Stick Doll

These stick dolls frequently appear throughout the series ever since Chapter II Prologue.

## History

Currently, we don't fully understand what these stick dolls are supposed to function as or who built them, but they're connected to an incident at a church dating all the way back to the mid 1950s and are oddly starting to appear in John's nightmares ever since he failed his second exorcism with Amy. They then reappear in real-life while investigating an apartment complex and a labyrinth underneath a daycare center. They don't move or do anything, but there's surprisingly a lot of things that are connected to these dolls.

### The Miriam Bell Incident - Early or Mid 1950s

Sometime in the early or mid 1950s, Snake Meadow Hill Church reopened after an incident where a creature in a cornfield nearby killed six orphans and left their bodies behind. While the staff was reopening, they hired a new volunteer, Miriam Bell, to take care of a new group of orphans and to tidy up the area. When all six orphans were brought into the orphanage about a month after, she started to exhibit strange behavior with them. One day, she and four of the six children suddenly disappeared. An unnamed old nun was found dead as well. This time, staff members running the church could not keep this incident a secret and the local authorities got involved.

An unnamed detective was assigned to figure out the disappearance and murder case of the Church. Although annoyed that he had to work so close to retirement, he at least gets company from Father Clarke, a head runner of the Church, to look for the woman and the children since the other staff members are too skeptical and terrified about what's going on. This case seems to be hopeless since the two remaining orphans aren't too clear as to what happened to Sister Bell, telling him that he can talk to her himself as if she's still around. The search for the missing people is fruitless as well, even though Clarke accompanies him throughout the country road at night for any signs of them.

One morning, the detective wakes up and finds, what he describes it, four life-sized dolls made out of sticks surrounding the Church. The twins stare at the dolls all day, occasionally shouting that they see Sister Bell standing among them. However, she's nowhere in sight. With all of this at hand, the atmosphere of the Church is taking a mental toll on the detective. He thinks that a group of weirdos might have built the sticks but isn't entirely sure. Even then, later that night, he has a nightmare where the "group of weirdos" are people painted in red and are staring at him from the cornfield nearby.

On one fateful night, the detective writes on a note to describe what he's witnessed. He confirms his suspensions that the Church had something more going on, with the disappearances, the twins, and the dolls. It's important to note here that he's hung up on the stick dolls, saying that there's four of them and trying to connect them to the four orphans who disappears. In the note, he says that he and Father Clarke woke up to what sounds like an old woman cackling. However, they find out that the sound is emitting from a painting of the Virgin Mary. Suddenly, the two hear a loud noise coming from the chapel. When they get there, they see Miriam dragging the twins to a basement. He tries to follow in pursuit with his service weapon, but Father Clarke stops him, saying something about doing God's work and goes inside the basement alone. He sealed the entrance so that nothing can enter or escape. The detective ends his note with a revelation; the Devil is real and begs to the reader of anyone who finds his note to not go down the basement.

The detective and Father Clarke's fates are unknown, but with this incident, the Church closed for the second and final time.

### September 22nd to September 27th, 1987

Almost four decades have passed ever since Snake Meadow Hill Church has closed down. The incidents surrounding the Church has faded into local legend, however, John is starting to experience a personal nightmare that implies he was around when the Church was active. After failing his second exorcism with Amy and sometime between these two dates, John experiences a nightmare where Chapter II Prologue takes place.

Navigating through Snake Meadow Hill Church, John finds the notes that were left behind by the unnamed detective. After warding off two thralls and exorcising a stained-glass depiction of the Second Death, a seal leading into the basement is removed. Walking inside and battling a demon lurking in the darkness, John occasionally spots a stick doll with his flashlight, along the Martin Twins and the Shadow Crawler. Banishing the demon, John reads a note on how to "Open the Door to Hell", walks out of the church, and return to the cornfield. Exorcising the scarecrow with red eyes, he catches himself on fire from his burning car and alights the scarecrow. Several purple children begin to surround him before he's suddenly teleported into the Unseen World as a Wretch. This large, dark area has nothing but stick dolls. Crawling around, a nun is seen standing motionless with six stick dolls behind her.

Approaching closer, she slowly turns around and makes a wicked smile before John wakes up from the nightmare.

### September 28th, 1987

A week after failing his second exorcism with Amy, John experiences his worst nightmare yet where Chapter II takes place. Navigating through Gallup Cemetery, there's a note nearby Save Family Tomb that alludes these stick dolls as "Children of Men":

Dearest Disciple,
Verily, not everyone who says LUCIFER, LUCIFER, shall inherit His kingdom.
You must first conjure His demon.
You must then serve His demon.
You must then walk among the children of men as His demon.
Thus shall you receive the blessing of the UNSPEAKABLE. Return to the Save Family tomb whenever you are in need of rest.
- Gary

John finds Snake Meadow Hill Church again after solving the Save Family Tomb puzzle and goes inside. After solving a satanic symbol puzzle in the basement, there's a small room before the exit where there's six stick dolls. The words, "Mother of Demons" are on the floor in blood.

Going outside and walking around, there's three dead thralls in a ritualistic circle. In the middle there's a newspaper clipping so he reads it. All is not as it seems; the newspaper quickly derails, and an unknown voice starts to accuse John of impersonating a priest to gain Amy's trust and to kill her. As the voice calls itself, "The God of This World", the clipping spirals into insanity before Amy makes her presence known. Cultists surround John and the three dead thralls stand up and are on fire. John's face contorts into agony and anguish as he turns into a Wretch.

Once again, John is transported into the Unseen World. Stick dolls litter the area.

Crawling some more, John comes across an underpass. Crawling underneath it, he's seemingly turned back to normal. There's a large sewer entrance titled, "candy tunnels" so he goes inside.

Exploring the sewers and avoiding getting killed by an armless demon, John battles against the Basement Demon once again in a dark room. Like before, he occassionally spots the stick dolls with his flashlight, along with the Martin Twins and satanic symbols. Banishing the demon, John walks out the room and sees a thrall running away to another pipe. Following in pursuit, he's seemingly teleported into an inner sanctum.

In the sanctum, John has to find a key to gain access to the next area. Trying not to get killed by Blind Ones, he occasionally sees stick dolls with his flashlight, along with the Martin Twins. Finding the key and opening the door, John gets ambushed by the nun again but gets rescued by a gray figure. The two of them team up to banish her. When they do, the nun stumbles and screams in pain as her body evaporates into a Red Demon then the UNSPEAKABLE. The entity emits flashing red lights, causing John to wake up from the nightmare in a sweat.

### October 28th, 1987

For the past month, John has been waiting for a response from Father Garcia as to where the Martin Twins are or where Malphas would be summoned. However, he's starting to experience nightmares where he reminisces the time of his first exorcism with Amy. Walking inside the Martin Home with Father Allred, Allred introduces himself and John to Cindy and Bob Martin. Before walking down to the basement, there's a drawing on the fridge wall.

There are two stick dolls in front of Snake Meadow Hill Church with four X's underneath it. It's signed by Amy. We know that none of the family members could've drawn this because Amy was born sometime in 1969 and her parents were never religious to work or be associated with the Church. Besides, when the Church was operational, Bob and Cindy would be toddlers, and we never got an indication that they're orphans. This drawing implies that an unseen force is behind this nightmare, similar to Chapter II and its Prologue. Although the meaning of the X's is unknown, later on we'll try to figure out what the two stick dolls could mean.

Waking up from the nightmare, John reads an update from Father Garcia to investigate an abortion clinic Amy used to work at. Despite driving there and investigating, there was no signs of the twins or Malphas, so John heads back home.

### October 29th, 1987

John is assigned to explore an apartment complex in New Haven. He also gets a letter from a childhood friend, Lisa, to help her from her "creepy neighbors". Parking outside, John enters the apartment building.

After placing his crucifix on a dumbwaiter, the Peekaboo Demon is seen on a monitor. Walking out of the room, stick dolls block access from walking down the stairs, so he has no choice but to take the elevator. Going down to Floor 4, a thrall is seen chuckling and running away. Following them, he finds their mangled corpse next to a note, warning the reader that Gary lied to them and when they see "it" they need to run. Escaping the demon's grasps and banishing it in the basement, John goes back to Floor 5 to rescue Lisa.

In the room, there's five stick dolls with satanic symbols underneath them. To defeat Alu, it will create five disguises of itself and go into the dolls. Only one of them is real. Finding the right one will cause Alu to pause momentarily, giving John enough time to exorcise. With enough time, Alu is defeated. Outside the room, Lisa instructs John that he has to defeat someone named Gary. With Alu's banishment, John senses that a seal was broken "somewhere beyond". Playing the Elevator Game, John goes into the Unseen World version of the Tenth Floor and defeats Tiffany. Unlike every other time in that world, there's no stick dolls. With no sign of the twins or Malphas, John returns home.

### October 30th, 1987

Once again, John gets an update from Father Garcia to explore a location to find Malphas or the twins. This time, it's a daycare center, since apparently the children are exhibiting abnormal behavior. Parking outside and avoiding the police stationed outside, John unlocks an entrance that leads to Garyland.

Avoiding getting spotted by cultists, there's a note nearby, seemingly written by Gary.

She consumed six little twigs
She left two to walk away as husks
Go ahead, priest
Stare into the eyes of my mother

These "six little twigs" are supposed to allude to the four orphans that disappeared with Miriam all the way back then. They then seemingly turned into those stick dolls or are a representation of them. The remaining two to make up "six little twigs" are the two twins that Miriam held on to while walking towards the church's basement. Soon, we'll try to understand what "She left two to walk away as husks" means and how it relates to John and Lisa.

Staring at Miriam's decaying portrait, her hands suddenly grab the painting and shrouds into the darkness. Exploring a new area, John attempts to solve another puzzle but gets ambushed by a cloaked man with a syringe. He pricks John in the neck. Stumbling, the drug takes in full affect as John's body turns red momentarily and screams. Although we, the player, are shown vivid imagery, John is butchering an oncoming wave of thralls with his shirt off. Among the imagery, we're shown two stick dolls that are wiggling with maggots and then a young version of John and Lisa holding hands. Eventually, the drug's affects wears off and John slumps over, he then experiences another recurring nightmare of the first exorcism.

With this hallucination sequence, we can accurately summarize that John and Lisa used to be orphans at Snake Meadow Hill Church. With Gary's note about his mother leaving two to walk as husks and the hallucination with two stick dolls, it's implying that John and Lisa were supposed to be killed by Miriam all the way back then but were allowed to escape the church alive for unknown reasons. This is supported that the stick dolls have maggots on them, ever other iteration of them doesn't. However, it seems like they're permanently affected by whatever Miriam did, since John regularly turns into a Wretch in his dreams. This must be what "husks" are supposed to be. If that's the case, then Lisa must be a Wretch in some way as well. All of this also explains why the drawing of the Church reappears in John's nightmares constantly; it's like a sign of traumatic memory of whatever Miriam did to him and constantly reappears as a reminder that he's supposed to be a stick doll/dead. The only contradiction with all of this is that John and Lisa were not indirectly referenced as orphans in any way in Chapter II Prologue's notes, but we could hypothesize that it's a repressed memory and all the notes found in Prologue and Chapter II are influenced by him anyway.

Waking up from the nightmare, John travels deeper into Garyland and is seemingly teleported into Nowhere Forest after fleeing from a group of Malphas Acolytes. In the dimly lit forest, the boundaries are made out of stick dolls and Acolytes follow in pursuit. Surprisingly, these are the last time we see the dolls. Even though John has encountered plenty of them in his journey, he never thought of asking Gary what they are.

TBA ***Dont Edit This***

## Trivia

* During a Q&A Twitter session with Airdorf, I commented a question about what these gray creatures are supposed to be since the game wasn't exactly clear as to what they are. With his response, it helped to push me to the right direction as to what they're supposed to be without wild guessing so here's what I got:
	+ Note #6 in Chapter II Prologue confirmed that these gray things are life-sized stick dolls.
	+ The designs of these dolls are a reference to the humanoid scarecrows that the gorillas used to ward off primitive humans in the 1968 film, Planet of the Apes.

* The filename for these dolls is called "potaThing"
	+ I came across a revelation while adding trivia here; "pota" is likely an abbreviation for "Planet of the Apes". I was trying to name a photo of the scarecrows from the movie, but I was too lazy to name it "Planet of the Apes things" so I abbreviated it to "pota things". For months I've been stuck on trying to figure out what "pota" means so finding it out like this was pretty funny.
* The hallucination sequence where we see the stick dolls are filenamed "effigies".
	+ The filename for the sequence with young versions of John and Lisa are "effigiesJohnLisa", connecting that the stick dolls are supposed to represent the two.
* Every time we see six stick dolls grouped together, they're supposed to represent the six orphans Miriam took. However, there's three stick dolls underneath the entrance to the Candy Tunnels. These might be a representation of Sandra, Troy, and Angel, three victims who were killed in a ritual shortly before Chapter II started.

## Reference List

1. ↑ Here's my tweet.
2. ↑ Here's the Pinterest post.