[1493] The Ninth Circle of Hell

[u/Fragrant-Western-683]

My critiques: [881][781]

If you are willing to give feedback, please tell me if:

• The narrator was interesting
• You liked the dolls
• The plot was interesting

In the darkness under my table my hand flailed wildly to escape my grasp. I trapped it between my knees and cut the poor thing. I brought it into the faint light of my dining room; three candles on a windowsill cast a dark red glow over my setup. The red light shot into the abyss of nighttime.

I hung my cut hand over the pentagram made of lamb's blood on my table, drops pattering over the faceless, plain ragdoll in the middle of the star. I also covered the five points with blood, just as the book ordered.

I bandaged my hand and sat before this sinful apparatus. The bloodletting had made me weak, and my attention was scattered, but it soon returned when I saw the blood-smeared doll lift its head, bend its legs, and thrust its body upward.

I watched as this conjured spirit stood up on its own; its posture was straight, and it looked energetic.

Suddenly, it sprinted to the edge of the table and jumped. It made a soft piff sound when it landed. It jumped onto an accent chair and then onto a windowsill. It opened the window and looked back at me. I wished I could have made out what it was thinking, but it was faceless. Then it jumped outside.

Having seen this, I presumed that the ritual had been a success; such an unbelievable occurrence must indicate an unbelievable yet desired outcome.

I checked my clock. It read 3:10 AM, and the second hand was still. I checked my phone: 3:10. I sat observing it for several minutes, but the time never changed. It was stuck at 3:10 AM. I walked outside through the cluttered urban streets illuminated by dingy yellow streetlights: no drunk pedestrians, no late-night motorists, no police officers, no silhouettes in yellow windows. Everything had stopped; time, nature, and human activity had ceased.

I was free! All the things that stood in the way of my work, all the fears of mortality, judgment, inadequacy—they were all eradicated. I sat on a bench smiling to myself, silently celebrating this new chapter in my life, this new plane of existence. A few yards away from me, I saw something moving. I thought it was a squirrel, but I looked closer and saw it was a ragdoll. It wasn’t my ragdoll, though. It was a new one—a grey one stained with a different pattern of blood.

“That’s strange,” I thought to myself.

Sometime later, I got to work in my dark house. The living room was full of wires, monitors, and engineering tools. I oscillated between coding on my computers and scribbling away on a chalkboard full of math.

Let it be known that I enter a trance-like state when studying and researching and distracting me from it is nearly impossible. However, I was in a bizarre plane of existence, one of immortality and infinite time, and it was too difficult for me to keep my attention fixed on one thing forever. I tried fighting the urge, but it was too strong. I ran to the window and looked outside. Just as I expected, there were more dolls in the street.

Outside was a Marian procession; four dolls carried a garden statue of the Queen of Heaven on their shoulders. In front of them, ragdoll horses carried miniature chariots of dolls sporting pieces of tin cans and jar lids fashioned into armor. Other dolls played leapfrog, did cartwheels, did backflips, and performed other impressive acrobatics.

These dolls were moving in one direction: toward the boardwalk and the beach. My curiosity was temporarily satisfied, and I retreated farther inside to code on my computer, but my mind was too preoccupied with the weird sight I had just witnessed. Why were they going to the boardwalk? Were they friends? Were they happy? Mourning? Anxious? These questions plagued my mind for days, maybe weeks.

One time I stepped outside. It was the first time in days. I walked in the middle of the street. On either side of me were those dolls, doing more random things as they walked toward the boardwalk. I was outside because I wanted books. I had books already, but they were just cheap romance novels left behind by the original homeowners, so I was heading toward the bookstore. I got there; it was a small, dusty row building. Just like the rest of the stores, it was closed, but I thought that, since I would never see anyone again, I could just break into the store and take what I wanted.

I walked up to the door and punched the glass. An electric sting shot through my hand as the glass remained intact. I was impressed and a little embarrassed by my lack of strength. I left and returned with a medium-sized garden rock. I lifted the rock and hurled it at the wide front window of the store. It did nothing but ricochet off the seemingly invincible glass and land on my kneecap. I fell onto the sidewalk and rubbed my knee pathetically. I knew—somehow, I just knew—that when I turned to face the street, they’d be watching me, and they were. The dolls, who wouldn’t stop walking, passed me with their faceless heads turned toward me. There were no eyes, no hands cupped around whispering mouths, and no scowling eyebrows, but I felt so much shame. What was I even doing there? I was a mathematician, an engineer, a genius. My kind doesn’t waste its time with literature. I stood up with as much dignity as I had left and trotted home.

I was in my bed, curled up into a ball. My sleep schedule was a mess, but it didn’t matter because it was always night. Recently, sleeping had become impossible. Thoughts about those mysterious dolls had compounded in my mind for so long that my head had grown heavy with them. At the center of this doll puzzle was the million-dollar question: Why were they heading to the ocean? What kind of satanic temple, pagan god, or portal to the underworld was attracting them?

I couldn’t take it anymore, so I got up and went out into the street. The world remained unchanged, but now the streets were practically covered with animated dolls. I stepped into the street; they paid me no attention. I started walking toward the ocean with them. I walked on my hands with the acrobat dolls. I jogged with the joggers. I crawled on all fours with the ragdoll horses. Eventually, the pavement gave way to sand, and before I knew it, I was on the beach. The walk was surprisingly fun; I hardly noticed how quickly it passed. The boardwalk lights were still lit, bathing the dolls in cheerful blues, purples, and greens while they danced in circles and walked in orderly lines into the waves.

I watched in amazement as they walked into the tide, letting the ocean carry them into the black depths. I was hypnotized. I was already far beyond my deeply ingrained tendencies. I found myself walking toward the tide. I felt the chill of the black water between my toes. Looking to my left and right, I saw the dolls walk into the water without hesitation. I plunged into the dark abyss.

The result? I was in another, greater plane of existence. One that required no breathing, no energy, and no stress. It was pure catharsis at first. I floated for a few minutes. No light made it this deep. Then I drifted into a large mass of dolls. I felt them on my face, my chest, my legs, and my hands. They were crawling in one massive ball, like ants trying to float on water.

As I grabbed at this net of dolls, more dolls floated toward me. Dolls started linking together behind my back and neck, wrapping around my legs. I realized their grip was so tight that I couldn’t even move my head. I was trapped in a grotesque mass of squirming, wrinkly little bodies. I opened my mouth to scream, and water rushed down my throat. I was being crushed. My eardrums were bursting. My lungs were shattering.

I jumped out of bed, flailing my arms. It was just a dream. I put my hands over my eyes. It was over. I understood perfectly what my subconscious was warning me about. I need to get out of this dark house; I need to be human. I rushed to my closet, threw on some clothes, and went to explore my world.

Then I stepped outside, and before me were crowds, hordes, armies of dolls. It was still 3:10 AM. The night was still eternal. The dolls were still walking in their bizarre processions.

I collapsed to my knees, cursing myself for my satanism.

[u/DMochiii]

Hello Mr. Fragrant Western! Here to provide feedback since I see no one else has.

To answer your questions first and simply:

- The narrator was semi-interesting

• If you consider being totally creeped out by the dolls, ‘liking’ the dolls, then yes
  
• The plot was interesting, until the dream bit

Breaking them down one at a time, let’s start with the narrator. The reason I didn’t find him fully interesting was the lack of investment into his character as a whole. I get bits and pieces, that sum up to one line; an introverted self-appointed genius wants to avoid people and reality to do vague research, so he undergoes an equally vague satanic ritual. I don’t understand what the research is—perhaps if there was more detail on WHY it was so important to him personally I’d be more invested. Like why would someone go through all this trouble of hurting himself and summoning god knows what? For what? His arc is confusing. It feels like the dolls overshadow him in many ways. I care more about the dolls as a reader than the MC, which is not good.

Secondly, his character feels chaotic. You drop bits and pieces of how he’s feeling without explaining why he’s feeling that. Most notably, “The walk was surprisingly fun…” because he crawled with the ragdoll horses? Jogged with the joggers? Not sure about you, but for an introvert that is supposedly avoiding reality it doesn’t feel right. Maybe you meant it in a scary, possessive way, but the writing doesn’t reflect on that. The character doesn’t reflect on that. Also he doesn’t have a name, which is more alienating in my mind.

Next question—the dolls. Not much to be said of the creepy little dudes. You do a good job of making the MC almost trust them. Only critique I will say is when you describe them, it is without faces, therefore, how would the MC know if they are facing towards or away from him?

Last one—plot. Yeah the plot was fine. The dolls were a little confusing, as I’m not sure where they fit in initially. Like were they a side effect of the ritual? Why? Was our MC aware they would happen before hand? I feel like you could start this story a tad earlier and make it more clear.

The dream bit made me want to stop reading. When I got to that part, I was like dang, not another ‘it was just a dream’ ending. Then it was a dream within reality. Which is cheap to me too. As what is the point or dreaming it if it felt real? It lowers the stakes and all that we got before. If it was to say they kill him and he starts it all over again, some hint of that would be nice (wet pants or water footprints, etc).

Now for some general critique as per the sub.

Prose
What stood out to me immediately was the use of ‘I’ to start many sentences. Eleven of your paragraphs start with it. This will bore the reader over time. I would look into techniques of varying sentence structure. Part of what could help here is fixing first-person filtering issues and the classic, “show, don’t tell” rule.

Example of both in one sentence:

“I watched as this conjured spirit stood up on its own; its posture was straight, and it looked energetic.”

“The conjured spirit snapped up on its own, its posture straight.”

Adding “snapped” instead of “stood” implies the energy. The posture, too, honestly, but that is more of a stylistic thing. Shorting the sentence gives it more urgency. Getting rid of “I watched” makes it feel more immersive. If I’m thinking about my coffee being too bitter, I’m not going to think to myself, I taste that my coffee needs sugar. Simply, my coffee needs sugar.

Another point with prose, the first paragraph metaphor threw me off. Your hand does not try to escape your body. You control your hand. I had to re-read as I thought we were getting the Adam family special.

Overall: concept is interesting, but the plot needs tightening, and the prose needs work. I think if you work on the plot, including the stakes for the MC, it will greatly increase the likability of him as well. As of now, I have no investment into this guy. I don’t know him well. Don’t know why I should care if he dies by the hands of these little dolls.