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the faint glow of faith's TV was the only source of light in her dark room. it was 11:00PM - much past her bedtime. the house was comfortingly silent, her mother sleeping and her father out working the night shift.
last christmas, her parents bought her her first videogame console: a brand-new sega saturn. faith didn't care much for the 3 games it came with, but her parents had gotten her a fourth: sonic R.
she had loved this game so much that she couldn't turn it off. every night, she would play and play for hours until her mother told her that it was her bedtime. a routine like this had allowed her to beat the game several times over, and nearly every time, she had used her favorite character: tails the fox. she had always loved tails, ever since she played sonic 2 at her uncle's house, when she was only 8. she even had an adorable little plushie of him, now well-loved and consequently well-worn; it had little white stitches here and there, but that only made him even more adorable to her.
tonight, though, faith wanted to play as someone else for a change. she selected sonic, the fastest racer and tails' best friend. instead of continuing to the stage select, however, a small 'ping' rang from the speakers. she couldn't select sonic.
she chalked the occurance up to a minor glitch and moved on to try to select another character.
knuckles. another 'ping'.
amy. another 'ping'.
dr. robotnik. yet another 'ping'.
she couldn't even try to select any of the secret characters - she hadn't unlocked any of them yet.
each and every character had given her a 'ping', save for tails.
it wasn't a big deal, she thought. tails was her favorite, anyway, so she selected him anyway. the game finally allowed her to continue, but she wasn't taken to the stage selection screen. the game had already started on the 'resort island' track.
there were only two racers at the starting line: herself and a racer she had never seen before - a little floating doll bearing a strong resemblance to her favorite twin-tailed fox. it had a little red gem strung from its head and was floating just a bit off the ground. an excited smile twinkled on faith's face. it looked just like her plushie!
there was no voice to accompany the countdown. in fact, there was hardly any music, either. in place of a song, there was a quiet, gentle drone of static. it wasn't an ear-grating noise; it was so quiet that she had to strain her ears to hear it. it was almost soothing, like the hum of fluorescent lights or the white noise of a small fan whirring.
the race began. as tails lifted off the ground to fly around the track, the doll had stayed still. faith didn't even notice until she had finished her first lap, where she saw the doll still floating there, motionless. another glitch, she thought.
the next lap went by as she flew around the map at a leisurely pace. as expected, by the third lap, the doll was still sitting still, floating in place like a forgotten balloon. as she passed the finish line, though, the race didn't end. tails stopped in his tracks, and neither racer moved an inch. after nearly a minute of mashing every button on the controller, faith resigned to just trying to clean the disc in an attempt to fix all the issues it was having.
as she popped the disc out, though, that same 'ping' rang from the speakers, louder this time. she looked up at the TV to see what had just happened, and she was greeted by the doll, sitting limp on a red-and-gray checkered floor. the doll looked different; it was much more detailed, much more real-looking, and the string connecting the gem to its head was much longer. as soon as she processed the image on her screen, a line of text appeared near the bottom edge.
"where are yo u going, ?"
faith's nerves were set ablaze at this. it was like the doll could see her. its eyes were wide and tilted and, though they stared at the ground, she could feel them pierce her. absentmindedly, a warbling "...what?" escaped her lips.
the doll's eyes lifted with its head to stare at the scared little girl.
"ple ase don ' t leave ."
panicking, she jumped to turn off her TV. with the click of its power button, the screen began to fade, gradually stilling faith's pounding heart as the room sank into darkness. but the room wasn't dark for long. a dim red glow gently pulsed behind her. on edge, she turned around to look at her bed.
sitting on the edge of her bed was her doll, old and worn. she would be comforted by its presence, if not for one thing.
the small red gem hanging from its head.