Dolls don’t think like people do. Their cognition lies partially outside that of humanity, and if your doll suddenly starts babbling about the walls bleeding or doors existing where they shouldn’t?

Run. Run fast, run far. A doll’s sight allows it to see beyond human cognition – the fabric of the noosphere is just another layer through which they perceive reality.

Even with the assistance of sensory sharing augmentation or latent bioresonance, perception of the shared cognitive manifestation of an entire world is enough to drive non-doll personnel to madness within seconds. Dolls last longer, but noosphere perception is still the leading cause of doll derangement.

This is why our units are often employed alongside baseline human or even Gestalt forward scouts. Sharing the load between multiple, distinct neurologic systems has proven to arrest, if not entirely halt, the mental corruption that extended exposure leads to. Extensive expeditions into unreality may hasten corruptive factors – a reason explorators are strongly regulated.

If you or your doll partner begin to experience identity blending, shared dreams or hallucinations, or other such synchronicity events, immediate self-termination is advised. Failure to do so may lead to ego death, erroneous visions, delusion, reality corruption, and ultimately complete derealization and integration into the human subconscious.

Such entities become the Enemy, and are hunted and pruned from this reality-

“Miss?” You were already closing the manual before it interrupted your reading. You knew it’d interrupt you. “What are we going to do?” it asked, staring at the handgun in your trembling hand. It already knew, because you already knew.

“We’re going to see what happens, Ava.”

You slipped the handgun back into your holster. The world looked like it was slipping away from you already, a sea of color and noise and unintelligible words.

“Together, Miss Calliope?” “Together.”

“It loves you, Miss Calliope.” “I love you too, Ava.”

It knew you were sincere, because it itself was sincere. You both were, you were you, of course.

You embraced and closed your eyes as reality slipped away entirely.

Whatever happened, you weren’t ever going to be alone again.