Estee, who’s been married for two years now, has had a phobia of romantic relationships, ever since she was a child. Her parents were divorced by the time she was 9, and hence, she had spent almost her entire childhood witnessing countless fights and arguments about how her mother had not been loyal to her husband. This led to her developing trust issues at a very young age, and completely cancelling out romantic relationships from her life. By the time she was 19, she had finally started to realise how badly her mental health had taken a hit, and so, she sought therapy. She worked on herself for 5 years, battling her issues with the help of her therapist, and had finally started to feel confident about her ability to indulge with people on an emotional level, leading her to quit therapy, and go out, exploring herself with a fresh outlook on life.

A year had passed and there she was, in a committed relationship, looking at her partner, down on his knees, proposing to her. And in the blink of an eye, she found herself with a fiancé, ready to start with the wedding preparations¬¬. Another year passed by, she was Mrs. Ross Johnson now, a woman who had planned the most perfect married life in her head just a few months ago, just to end up with insecurities and anxiety about her marriage. It had now been two weeks of her battling her anxiety and doubts about her relationship, and the girl who had always loathed her mother for being disloyal in her marriage, found herself in bed with another man, crying her eyes out as she couldn’t believe what she had done. After she came home that night, all she could do was try her best to hide her emotions from her husband, and just sneak into bed without uttering a word.

The next morning, she woke up feeling uneasy, but it wasn’t the guilt it was a feeling of disbelief, as she could sense that something strange had happened while she was asleep, but couldn’t recall any of it. She knew in her heart that what she had witnessed was not a dream, and was very close to reality, but her conscious mind led her to just shrug it off as a bad dream and go on with her day. It was around 7 in the evening and she noticed that her husband hadn’t returned from his office yet, as he usually shows up before 4pm, and he hadn’t even informed her. She was worried, but she also felt a sense of relief since she wouldn’t have to face him after what she had done. She fell asleep on the couch, waiting for her husband to respond to her texts, when her phone started to ring, it was an unknown number, and it was 1:04 am, but the second she reached for her phone, it stopped ringing. A few seconds later, a text message popped up, “Estee, its Ross, where are you?” and what was strange was that she had received it from the same unknown phone number. Assuming that it was her husband, and that he had lost his phone and was calling her from another number, she answered.

About half an hour later, she heard a sudden bang at the main door. She did not pay much attention to it, since it had been a windy day. A few seconds had passed, and there was another bang, which then, turned into a series of endless harsh sounds. She finally got up, and started walking towards the main door, and as soon as she reached the hallway that led to the door, she stopped. For some reason, she found herself contemplating whether she should open the door or not, and in that moment, she realised, that the noises had stopped. she continued to walk towards the door, and found the man she had committed infidelity with, peeking through the door. She was now furious as to why the man had been banging on her door for so long, uninvited, and yelled “who do you think you are, and who gave you my address?” There was no response, the man was still, she proceeded to storm out, and found herself all alone in the garden. The man was gone, she looked around, but couldn’t find him anywhere, it was like the man had disappeared into thin air. As she started walking back to her house, extremely confused, she heard a bang from the other side of the door, knowing that no one else was inside. Naturally, she went on to assume that it was the same man who had snuck into her house and was trying to threaten her. She reached for the door knob, and as soon as she took the first step towards the door, a knife slid out from underneath and stabbed her in her left foot. She then began to limp towards the garden again, and tripped on the porch staircase. She continued to crawl, and as she had finally built up the courage to turn around and see what was going on, to her surprise, there was nobody there, just a knife, that had absolutely no traces of blood on it. And as she turned back, she found herself facing a mirror, where she could see a little girl in a mast, wearing Estee’s favourite dress from her childhood, with the same knife in her hand.

The girl was standing still, and seemed like a mannequin, which looked like someone was trying to play a prank on Estee. She sat down, turned around, and shouted, “you think this is funny?, putting a stupid doll in my garden!” but there was no response, she sat there, wondering why someone would be doing this to her, as a sudden realisation crossed her mind “wait, where did you get that dress from?” and the mannequin took a step forward, and replied, “its ours, Estee, don’t you remember?”

The mannequin’s voice was familiar, it was Estee as a child, she began to crawl backwards, towards the mirror, and hit her head on the mirror, she had been injured, but all she could think of was “why, and how?” the mannequin started walking towards her, stepped on her injured foot, as estee yelled in pain, and responded, “because, mrs. ross, you’re just like mom”.