living hands—adjusted the folds of my dress. I couldn't turn my head to see him, but I felt every touch like a whisper across glass.
Inside me, something stirred. A flicker of longing.
Mother…?
No. I wasn't her. I wasn't even me anymore.
I tried to move, to speak, to scream. But only silence answered. The world beyond my glassy eyes was dim, filled with the sound of rain tapping gently against the window. The faint scent of lavender drifted from the gown he had placed upon me.
The man moved away, humming an old tune—a melody that carried the weight of years. I could almost imagine his face: tired eyes, rough hands, clothes patched and worn by time.
For a long while, he said nothing. Only the quiet rhythm of his work filled the room—thread pulling through fabric, the scrape of a chair, the sigh of a lonely man in a lonely home.
And I watched. I could only watch.
Hours passed. Or perhaps days. The line between waking and sleeping meant nothing to me now. When the sun rose, golden light poured through the window and bathed the room in warmth, yet I felt none of it. I could see it, but it never reached me.
Once, the man came and placed a small mirror before me. Perhaps he wanted to admire his handiwork—the way he had restored the old dress, fixed the lace, polished my surface.
But when I saw the reflection… I wished I could cry.
There I was—Jacob, the dollmaker—now trapped behind the delicate, expressionless face of a porcelain girl. Her beauty, once my pride, was now my prison. I could not see the man I used to be, only the fragile perfection of something that wasn't meant to live.
And in that moment, I understood the terrible irony of it all.
I had made her to be lifelike. To capture beauty, grace, innocence. I wanted to give form to something pure.
But now that I was inside her, I knew what it meant to be lifeless.
The man—Elias, as I later heard someone call him—often spoke to me while he worked. Perhaps he thought it comforting, or maybe he simply missed the sound of his own voice in the silence of his home.
> "My mother wore this gown the day she was married," he said one evening, placing a candle near the window. "She said the color reminded her of the morning sky. Do you like it, I wonder?"
He smiled faintly, unaware that behind my still eyes, a mind screamed to answer him.
Yes, I wanted to say. It's beautiful.
But the words never came.
Sometimes, I could almost sense emotion in the air—his loneliness seeping into me like rain through stone. It was strange… how sorrow could bridge the living and the not-living.
At night, I dreamed—if dreams they were. Faint, flickering fragments of the world I had left behind. The hum of city traffic, the glow of electric lights, the smell of coffee and oil. But each time I reached for them, they vanished, replaced by the creak of wooden floors and the rustle of old curtains.
Elias had no idea that the doll he'd dressed so carefully was not empty. That behind those painted eyes, a soul from another century watched his every move.
On the third night, something changed.
He sat near the fire, a letter trembling in his hands. His voice broke as he read it aloud.
> "They say she will not return. The sickness took her quickly."
A pause. The sound of paper crumpling.
> "Everyone leaves, don't they?"
The pain in his words struck something deep within me. I remembered my own isolation—the nights in my apartment, working alone, believing that if I made something beautiful, it might fill the silence.
But beauty, I realized now, was hollow without life.
As the candlelight flickered across his face, a tear slipped down his cheek. It fell to the floor, and for the first time since I'd awakened, I felt something stir inside me—not sorrow, not fear, but a spark of warmth, faint and impossible.
The air shimmered softly. I felt movement in my fingers—barely perceptible, but real. The tiniest twitch, as if my soul had found a crack in the porcelain shell.
Elias froze. He looked up, eyes wide.
> "...Did you—?"
He leaned closer, his breath catching. But the moment passed. My hand was still again, unmoving.
He laughed nervously, wiping his face. "Just my imagination. I've been alone too long."
When he finally went to bed, I stared at the candle burning low on the table. Its flame danced like a heartbeat, and for a fleeting instant, I could almost feel the heat against my porcelain hand.
And I wondered—if I could move once, even for a moment… could I move again?
Would I ever be free of this silence?
Would I ever be Jacob again?
Or was I doomed to remain this fragile imitation of life, a ghost behind painted glass, forever watching the world move while I stayed still?
The candle went out. Darkness reclaimed the room.
But deep within the hollow chest of the porcelain doll, something faint and impossible pulsed once more—like the echo of a heart learning how to beat again.