Keep the water in your mouth, keep it in, keep it in, keep it in, don't spit it out...
But the sting and taste of the water made the task difficult as Merri tentatively made his way down the upstairs hallway, his heart stopping every time one of the floorboards creaked under the weight of his foot. Tears sprung at the corner of his eyes, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could take it.
Merri wasn't watching where he was going, and his knee bumped into a small table just outside one of the bedrooms. A cloud of dust exploded in his face, and he couldn't help it. He sneezed. With the salt water affecting his nose from the sudden eruption, he sneezed again and again, and then he coughed, realizing with horror that he no longer had the salt water in his mouth.
"Oh no," he bemoaned. Quickly, he pushed the nearby door open to try to hide out in there until the allotted time passed, only to come face to face with the doll, no longer inanimate, staring straight at him with its dead, beady eyes and a knife in its hand.
With a frantic yelp, Merri stepped back, only to trip on his own feet and fall on his bottom. He tried to reach for his staff but the doll was quicker, and it hopped on his lap and pulled its little arm back to stab him, Merri could only assume, in the heart. He moved, and the blade missed only to dig itself into his shoulder. He cried out from the pain and swatted the doll off of him, but it more seemed that it jumped off as the knife came with it.
In a panic, he quickly cast Stun and without waiting to see if it took a hold of the doll, he turned on his heel and ran further down the hall, giving himself a boost with a Haste spell hoping it would be enough to outrun the doll. There would be time to Cure his wound once he was safely hidden once again.