Seokjin and the worry eating doll ✔️

Chapter 23 : Cursed doll and cursed owner

"I thought I was going to die," Seokjin concluded in a low voice.

All the members were gathered around and on Seokjin's bed who had regained his senses and was able to talk but who still felt weak and was still cold. Along with Namjoon, Jungkook and Yoongi, he had been able to tell Jimin, Hoseok and Taehyung what had happened in his and Yoongi's room last night.

It was still very early, not yet time to start their daily activities with the company. The sun had just risen and after those who had not witnessed the scene had been informed by the others, they all hoped the scary girl wouldn't come back to visit Seokjin anytime soon. Even if they were all together, they didn't know if that would stop the monster from coming to attack him.

"Thank goodness you are better now!" Taehyung sighed, while Hoseok and Jimin remained silent from shock after hearing the others talk about what happened.

Namjoon was careful not to say what he had told Jungkook and Yoongi about the real danger Seokjin was still in. He first had to explain to them everything he now knew about worry dolls, and that was also why he had brought everyone together

Now, everyone was listening with attention and concern to the results of his research.

"Giving a worry doll to children to allow them to chase away their anxieties is a tradition in Guatemala but the practice dates back to the Aztec civilization," Namjoon began, trying to simplify everything he had read in one night. "Most of the dolls that are in circulation today are very recent and rely on supersitions that people no longer really believe. Thus, those new dolls have no real power, but some, very old, date back to the period of pre-Columbian civilizations. They are imbued with magic, a powerful and dark magic that was practiced at that time and which relied in part on, uh, human sacrifice."

Everyone looked at him in horror.

"Please don't say that's what I'm thinking," Hoseok begged, grimacing.

"I think that's excactly what I'm going to say," Namjoon replied, "each of the dolls of that time would house the soul of a sacrificed victim and this is what would make the doll magical and capable of making worries disappear."

If they hadn't witnessed the dark magic of Seokjin's doll, neither of them would have believed such a story. But now, neither of them doubted that it was the truth.

"It's horrible..." Jimin whispered, thinking of the suffering of those people who had been killed to create this dark magic and thinking of how happy he was to live in a time where there was no human sacrifice.

"Don't start feeling sad about this monster who hurt us so much," Yoongi warned him. "We are not responsible for what happened to this girl in her previous life and we should not have become its victims."

"I know," Jimin said, "but I can't help it. I thought it was a monster that took on the appearance of a human, not the other way around. I didn't think the doll had the consciousness of a human. Of an actual girl!" 

"I don't believe she still has a human consciousness if that makes your conscience easier, Jimin," Namjoon interjected. "She's just a tortured soul who lives in the doll now and which transformed into something that has nothing human."

"And people give these dolls to children?!" Hoseok exclaimed, horrified, imagining children experiencing what they were experiencing.

But Namjoon shook his head. 

"Originally, these dolls were not only intended for children but little by little and particularly after the arrival of European settlers, the massacre of the indigenous populations and the imposition of the Christian religion, the belief in this magic has been lost and has become a myth reserved only for children. As they are the only ones who still believe in it, they are obviously the only ones to use the magic of worry dolls."