When I was younger I used to love to play with dolls. I had a huge collection of them kept away in a big brown box that I stuffed under my bed. There were all different kinds of dolls inside. Some of them were soft and filled with puffy white cotton while others were hard and made of dull pale plastic. Almost all of my dolls wore happy faces. Some had smiles stitched with bright red string while others had sculpted grins that showed joy, laughter, and delight.

My parents disapproved of my doll collection. My father told me it was "not appropriate for someone like me" and that I should "try to be more of a man." He told me I had to get rid of them, but I did not want to loose my dolls. With the fear of my fathers wrath hanging over me, a day after I was told to dispose of my dolls I hid them under my bed, keeping them a secret. He would smile happily later when I told him I had given them away.

As I grew to the age of eight, my father began pushing me to join a sports team. He wanted his only son to be more of a man, but I did not want to play sports. I only wanted to sit in my room and secretly play with my dolls. Feeling my father's heart had warmed some, I decided to see if I could bargain with him.

On Saturday mornings I had secretly been sneaking out of the house and purchasing a doll a week from a local vendor. The vendor was a sickly old lady whose face was an ocean of wrinkles and warts. She would look with disdain at the people who would pick up and play with her dolls without purchasing. She always warned them that if they did not plan to buy, they should stay away.

Most of the dolls at her stand were surprisingly cheap, usually ranging between $2 and $10, but there was one doll in particular that I had had my eye on. It was an old, raggedy, cotton filled doll that looked as if it had been put together by an amateur. Its arms and legs all ended in knobs, its outer covering consisted of a white cloth, and it had no distinguishable decorations except two blue button eyes, a smile sown in red yarn, and a small string that protruded from the back of its neck. It was plain and simple, but still, it carried with it a wondrous charm. Its name, according to its tag, was "Pilly," short for "Pillow." To my dismay though, the doll was priced at $150.

I saved for weeks hoping to earn enough money to purchase Pilly. I still kept up my weekly doll purchase, but reserved the majority of my allowance for the future purchasing of Pilly. Eight weeks into my crusade I had only managed to save $48. The pressure at this time from my father to join a sports team was great, so I felt it time to confront him about my secret passion and see if he would buy the doll for me in exchange for joining a sports team.

Father did not act as I had hoped though. With a fire in his eyes he unleashed a scorning that left my ears red and my eyes wet. I was told once again that it was "not appropriate for someone like me to play with dolls" and that I should "try to be more of a man." He took the doll collection from within my room, the one I kept in a big brown box under my bed, and forced me to burn all of my dolls. Into the fireplace I had to deliver each doll. I sobbed madly as each one left my had and fell sadly to a doom of fire and ash. After all of my dolls had been destroyed I was instructed to go to my room. I would receive no dinner, and I was to be grounded for a whole week.

A sense of hate filled me as I sat and sulked in my room. It was my father who deserved to be put in the fire, not my doll collection. Tears glided gently down my cheek when I suddenly heard a voice.

"Hey kid," it whispered in a light cheerful voice.

"What? Who's there?" I spouted back. Then I realized the voice had come from underneath my bed. Jumping to the ground, I flipped the covers of my bed up and peered under to see what had made the noise. To my wonderful surprise, directly where my big brown box had been sitting lay Pilly. I quickly snatched the doll up and began examining it to see if it was the real thing. From its head there glared two blue button eyes, a smile sown in red yarn, and a small string that protruded from the back of its neck. A sense of joy filled me as I hugged the doll. I had waited so long for it to be mine, and now it was. For a moment I wondered who had placed Pilly under my bed, but I then thought it best not to worry about it. All that mattered was that I finally had him.

For the next few weeks I would hide Pilly in my room, away from the watchful eye of my father. I would play with him joyfully during the day, and hold him tightly next to me at night, where I would soon discover he was whispering things to me. It was subtle at first, his voice was quite light and hard to make out, but as the days went by I could distinctly make out what his little voice was saying to me. He was saying - "Kill your parents" over and over and over again.

I was a little disillusioned at first, but I did hate my father, and my mother did support the decisions made by him. Each night I would be lulled to sleep by Pilly's soulless drone, and each night it made more and more sense. "Kill your parents. Kill your parents. Kill your parents..."

After a few weeks went by I began finding notes. Notes that scared me. They had been carefully written and placed in my school notebooks and within the pockets of my jeans. Page after page it all read the same "Kill your parents. Kill your parents. Kill your parents..."

After a while it began to make perfect sense. The whispers in my ear, the notes, and the feelings of hate. My parents were responsible for all of my pain, and they deserved to suffer. They deserved to die and melt away in the fire place, just as my dolls had.

Taking a butcher knife from the kitchen in my right hand, and Pilly in my left hand, I decided to sneak into my parents room and do what I had been instructed to do. After I had killed them both I planned to burn their remains in the fire place. A fitting end to both of them. Entering their room, I moved slowly over to them, the boards under my feet creaking with each step I took. A cold sweat gathered on my face as I set Pilly down with my left hand so I could remove the bed covers that warmly wrapped my parents.

I slowly raised the butcher knife above my head as I looked down upon my slumbering father. He looked so peaceful, not at all like a cruel man, like the man I had pictured. He would breath in, and then out, ever so slowly, over and over again. The knife hastily fell from my right hand and crashed onto the floor. I burst into tears. I could not do it. I just could not do it.

My cries swiftly awoke my parents who were in complete confusion as I sobbed through my terrifying tale. I told them everything. About the doll that had been under my bed, how it had told me to kill my parents and how I had been finding scary notes instructing me to kill my parents. My father held me while I sobbed, and looking onto the floor he saw no doll, only a knife.

"It was probably just a bad dream. In the morning we'll talk about it, maybe get you some help," my father said calmly as he patted me on the back, "and it's not appropriate for someone like you to be playing with dolls. You need to act more like a man."

I pushed back from my father's arms upon hearing this. Looking into his eyes I saw only shame. My heart sunk and I felt gross for opening my feelings to him. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a small string protruding from the back of his neck. A string not unlike the one I had seen on Pilly. "What's that?" I exclaimed. His face grew pale at the comment and he attempted to push me away, but before he could deflect my wandering right hand I reached over and pulled on it.

To my horror the flesh of his body tore open from the back of his neck down to his bellybutton, near where my right hand now rested. His screams filled the room and mother went hysterical in disbelief. There was no bloodshed, no gory veins, or twitching organs. Inside his body there rested nothing but puffy white cotton.

The End