SEASON 1 EPISODE 1
Broken Doll
STORY · PAGE 01
Late one evening, a black van pulls up outside a house in a quiet suburban neighborhood of Chicago.
The driver steps out and opens the rear doors. Three girls, who have been eagerly waiting for the delivery all afternoon, rush out of the house and hurry to look inside the van. A long wooden crate sits in the back, looking suspiciously like an old coffin.
The driver helps them unload it before quickly driving away.
STORY · PAGE 02
The girls are sisters: Pernilla (19), Mika (17), and Anike (16). The crate turns out to be much lighter than it looks, and together they carry it upstairs to Pernilla's bedroom.
Pernilla has been studying medicine since 2019 and is preparing for one of her most demanding anatomy exams. She borrowed a full-size anatomical skeleton from the university for her studies, and now the sisters are finally about to open the crate.
Only then do they realize why the university probably delivers shipments like this late in the evening - to avoid frightening the neighbors. Using various tools, they carefully pry the lid open. Despite their excitement, they cannot hide a slight sense of nervousness.
Anike: “Do you think it's real?”
Mika: “I think it is.”
Pernilla: “It doesn't matter... as long as all the bones are in the right places.”
She immediately runs to fetch her anatomy atlas.
STORY · PAGE 03
The sisters had loved music since childhood and had already chosen the instruments they wanted to play. Their parents' house was large enough for each of them to have her own room.
Pernilla and Mika both played guitar - Pernilla would later switch to bass - while Anike owned nothing more than a pair of drumsticks and happily drummed on absolutely everything within reach.
When their understanding father finally bought her a real drum kit, it completely changed Anike's world... and at the same time ended the peace not only inside their home, but throughout the entire neighborhood.
Eventually, their father admitted that something had to be done. He moved both family cars out of the garage, converted it into a fully insulated rehearsal room, and life in the house - and on the street - gradually became peaceful again.
The sisters practiced constantly, recorded early demos of their own songs, and many of them still had no lyrics. In 2017, the sisters founded their first band, XYNTILLA.
STORY · PAGE 04
For the next eight years, they played local clubs, student events and smaller regional festivals around the Chicago area, gradually building stage experience and a loyal local audience.
One of their original songs, Sisters, was selected as the soundtrack for a commercial promoting a toothpaste brand, becoming their first professionally released recording.
But some lyrics were simply written by life itself.
Over the following weeks, Pernilla spent countless hours studying alone in her room. They still rehearsed together every evening, but the anatomy exam always came first.
Several times Anike walked past the room and heard Pernilla repeating strange Latin words aloud.
Although she had no idea what they meant, her natural sense of rhythm made her love the sound of phrases like:
STORY · PAGE 05
Calvaria, ponticulus anterior, foramina palatina minora.
Calvaria, ponticulus posterior, apertura, fascia externa.
She memorized them, quietly sang them to herself, and soon discovered that they fit perfectly as the chorus of a brand-new song.
STORY · PAGE 06
After Pernilla successfully passed the dreaded exam, the sisters celebrated in her room.
During the celebration, however, they accidentally damaged the borrowed skeleton just before it was due to be returned.
They tried fixing it with glue, but nothing worked.
Searching online, they eventually found the address of a strange little shop called Broken Dolls Repair and decided to drive there in their mother's car.
STORY · PAGE 07
Anike insisted on driving. She had only recently earned her driver's license and never missed an opportunity to get behind the wheel.
As a joke, they buckled the skeleton into the front passenger seat between them.
The repair shop was located in a part of the city they hardly knew.
When a police car slowly passed them, all three froze. None of them had the slightest idea how they would explain a full human skeleton sitting in the front seat if they were stopped.
Fortunately, the officers never even noticed.
STORY · PAGE 08
Eventually they found the repair shop. It looked even stranger than they had imagined. The old storefront stood in a dark street, with dim light spilling through its half-open door.
They carried the skeleton toward the entrance but suddenly stopped.
One glance inside the workshop - and at the bizarre repairman surrounded by broken dolls, skeletons and scattered body parts - was enough.
They looked at one another. Without saying a word, their determination vanished.
The repairman shouted something after them, but by then they were already running back to the car, convinced that doll heads were staring at them from every corner. Behind the building they caught sight of a large dumpster overflowing with discarded plastic dolls and broken body parts.
That was enough. They completely panicked.
STORY · PAGE 09
Only after driving away did they realize they had left the skeleton lying on the sidewalk outside the shop.
None of them had the courage to go back.
It was obvious they would have to pay for it out of their own pocket money.
On the drive home they reminisced about the days when all three still attended the same high school.
STORY · PAGE 10
One memory stood out above all the others.
In the biology classroom there had been a large bird skeleton that they absolutely loved. They always imagined that one day it would come to life and fly away.
The song was completed in 2025 together with Donna.
