Put your Toys Away (Halloween Comm) PT2 (Patreon)

The second, final, and significantly longer part. Please enjoy!
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Put your Toys Away - PT2

The noises in the house traveled like tinny echoes, like the walls were paper thin or nothing could seem to absorb noise at all. And by the same token the noise was loud, or at least heightened by such an unknown and frightening situation. Michelle yelped with a cry as soon as the door slammed open, crashing into the wall unhindered that it was hinged on.

“Roxy! Stop doing that…!”

“Or what? We’re gonna have to pay our kidnapper to get it fixed?”

Michelle had promptly fallen back on her cushioned backside, staring up at her friends, or maybe just two uncanny doppelgangers.

There was no more nurse flashing cleavage or schoolgirl trying to balance her books and breasts.

No matter how much blinking Michelle did, the scenery simply would not change.

“A-Alice?”

If it were to be compared to her old costume, the distinction between Alice’s shirt and skirt were completely gone. They’d somehow combined and averaged out to something that was even shorter. A dusty pink smock dress only went as far as her hips, offering a window to her naked legs going as far down as to the ruffled socks at her ankles, managing to wear similar shoes as before, only shinier now… Glossier. But Michelle’s eyes traveled back up someplace in the middle, catching something horribly obvious she must have been too shocked to see.

“Ro…Roxy?”

Her friend’s imaginary license to practice medicine by all accounts had assuredly been revoked. Any gauze or cloth she may have used on a patient was currently stuck to her. Polka-dots, ruffles, ribbons and all. For the first time in Michelle’s life, and maybe even Roxy’s, both girls now were privy to seeing their head alpha in the shortest yet widest dress imaginable. And to top it all off– to pad it all out, Roxy’s matching pair of panties covered her crotch that’d doubled in size, yet by no means through body mass. Her size stayed the same, but her actual underwear did not.

Michelle panned from one girl to the next. Back and forth. Alice looked concerned, and maybe Roxy did too at first, but by the fourth head pan she was losing her patience.

“Yeah, we get it, Michelle…! But news flash, you’re in the same boat too!”

Apparently Alice wasn’t thinking the same thing, as only after Roxy openly addressed it she was back to pulling down the front of her clothes, getting even less modesty than her last costume afforded.

“D…Diapers?”

Alice’s was as clear and obvious just like her previously worn panties were, only now it was maybe more underwear than ass that made up the ba-dump to her rump. Roxy wasn’t far behind, or inadvertently maybe just a step ahead. Her diaper cover was nothing but a cute, pathetic nod to something that was supposed to help her cover up, yet the overstretched material and the rounded exterior only accentuated what she was trying to hide.

Now as Roxy’s trigger word, with a mean look she stomped forward, pressing her velcro shoe on Michelle’s wide open crotch. Hard. Out of reflex the victim flinched, but not for long. All she felt was a slight compression of padding against her front. That, and the slight motion from her bottom sliding on the near frictionless floor.

Then it clicked. While she was the lucky one to not have seen it directly, suddenly the padding and clothes on her friends, and now herself included made her realize that she was part of the set. The crinkle, the puff, the padding and sounds.

“W-wait, me too?”

Alice nodded without a word, heavy with her forlorn look and Roxy exhaling through her nose. Michelle finally stood once more, keeping her legs an ample amount apart, seeing now that her friends had been forced to do the same. She came to her feet with a slight wobble, like walking straight was a skill she’d become hazy on. But she crinkled and felt the snug underwear conform around her hips and waist. She may not have seen it, but she could certainly feel and hear it.

Her mouth agape and looking for support, she whimpered, “Wh-what the fuck?”

Roxy and Alice shared a short look before polka-dot pants said, “Finally up to speed?”

“N-no? What are you even talking about? Wh-what the fuck, Roxy?!” Michelle cried, then immediately tried to tug on her suspenders. They gave and stretched, yet all it did was pull up from below where the sides of her legs started to rise, but ultimately stopped as too many creases started to build between her thighs and the outline of her diaper. “Can’t I get some help here?!”

“Believe me,” Roxy groaned, kicking the door again, watching it rubberband back and forth flimsily. “If Alice and I can't get our dresses off; stuff that doesn’t even have bottoms to them, there’s no way in hell you’re getting out of those.”

“We tried earlier…” Alice sadly chimed in.

Words could only dissuade so much, however, as Michelle still tried with an annoyed grunt. “J-just…urgh! Come! Off!” And they did. Her hands did. Losing her grip, the sudden momentum sent her back on her bottom again the moment her thick rubber-soled sneakers slipped on the floor.

Alice and Roxy came forward, each offering a hand to their panting friend and helped her back up. “We think it’s magic…” Alice explained confidently. And expectedly, Michelle gawked at her.

“C-come again?” It couldn’t be true. Of all things, the Valedictorian herself wasn’t forsaking years of studying to put her where she was destined to be going, was she? The book-smartest of them all was claiming the occult?

“Got a better explanation?” Roxy surprisingly doubled down for the big baby preschooler, lifting up her dress without an ounce of shame. Michelle waited for it to come off, but she stopped at the chest, like anything from then up was glued to her skin. “See? Doesn’t go any higher than this!”

Scared and confused, Michelle came over to assist in the way she had hoped they would for her, pulling up on the dress. But it didn’t budge. It really was bonded to her. Like it really was glued. But it obviously wasn’t; the seam between the skin and clothing was distinct!

“Th…but that’s…” Michelle stepped back in disbelief, looking at Alice next who clutched her smock much more conservatively, starting to blush.

“Mine does the same…” she spoke rather than demonstrated. Probably not as daring as Roxy, even when in a crisis.

Every question that came without an answer was just more debilitating worry and panic. And yet the only way to try and deal with any of that meant to try digging deeper. “O…okay…” Michelle muttered as she did her best to walk dignifiedly over to a couch chair, sitting down. Though, despite it being cushioned, the only cushioning came from her diaper. Pressing her hand on the edge of the seat, it was hard. Like plastic?

“Do you guys know what’s going on?” Michelle glanced up at the ceiling light, “where we even are?”

“One of those stupid clown houses at the amusement park, I’d say,” Roxy took her time in winding up a nice big kick for the nearby coffee table, flipping over entirely. “Everything in here is cheap. It all feels fake…!”

“We were just starting to walk down the hall when you woke up, Michelle,” Alice said as she opted to sit on the floor, crossing her legs and pulling down her dress.

“You guys were just gonna leave me?” Michelle asked worriedly.

“No,” Roxy talked as she leaned an entire wardrobe closet bigger than herself, finding nothing but basic wallpaper behind it, “but we figured we should try and figure out what the hell is going on.”

“...And?”

“Nothing…” Alice shook her head, then sniffled. “I…I don’t get it…we were just gonna leave a-and then we all passed out…and…!” But before her sniffles could turn into anything else, Michelle was off the fake cushion and rubbing her friend’s shoulder. While Michelle probably wanted to cry just as badly, thankfully their emotionally weakest link always seemed to give the other two a sense of strength. At least, a sense of responsibility to be the glue.

“That’s right…” Michelle looked up at Roxy, “Do you remember anything that happened?”

“A purple flash, I think, yeah…” she shrugged pensively. “I think I saw you trying to run?”

Gulping, Michelle nodded. “...Something felt weird. Like, wrong-weird. I…wait, I saw her; the old woman! She…she was smiling? After the flash? B-but I ran, so…I didn’t really see a whole lot. And then…” Then this.

“Considering it’s just the three of us in this house, I think granny might have drugged us, or something… Maybe this is what happens if someone goes inside a stranger’s house for candy.”

“I-I’m…I’m sorry…!”

“Roxy!” Michelle hissed, trying to soothe their crying friend at the same time. While she wouldn’t say it out loud, anything now was assuredly Alice’s fault. This whole situation was. But blame before it was over did nothing but self-destruct any attempt to salvage or rescue themselves from a terrible situation. Dropping both hands on her friend’s shoulders, Michelle said, “Alice? Listen to me, okay? Don’t think about that right now. Let’s just focus on what’s happening now and get everybody out, alright?”

“B-but…!” Alice sobbed, wiping her eyes. “I-I don’t know what happened…! I-I swear…! I like candy, yeah, but…but not that much! I don’t know what I was thinking…!” she sniffled, and as Michelle and Roxy listened, their muscles uncomfortably tightened.

“I don’t even like it that much… If I wanted it that badly, we would’ve gone to the store! I’m…I’m sorry!”

It was like speaking to a new friend. A different Alice. An alice twenty years older that had long-since shed her sweet tooth that apparently barely existed to begin with. Alice didn’t care about candy? At least not as much as she was letting on before? Two pairs of nervous eyes exchanged with each other.

Why the hell was she so eager to come inside that old woman’s house in the first place then?

And the more Michelle looked around, it became an even more concerning question:

Was this even still the old woman’s house?

The flimsy door popped off its hinges like nothing…

The nearby coffee table flipped and flew with ease.

Glassless windows. Shoestring lighting…

Michelle pressed her hand against the floor.

Fake wood…?

Fake.

“Michelle?” Roxy frowned, “You good?”

Michelle’s head was panning all around, almost like it was on a swivel. The more she looked and scrutinized the details, that being the lack thereof, a far more surreal sensation was starting to set in.

“How…how much did you guys look around?” Michelle asked while she waddled to the chair she’d been sitting in. Ready to brace her muscles for the difficult lift, she nearly fell right back over with how easy it came off the ground. Far more than legitimately solid wood and cotton ever could.

“Not…a lot…” Alice blended her whimpers with whispers while she watched her friend conduct her own experiments, leaving the other two equally as confused.

And lastly, Michelle walked up to one of the wallpapered walls, being a yellowish cream with maroon red vertical stripes and diamonds stretching from floor to ceiling. And before she could even touch the wall she could see the gloss and shine on it. Brushing her hand against it to feel the textureless surface emphasized her worries too.

“R…Roxy? Could you check that dresser?” Michelle pointed it out, and Roxy with a sideways look obliged.

It was silent for a moment, watching Roxy stroll up to the furniture. Grabbing the top shelf by the knob no different in color or material from the rest of the container, Roxy jerked her hand back to yank the drawer open.

But, “shit!” Roxy yelped in surprise. She jumped back the moment that the drawer alone didn’t slide forward, but the entire dresser came down with it. Lifting it with ease, gravity at work was plenty enough to see that the drawers weren’t sliding out at all.

“The…drawers don’t work?”

“...I don’t think they’re real,” Michelle clarified.

“What?” Roxy and Alice gave incredulous looks, and the fake dresser was promptly dropped once more.

“F-feel the walls…” Michelle tried to keep her breathing straight as her own conclusions and suspicions were starting to cause serious worry. “Don’t you guys notice the floor, either? The furniture? Fake? Flimsy? Fucking plastic?”

Neither one reached for the walls, but Alice in her demure, disappointed place probed the surface of the floor with the tips of her fingers.

“Let’s check the rest of this place…” Michelle sighed, if only to prolong what anxiety attack she was inevitably going to have. Surely this was some kind of dream, or a candy-induced delusion. If only she had actually eaten any of their candy that night to make that possible…

With her ears much more alert, it wasn’t unnoticed that the underwear between her legs was bulky and crinkly. She made more noise than just her steps did with each stride, crinkling at every crease she could not see, but especially around the legs. And just when she thought that she’d somehow become even louder, a silent and embarrassing realization was that her two equally padded friends were contributing to the noise.

“So, did you guys at least try taking off the–”

“Yes,” Roxy came off as far more upset, understandably. “We tried. The tapes don’t budge.”

The hallway was equally as bland and artificial looking as their starting room. A few stands lined the wall with generic pottery vases for plants, but even with the naked eye their artificial look was as clear as day. The “flora” was all uniform lime green with no change in shade whatsoever, adorned by sunflower-like heads straight from a cartoon. Cheap, pale purple blades dotted the outside of the perfectly circular yellow head. No layers whatsoever.

And to boot, Michelle’s finger traced the rough plastic seam along the pot, just like there would be on a bonded piece of plastic. Like on a cheap…toy.

But her hand flew back when a fist flew forward, punching the imaginary decoration off its stand and bouncing with hollow clatters on the floor.

“Really?” Michelle scrooged at her, and Roxy looked more frustrated by the situation than whatever remorse there may have been for startling her friend.

“It’s fake. It’s all fake, we get it,” Roxy huffed. “Let’s just get the hell out of here already!”

And while Michelle hated giving any sort of inch to Roxy when she was on an angry streak, she did have a point. Alice with puffy eyes and sticking close wasn’t seeming at all adverse to the straightforward escape plan either.

“Okay, yeah. Sure.”

The stairs were at the end of the hallway, and in skipping multiple unopened doors leading off to other rooms, all three girls made a beeline to the bottom. Thankfully the house was uncomplicated enough, because without having to pay regard to the artificial living room and likely a just as imaginary kitchen, set in front of the stairs was unmistakably an entrance. An exit.

Michelle with her peripherals discarded nearly stumbled forward on the last step, practically falling into the front door. Just beyond the glassless window, divided into quarters by the plastic lattice was the dead of night. She dropped her hands on the handle, giving it a mighty twist and pulling back into the wacky home.

But all that came back was her body. She tried and twisted, but the knob didn’t move. No. It was the same just like the dresser…the knob was part of the door. It wasn’t separate and installed. The handle had no features, no more than a ball on a nub extruded from the door’s surface, all the same color with barely any detail whatsoever.

“It’s…it’s not…budging!” Michelle grunted, and Roxy was already butting in.

“Let me try…” the muscle stepped forward and took command. Tugging and pulling as hard as she could, and yet nothing seemed to happen at all. There were no visible locks nor keyholes. By pure, objective and visual reasoning, there was no reason why it shouldn’t be opening, or at least budging! It was as if the door wasn’t even that. It was simply a decoration carved into the entire wall of the house.

Michelle quietly crinkled back to where Alice stood, joining her in the unfortunate view that had a full scope of how powerless Roxy looked. With her foot mounted on the wall right beside the door, she groaned and strained as the muscles in her arms were apparent and in overdrive. Her diaper puff was even more visible than before as the urgency to escape trumped the need for modesty, yet the sacrifice was quickly seeming all for naught.

It felt like their last flame had gone out the moment Roxy’s arms dropped like heavy weights and her chest rose and fell with panting.

“It…it’s not budging…!” she shouted what was clear enough to the other two.

“Maybe we can ram it with something…?” Alice suggested, finally applying her smarts in a place other than a school.

“She’s right,” Michelle couldn’t have jumped on the idea any faster, “what if we try that?”

Roxy didn’t say anything to agree, but she was already looking around the immediate area.

The living room had two couches, photos of blurry decals or singular shapes of squares and triangles framed in family-style housings despite looking like modern art. Michelle was on her knees, gently pushing one of the couches just to test its structural integrity, and Roxy was nudging the coffee table with her foot.

Alice, though, was by a large CRT TV with some show on it that was paused. Wait, no, eternally paused. What was thought to be a screen was actually something else. Briefly Alice’s finger traced along the edge of the frozen motion picture, but finally a noise other than their diapers was heard when the screen itself was suddenly peeling from the corner of the tv where Alice had pinched it.

Stopping part way the moment she noticed their looks, Alice quietly whispered, “...It’s a sticker…”

A giant sticker. And beyond it Michelle could see no interior to the supposed innerworkings, wires and devices once might expect to find in a television. Instead it was more blank gray that matched the rest of the box. Maybe even Alice was starting to get a bit restless, because her next move was to awkwardly push the TV off its stand. Another hollow plastic drop.

“Is everything in here actually all plastic? What the fuck is going on?” Roxy’s head ran up and down from floor to ceiling, searching just as desperately as the other two for a way out.

“I…urghhh! I don’t know…!” Michelle tiredly cried, tugging Alice on the shoulder to give it up. They’d both tried to exploit the seemingly weakest link in the home’s structure, that being the thin lattice on the windows, but it seemed as impossibly strong as was all the furniture impossibly light.

“Let’s just…take a breather…” Michelle tried to calm the mood, desperately hoping she could buy into the same words herself. Cushioned by her diaper and not the hard plastic of the couch, she tried to rack her brain.

“May…maybe there’s a back door…?” Alice quietly suggested, and while Roxy’s look was awfully judgmental, and Michelle’s was much more somber, the point was clear how much they doubted the possibility.

Not another word was said for a few uncomfortable minutes; no sounds other than when one of the girls decided to move. Roxy started pacing back and forth in the living room, crinkling the whole way through. Michelle sitting on her bottom, holding her knees, couldn’t help but watch her friend make noise with every step she made.

But Roxy finally noticed.

“What?” she asked, and Michelle’s eyes only briefly looked up at her friend, quickly settling back down on her waist.

“...Nothing.”

But it wasn’t absolutely nothing, and Roxy could tell. She scoffed as she lifted the skirt of her childish dress, then managed to tug down the front of her diaper cover. “This? I’m sorry,” she spat annoyedly, “does this bother you? Am I crinkling too much?”

“I said it’s nothing!” Michelle argued back defensively. “I’m just…it’s the only noise, okay?! So that’s all I hear!”

“Sorry you don’t like the noise, but guess what: I don’t either. Walking helps me think, so deal with it.”

“Quit getting so angry! I just said it was nothing! What– can I not stare at my friend’s fat diapered ass while we try to figure out why we’re stuck inside some kind of toy house?!”

“Guys, stop…!” Alice begged from her spot on the floor, but both girls were too busy giving each other a mean look.

“Well sorry,” Roxy rolled her eyes, “Want me to just sit on you? Maybe you can think of something while I crinkle all over your face!”

“Jesus will you just quit it?! I’m not even trying to start something!”

“Yeah? You sure?” Roxy marched over, noisy diaper in tow, stopping just a foot away from her friend and staring down at her.

“Yeah,” Michelle quickly but awkwardly pushed herself up to her own feet, standing with her legs slightly apart, “I am. What the hell is wrong with you? Can’t you just focus on us trying to get out of here? Quit the temper tantrum!”

“And you quit being so fucking calm! Do you actually think this is normal? How the hell did we get put in here if there’s no fucking way out! What, didn’t you say you were trying to run before we got caught?” she let a second go by, then she scoffed. “Maybe if you had run a little bit faster…”

“R-Roxy!” Alice cried from the side. Roxy already turned on her heel and walked away.

And the words stung. Bad.

“Y-yeah…?” Michelle was furious. Her hands were balled and her knuckles were white. Her legs trembled as she could feel the warm hug from her diaper shift ever so slightly just as she did. “So it’s my fault huh? Well tell me this: who decided to MOVE THE DOLLHOUSE TO BEGIN WITH?! Tell me! Who? Who wanted to stick around longer just to fucking fuck-fuck-fuckity fuck-around with some stranger in their own goddamn home?!”

Roxy didn’t turn, but she’d gone stiff. Her hands were in fists as well and she practically looked like a doll with how rigid she seemed.

“Michelle…! Don’t!” Alice again tried to intervene, but if her visual status as a preschooler was anything to go by, she had zero grounds to interrupt a big kid conversation.

“Oh?” Michelle tilted her head. “Sorry, was that one a bit too real for you? Yeah, Roxy, sorry I didn’t have the fucking foresight to realize we were walking into a dangerous situation. Oh– wait! That’s right! I DID!”

The room went silent again. Michelle watched Roxy’s back angrily, and Alice was between them in tears.

“St-stop it…!” the girl with the most exposed diaper sobbed. “It-it’s my fault…! I know that…! So stop fighting…!”

Roxy finally turned around and her eyes looked glassy as the shimmer and shine in them seemed to be warning an oncoming flow of tears. She finally opened her mouth, but the noise didn’t come out at first. Until finally, “I-I–”

A loud, terrified shriek immediately stopped whatever she wanted to say. The sound came from Alice who was now on the floor, scurrying and sliding on her bottom back and away from the couch. She nearly collided into Michelle who caught her from behind, feeling the need to flip back down her helplessly short smock.

“Alice?! What? What’s wrong?” Michelle asked, but the terrified look on the girl remained.

Her nervous and shaking finger pointed at the fake furniture.

“Th-there…! I saw something! It-it’s a spider!”

“A spider?” Michelle didn’t try to share a look with Roxy this time. Everyone watched and waited where Alice had pointed, but nothing was coming out. The moment of truth though was when Roxy wordlessly stepped forward and mounted her foot on the front of the couch and pushed with all her might.

The entire piece slid forward, crashing into the wall. Other than the plastic clamor, nothing else seemed to happen.

“Well it’s dead now,” Roxy said simply, though she did watch like everyone else.

“Th…thanks…” Michelle muttered, but Alice still had yet to say anything. “Alice, it's fine now, okay?”

“B-but…! It was…!”

“It’s dead. I mean, weird or not, this seems like a pretty empty house. I’d imagine seeing some kind of insect or spider…” Michelle openly rationalized. “Besides, spiders are afraid of us. We’ll be fine.”

And then it was a chilling noise.

A quiet, but frequent and hurried scurry. Like a long-nailed secretary typing on a keyboard at a break-neck pace. Something was scurrying across the floor and it had more than just two legs. Four? Six? No, eight? T…ten?

The moment Michelle turned her head, she barely had any time to process what she was seeing. Alice shrieked, and Roxy just as well was speechless.

There was no time to react as the creature appeared.

This was no spider.

Its legs were long. Pink with long sharp hairs sticking off each thin but rigid-looking appendage. Its limbs were taller than its body itself, poking the floor over and over like pins and needles each time a leg moved in sequence with the rest. Michelle was paralyzed by the unknown as her reality was confronted by something straight out of fiction.

Just bigger than a fist, the strange thing with a white bulbous head scurried at them, dragging along some flat appendage from its backside that scraped along the floor.

“Wh-what the–?!”

“NO!” Alice screamed in horror. No girl was prepared for what came next.

Alice on the floor stuck out her foot to kick, but the nimble creature leapt and landed right on her leg. Alice screamed louder as she flailed, and Michelle and Roxy dove forward to grab it somehow and get it off, but it was far too fast. By the time they were touching her calf, the thing was already on the front of her diaper. Alice panicked and whimpered, swiping her hand forward to swat it. Not only did she hit Michelle in the process, but the alien monster wrapped its tiny thin legs around her hand and swapped lanes, starting to crawl up her arm next.

“HELP! PLEASE HELP! PLEASE–!” Alice cried in tears as neither friend could catch what made their hearts race. They couldn’t speak as they tried to stop what was too fast and too nimble. Alice had made far too many mistakes.

She was singled out because she was the one on the floor; the easiest to attack. She used her arm to get it away which only gave it another option to encroach. And lastly, and the worst, poor Alice screamed for help.

Michelle let out a terrified gasp as she did.

Like it was waiting, the moment Alice spoke, the thing clutching her arm made another jump, landing right on her face. Tears rolled down her cheeks but she was still sane enough to slam her mouth shut, but it wasn’t fast enough. Four legs were used to plant itself on Alice’s face, and another four, hairy and all focused, landed right between her lips.

“H-hold her!” Roxy commanded, and Michelle slid behind the friend for support as Roxy was finally brave enough to try and grab what was starting to pry their friend’s mouth open. Alice violently shook her head as the parasite on her seemed immovable. Its legs would stretch and go straight as Roxy grunted and pulled, but her strength somehow was impossibly unmatched by the tiny thing.

Alice squirmed and cried, too afraid and too shocked to truly speak. The thing slipped its legs inside her mouth, lining themselves beside her cheeks like it was installing itself. Roxy thrashed and yelled, trying to summon the strength, but the spider was finally pressed fully against the girl’s face, filling her mouth. The appendage on its backside flapped pointlessly until it landed right on the breast of Alice’s schoolgirl outfit. Michelle may have been the only one to see, and maybe it was all the shaking and panic that made her confused, but it was as if the strap had…fused? Before it flapped in the wind and struggled, but now the point where it laid on the dress didn’t move at all, as if it were bonded. The strap from mouth to breast did move and flail, but the connection was clear. The creature bonded with her.

Alice made muffled cries, and suddenly the legs hugging the outside of her face started to retract or recede, like they were slipping back into the spider’s body. There was little for Roxy to pull on now as all she had left was some loop or ring from the back of the monster, but all it did was pull Alice forward completely as she tugged. It was stuck inside her mouth, and it was clear they lost.

“O-oh my god…!” Michelle’s voice trembled as she spun around and finally saw the result of their friend. Her eyes were wide and her pupils small as she mumbled and whimpered, clawing at the thing halfway inside and outside her mouth. “Wh-what happened? What the fuck was that thing?!”

“Th-that wasn’t a spider…” Roxy sounded nervous herself, still trying to pull at the thing on their friend, but it was hopeless. The soft body she had touched was hard and rigid now. The legs were gone and all that remained was like an outer shield extending over the corner’s of Alice’s mouth, and a…ring on its back.

“Th-this…this was a spider…?” Cautiously, but ultimately, Michelle tugged at the ring as well, getting an odd and eerie feeling.

“I…it was… We just saw it!” Roxy cried, but not as hard as Alice.

The strap now Michelle could see had patterns to it… Since when did spiders have patterns of strawberries and cakes on their flat tails that didn’t exist?

Had they not been there to witness the terrifying sight, if Alice could tell her shocking tale, neither one would have believed her for a second.

“It’s…it’s a fucking pacifier.”  Roxy pulled one last time, but ultimately dropped her hand. And suddenly she puffed a spat of air, laughing for just a second. There was no humor, but her mind had been cracked. “Wh-what even is this? Where are we? What the fuck is going on?!”

Michelle watched her friend’s mental break for a moment, then asked her forcibly quiet friend, “A-Alice…does it hurt?” Despite Alice’s tears, she shook her head.

Suddenly Michelle spun her head every which way and asked in a nervous voice, “Y-you don’t think there are more, are you?”

“How should I know? I thought we were the only living things inside this place! And what is this?” Roxy finally noticed the cloth. “Is this a strap, or something?”

“W-we…we need to cut it out. We can do that, right?” Michelle suggested, and Alice’s eyes widened with fear. Vehemently she shook her head, again, doing no favors for the diaper she kept on flashing.

“No-no!” Michelle quickly corrected herself. “Not cutting you, Alice! Just… maybe if we can cut this strap we can get it out?” she looked over at Roxy for some kind of support for her logic. Yet the girl didn’t quite reciprocate, nor did she refuse. It was obvious they were grasping at straws. And yet, if they didn’t cling to questionable logic, there really would be no answer.

“Can you stand?” Roxy took Alice by the hands, not able to pull out a pacifier, but lift up her friend to her feet. Alice just sadly whimpered, trying to wedge her fingers between the pacifier shield and her mouth and cheeks, but it looked hopeless.

“W-well…” Michelle started, looking around for any more sinister creepy crawlies, “Let’s uhm…try the kitchen.”

The party was much more concentrated, even if it was just a short trip from one adjacent room to another. The floor that appeared as tiles sure didn’t feel like it, but the signs of an oven, fridge, cabinets and kitchen table told enough of a story for what this space was supposed to be.

“Look!” Michelle was the first to cheer, running straight for a slanted block of wood. Maybe handles of different shapes and sizes were plunged inside of it, but it was clear that it was a knife block. She grabbed one at random and pulled, and it lifted!

The…entire prop.

No knife came out. Instead she lifted the handle, block and all other ones right above her head. Normally it would have been dangerous and quite likely suicide, but that was only if there were actual knives to begin with. Again, it was light and hollow. With her hopes once again renewed and dashed, she dropped the toy to the floor.

The only reason she didn’t cry and moan aloud was that the one this was all riding on had a parasite stuck inside her mouth.

“There might be something else…” Roxy suggested, moving along to the cabinets. Then she looked over at Alice, kneading her hands as she wordlessly whimpered and looked all around. Unfortunately if she did see something coming, she wouldn’t have the words to make it clear. “Hey, you look too. The faster we find something the faster we free your mouth.”

It may have been a low-hanging fruit, but Alice was thoroughly convinced.

“Maybe something’s in the fridge…?” With their options running low and only finding a rounded pair of scissors that didn’t actually open or cut, Michelle opened the white refrigerator door. Then she looked ready to close it.

For once she wasn’t staring back at a wall of fake food or a sticker meant to convey the “idea” of food. The fridge really did have things in it. Fully stocked, too. The inside wasn’t cold, but from shelf to shelf, side of door to bottom drawers, it was filled. Whoever lived here wouldn’t have to worry about going hungry for quite some time.

Assuming they still breastfed, that is.

Baby bottles. Big adult ones were all she could see. The styles and designs varied, but the silicone nipple and creamy white liquid she could see through all their glass and plastic bottles was clear enough.

“Anyone thirsty?” Michelle asked plainly, and Roxy did come over, but she immediately frowned.

“Is that stuff even real?”

“Seems real enough…” and Michelle grabbed one of the bottles. And just as she started to bring it to her mouth–

“Hey!” Roxy shouted then swatted her bottle to the floor. “I didn’t actually mean drink that stuff!”

“You tried the sink, didn’t you?” Michelle groaned, picking the bottle back up. And ‘tried’ was a generous way of putting it. Given that the faucet handles didn’t turn, there wasn’t a whole lot to test. “I haven’t had a single thing to drink all night… I’m willing to put up with the embarrassment if it means I can stay hydrated…” And after a reluctant look, Michelle finally bit down on the nipple.

It wasn’t cold, and it wasn’t plentiful, given the need to suck, but it tasted like milk, and that was enough for the girl.

Both Alice and Roxy watched, but the latter was far more disturbed. “D-does…does it taste bad?”

“--No,” Michelle popped the bottle out of her mouth. “Tastes fine. Sort of like normal milk.”

“Sort of?” Roxy raised her eyebrow, but Alice sadly tugging on her permanent pacifier was enough to jog the group’s memory. “More importantly,” she gave the room another cursory glance. “I couldn’t find anything sharp. You?”

“Nope…” Roxy sighed, and Alice sadly shook her head.

“Well…we still have the upstairs to check, don’t we? Let’s just have a look at everything we’re dealing with before we figure out what to do next…” Michelle set the bottle down and they slowly started their ascent back to the second floor.

No one seemed eager and the morale was low, given their speaking capacity had dropped by an entire third. Yet the brigade rustled and crinkled all the way up the steps, paranoid for any kind of creature that might just materialize out of thin air.

Once they reached the top of the stairs they were starting to hear a new noise. No crinkles, but something else. Almost pulsating and rhythmic. Michelle nearly slipped on her backpedaling feet and Roxy just barely caught her from sending them all back down the stairs in a tumble.

“What the hell is that?!” Michelle shouted, but Roxy forced her away from the edge.

“I don’t know? Just stop freaking out! We’ll…we’ll see whatever it is this time! Just look both ways!”

They forced Alice between them as both girls kept their backs to each other, looking the only two ways they could be attacked from. They watched and they waited, and the noise was distinct and clear. It pulsed…it sucked…it sounded wet… There was plastic rocking against plastic as well, very lightly, like some kind of motion was making it sway and swing against something.

Their eyes darted left and right, up and down to try and find the noise, but a confused feeling hit them both once they stepped outside their own rightful delusions to really hear where the noise was coming from.

“Wait…” Roxy had a confused look and the two turned their heads to whom they were trying to protect. And there the adult preschooler was, making busy sucking noises. The pacifier that invaded her mouth was no longer still; actively sucking and moving.

“A-Alice…?” Michelle called her name, and after blinking, like she was in some kind of haze, she gave her friend a clear look, but she still kept going at her pacifier. “Y-your…” her eyes dropped a little. “You’re…sucking on that a lot…”

And from Alice looking at her friend to finally looking down at herself, she didn’t stop until a full second after that. The pacifier stopped bobbing, and so did the once-concerning noise.

But her friend’s face looked distraught as she suddenly explained herself.

“Mffhmmm-mrrrhmmfff…!” Or…tried to. Alice mumbled as best as she could, but her body bonded with parasite seemed no more willing to part ways.

“Just try not to suck on it…?” Roxy mumbled as she walked ahead. Alice was blushing and beside herself, and after Michelle gave her a complicated look rubbing her own arm, she walked ahead as well.

And the first door they opened had to be the worst room possible. It was the first floor with a slightly fuzzy texture, and the walls were covered in light pinks and purples. Bright white trim and filled with a variety of monstrosity.

“A nursery?” Roxy said what everyone was thinking, marching in first. Her first instinct was to punt the plush yet limp teddy bear laying down on the floor, sending it flying into a pile of its brethren and friends in the corner.

“It seems…big…” Michelle remarked as she looked up and down at an awfully large crib. “But it seems…real-ish.” It was a weird comment to make without context, but given everything up until now, she found it strange to feel an actual blanket through the bars and not just another plastic facade that made a bed look neat.

Alice, while she couldn’t do much more than make unintelligible noise, ran her hand along the top of a large changing table. She looked down at the shelves below, filled with diapers, powder and wipes. But…after a closer moment’s inspection, those were all plastic props too.

“I don’t think we’re gonna find anything sharp to use in a baby’s room,” Michelle murmured while she looked at the crib’s intricate legs. They were like the clawed feet you’d see on a bathroom tub.

“Good to know they have soft and stupid, though,” Roxy kicked another toy, then she froze. Her body tightened for a second, then relaxed with a sigh. “Alice, can you quit doing that? You’re sucking on it again!”

Again, she was caught doing it before she could realize herself. The baby girl blushed as she went right back to physically tugging on the trinket, and just as Michelle was about to stop watching the show that she knew the end to, a plot twist ensued.

“Mmmm! Mmmffff-ON!” Alice cried and the pacifier in a shocking turn of events popped from her mouth. The joy lasted for a split-second before the meager strap attached to it went taut and threw her forward, right into her friend Roxy.

“Alice– hey!” Roxy shouted and promptly tumbled back straight onto the floor. Luck was on her side though when she fell into the one known cushion in the entire house. She briefly disappeared into a sea of stuffed animals, save for her shoes, as if they were a body of water that just swallowed her. But the girl’s minor inconvenience was ignored in the face of something that the two still standing found far more delightful.

“It-it came out!” Michelle marveled, and Alice looked ready to cry with glee.

“I-I just kept pulling…!” Alice explained, yet sounding like she was approaching a loss for words.

“Wait, let me see–” Michelle crinkled over, hesitantly, but ultimately grabbing the pacifier now hanging from where it was clipped to the breast of her clothing. She was expecting to see eight eyes or legs, maybe even stray hair from those spooky spindly legs that the thing once had, but she was stumped.

“It looks…normal?” Michelle frowned. A ring, strap, shield and silicone bulb. No faces, no talons, no legs, no nothing. It was almost enough to question whether they had been hallucinating downstairs.

Alice opened her mouth, but they both stepped apart the moment stuffed animal shrapnel flew their way from Roxy’s explosive rise.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she sounded irked, “thanks for asking.”

“Roxy, look!” Alice beamed, holding out her pacifier like it was a gold medal. “It came out!”

“Yeah, and did you forget that’s why I’m sitting in stuffie land right now?” Roxy quipped back, but before the damage was done she smiled anyway. “Congratulations. Does that mean you’ll stop sucking on that thing now?” she teased as she came back to her feet.

“Th-that wasn’t my fault!” Alice pouted. “I-I didn’t mean to…I was just…doing it…” she looked the other way while her hands played with the hem of her clothes.

“Well, either way, guess that’s half the problem solved,” Roxy shrugged, and Michelle was getting too tired to question all the things that they didn’t understand. “Let’s actually try and get it off now.”

“Yeah, but I doubt we’ll find something sharp…” Michelle admitted, finding it much easier to be grim now that things had finally gotten better.

“Yeah, which is why we’re tearing it off,” Roxy decided, and Michelle couldn’t have been more skeptical.

“You really think we can just pull it off?”

“I think we should be trying everything we can. How do we know that thing won’t wake up again and crawl right back inside her mouth?” Poor timing, as the possibility made the victim show visible discomfort. “--Which is why we won’t let that happen,” Roxy appended. “Look, Michelle, just hold her from behind, okay? I’ll pull it off.”

“Unless you hit your head on those bears too hard, I think you’re crazy to suggest that this might work…” Michelle passively commented. Between their clothes being stuck on them and already losing once to the spider pacifier in a show of strength before, it hardly seemed like much of a plan.

“Well if it doesn’t, you can use this time to come up with something smarter. But for now we’re gonna try,” Roxy insisted, and soon enough Michelle’s arms were hooked underneath Alice’s armpits.

“Shouldn’t, Al, but say something if it hurts, okay?” Roxy prompted with her raising hands, and the girl reluctantly nodded.

“Wh-what if it wakes up?” the frightened girl suddenly asked.

“The pacifier?” Michelle said right behind her. She had absolutely zero way of knowing, but… “It won’t, so don’t worry about it. But, uh, Roxy,” Michelle gave her a weird look. “Did you plan on dropping that thing before we get started?”

“What?” The polka-dot diaper-pantied girl had a brewing argument showing in her eyes again. “Drop what?”

“I don’t know,” Michelle motioned her whole head, “the thing in your hand? What, did you want one, or something?”

“In…in your hand…” Alice added much more calmly, somehow despite being in a hold like her lunch money was about to be stolen.

“I’m not holding anything! What are you two even–!” Roxy threw up her hands, but stopped once something attached to her hand flew with it. She followed the sight and saw a stuffed bear’s arm nuzzled between her tight fingers gripped around it. “Wh–?! What the hell?”

“Roxy, come on. Just drop it already?” Physically and metaphorically. Michelle sighed. Not only was her stupid game delaying their escape, but it was also in bad taste. Just because Alice bumped into her didn’t give Roxy an excuse to make fun of her predicament.

“I-I can’t…!” Roxy grouched as she tried to lever her own fingers, but the bear wouldn’t let go, or really, she couldn’t let go of it. “it’s  stuck…!”

Neither of her friends were saying much, and the more they watched, the more it really did look like she was struggling…

“You’re…not joking?” Michelle asked.

And in response, with her one free hand, Roxy tugged Alice forward and out of her grip, then promptly slapped Michelle across the face, stuffed bear and all.

“IF I WAS JOKING I WOULDN’T BE HITTING YOU WITH THIS RIGHT NOW!”

“Okay– okay!” Michelle groaned, wiping away the soft blow. “But…how?” She dropped to her knees just to look, and even Alice was scanning it. “Roxy, don’t hit me again, but seriously; it looks like you’re the one that’s holding it…” There was no visible trick or uncanny sight. She didn’t see fangs, tendrils or substances that made it any more sinister than what she was seeing. Just a hand holding onto a simple teddy bear.

“Well I’m not…!” Roxy said, looking over at the pile in disdain. “It…it must have attached to me or something when I fell in that stupid pile!”

“S-sorry…” Alice apologized meekly.

“Well…” Michelle scratched her cheek, occasionally brushing against her own pigtail, “I don’t feel comfortable using anything sharp…” Michelle grunted as she tried to remove it by force, but Roxy’s fingers were sturdy like rocks.

“But that…!” Roxy tried to refute, but common sense was too obvious this time. “Ugh! Alice!” she whipped her head and the shock made her friend flinch. “How did you take out that stupid pacifier? What did you do?”

Now Michelle was giving her attention, and the spotlight made her shy. “I-I…I just…pulled on it…”

The way she answered and what her friends had already seen firsthand was enough to make them stay skeptical.

“There has to be something else…” Michelle voiced everyone’s thoughts. “You had to have done something?”

“Alice, please, think!” Roxy sounded desperate, and rightfully so.

Alice hummed as she thought, sounding pensive and unsure. The science from personified pacifiers to stuffed bears probably wasn’t one-to-one, but it was the closest kind of science they had.

“I…I guess…maybe a little…”

“What?! What is it?” Roxy rushed with impatience.

“I-I sucked on it!” Alice cried and the silence came in its wake. “I…I guess after I sucked it a little…it felt…looser…”

“So what, you’re telling me to suck on this thing’s ear?” Roxy outraged, and the question truly made Alice distraught. Meanwhile, Michelle choked down a giggle.

“R-Roxy… I don’t think you should go sucking on something when you don’t know where it’s been… Ah– no offense, Alice…” Not much of a choice for her…

“Mitch– so help me God…” Roxy seethed, looking ready for another teddy bear brawl, but Michelle threw up her hands as a surrender.

“A-all I mean is I think it’s different!” She was quick to explain. “Just…I don’t know…do what kids do with bears? Maybe it wants you to use it? So…cuddle?”

The leap in logic was one thing for Michelle, but for an outsider like Roxy, the girl’s expression was judging another’s intelligence.

“Don’t give me that stupid look!” Michelle reprimanded. “You wanted an idea, right? That’s the best I have.”

“It…doesn’t sound like a bad one…” Alice included, finally showing a crack in the biggest one’s mood.

Soon enough Alice and Michelle were watching Roxy, looking more and more disturbed, angry and ready to lash.

“W-would you two quit staring already…?!”

Michelle had her arms crossed with a hum, as if she were admiring a piece of fine art. “Not to make light of a bad situation, but I guess I can’t say I’d ever have thought I’d be seeing my best friend Roxy, of all people, like this…”

The biggest and baddest of them all, sporting a frilly polka-dot dress, diapered and snuggling with a stuffed bear. As long as she clutched the bear it could move, which was now clutched against her chest where her arm was crossed over it.

“Is it soft…?” Alice innocently asked.

“Alice…!” Roxy flared, but dampened the flames. Roxy and Michelle typically had no restraints when they went at each other, but their mutual understanding was that the bookworm got kid gloves. “Just…don’t ask that stuff right now! So how long do I have to hold this stupid thing until I can let go of it?!”

“He has ears, you know,” Michelle side-eyed her, leaning into the teasing.

“Yeah, and he works like a weapon, too,” Roxy threatened right back.

“I’m just saying…!” Michelle barely hid her giggle. “Look, I have no clue how it works, but…just be positive, or something? Be nice to the bear. I dunno.”

“There’s no reason not to?” Alice suggested, absentmindedly twirling her pacifier with her finger.

“Fine. Can we just get out of this stupid room already? Unless either of you want a stuffed animal to hold, too?”

“Good point. Let’s go,” Michelle was quick, given she was the least affected of the three. While Roxy’s was far easier to joke about, a pacifier preventing communication was a serious concern. Thankfully there wasn’t anything out to fry their minds…

Back in the hallway Michelle took the lead, asking aloud, “So uh…do you guys think there’s a bathroom here, or something?” She kept walking, noticing that the diaper crinkling was a lot less than a company of three should have. She turned her head and her friends were motionless by the nursery exit. “What?”

“Sorry, but uh, do you know something we don’t?” Roxy gave her a sideways look. “Did you forget these diapers are practically glued onto us?”

“W-well, yeah…” Michelle mumbled, suddenly forced to remember what she had so blissfully forgotten. “Just…wanted to know…”

“Do you have to go?” Alice asked and Michelle’s cheeks went warm.

“Wait, what?” Roxy read the signals. “Didn’t you say you haven’t drank anything all day? You had like two sips from that bottle! There’s no way you need to pee already!”

An uncomfortable silence lingered, and Michelle rubbed her elbow awkwardly.

“Uh…yeah.” Michelle did not refuse, but she also did not elaborate.

“Wait…you have to…? Ugh– ew! Mitch, don’t even!”

“What do you mean ‘ew’? People poop, Roxy!”

“Yeah, but you’re in a diaper! We’re adults!”

Alice kept looking from speaker to speaker like it was a tennis match, and Michelle looked in disbelief.

“Why do you think I’m looking for a toilet, then?!”

“What’s the point when we can’t get these things off?!”

“Then why are you giving me shit for needing to shit?!”

And in the midst of their next argument, Alice waddled on ahead and opened up the next door.

“Guys!” Alice called.

“What?” they both answered with their residual rage.

“Bathroom!” Alice pointed into the open doorway with triumph, and the two girls caught up.

For a person with a growing need, Michelle looked delighted.

“Still doesn’t solve our diaper situation…” Roxy continued to be the bearer of bad news, as well as the bearer of bears.

“Yeah, but it’s one step closer!” Michelle countered and volunteered herself as the sense of optimism that she herself needed. After all, her bowels were riding on this. Alice entered first, walking up to the toilet poised right in front of the door and lifted the lid.

But she struggled and grunted. Was it heavy? What was yet again thought to be a ray of hope was quickly becoming too good to be true.

“What? What’s wrong?” Michelle rushed in and tried lifting as well, but she understood immediately.

The same feeling. The hollow inside and immovable, imitated features. It was all one homogenous mass that wasn’t made of parts or had any real function. None whatsoever.

“No…! No! No!” Michelle grunted and tugged, but nothing moved but her own shoes starting to slide on the floor. “Please…!”

“If you don’t wanna do that in your diaper, Mitch, I suggest we go back to figuring out how to escape…” Roxy spoke up from behind. She wasn’t charged anymore and spoke simply and matter-of-factly.

The sink was a lie and so was the tub. The window above it overlooked the black void of darkness they couldn’t see into, and the pit was as bottomless as ever. Even if they got out, where was there to go? Were they in another dimension? A dream? What could this even be?

After enough convincing, Michelle was the caboose in her own walk of sorrow as they went for the stairs back to the ground floor.

“Wait, I’m gonna go check out the room we woke up in,” Michelle suddenly spoke up. Alice, but more so Roxy looked skeptical.

“By yourself?”

“Yeah, I’ll just be a second. See if you guys can find anything downstairs?”

“...Are you sure you want to? In case you forgot,” Roxy nodded to the pacifier swinging between Alice’s hands and finally the teddy bear in the crook of Roxy’s arm. “The less…affected we are, the better?”

“I don’t remember seeing anything like that stuff in the first room. We’re in a hurry, aren’t we? I’ll be back down in a few minutes.”

“I can go with you?” Alice volunteered.

“It’s fine, Alice.” And without spelling it out, not only could Michelle doubtfully protect her friend, but she figured risking one was better than two. “I’ll be right back!”

And briefly, they parted ways. Michelle fumbled with some things in the room, finding no more clues or hints that could afford them any kind of rescue.

Nothing.

She sighed and fell back on the hard plastic couch. But it didn’t give her the same kind of abrupt hardness like last time. Likely because she expected it.

“There has to be something…?” she planted her hands by her sides on the plush cushions and looked around.

…

Plush?

She pressed down and tested the hallucination, finding the sensation stranger and stranger. Plush. It was soft. Not hard. Not plastic…? Her next instinct was to pull, truly getting her hopes up. But it didn’t budge. She tried to move it, but it didn’t, like it was still attached. But she was no less intrigued, confused, and surprised. It was soft. It wasn’t soft before…!

“I-I need to tell them…!” Michelle exclaimed and scrambled to her feet. And come to think of it, didn’t the crib have actual bedding as well? The floor was kind of soft, too? So why was it different here now?

On her way out she stopped her sprint just to notice the room she was in all over again. The table they’d flipped was upright again, and the fallen wardrobe was back and against the wall. Who put those back in place…?

Her thick velcro sneakers squeaked on the floor as her energetic jog was tapered down into a hurried, noisy waddle. She rushed right by the bathroom with the door still wide open, but just as she passed it, she stopped and turned.

Slowly, her head peered back inside.

Texture.

It wasn’t plastic, she could tell. The plastic seam on every prop she had seen thus far wasn’t there this time. The fake toilet she had just seen maybe fifteen minutes ago now looked…real! Porcelain, heavy, and functioning. Her hand trembled as she reached out. Suddenly a toilet’s existence held the weight of the world for her and her body was already pre-emptively pushing just in sheer excitement.

And it…lifted! It lifted! Michelle’s eyes went wide with glee as the heavy lid swung on its hinges. The nostalgic clang from the lid hitting the back of the toilet. She could see the metallic shine on the flush handle, and the best part of all: water was already pooled in the bottom of it.

“It– it’s real…! Yes! Yes!”

Now all she had to do was use it! And to do that, she’d need to…

“Clothes!” Michelle cried aloud, fumbling with her overalls. She thrashed and tugged, but the longer she did, the more upset she was starting to become.

“No…nononono, please!” she begged the higher powers that be. She was so frustratingly close, but damningly far away. The toilet worked; it was ready, but nothing about herself was. She couldn’t take off her stupid baby clothes, and just like Roxy had said, her diaper was a whole other dilemma. No…! It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t!

She twisted and turned, looking for a zipper or some kind of hidden mechanism that she just couldn’t see. She was desperate and needed to go more and more by the second. This wasn’t right! This wasn’t fair…!

And just as she walked her butt back into the toilet’s range, a loud slam from the lid yelped her forward.

Did she bump it? Michelle with a tinge of shock looked at the toilet, now with its lid closed.

“Is my diapered ass really that big…?” Michelle pouted and reached out again for the lid. But before she could touch it, the lid lifted on its own, and beneath it were an array of jagged, sharp and dull pointed ends coming out of it. She retracted her hand and the flush lever suddenly pulled itself down. A loud flush came from the toilet, but then the level noisily flushed again. The lid flapped up and down, loud and hard, making the girl flinch with each one.

What was happening? Was the toilet broken or something? It flushed and banged, making noises that left the diapered girl more and more uncomfortable and concerned. The entire fixture trembled and shook like it was building up in pressure; getting ready to explode. But amidst the flushing…she heard something else.

A faint, far less mechanical noise. Not one from water, and not one from mechanics. Something organic… A…snarling?

The top toilet lid flung open, and from the infinite darkness underneath it two green, yellow and purple eyes emerged. The hard, porcelain top bent and conformed like rubber as its unibrow, and the thing itself gave Michelle a fierce, scary glare with throbbing neon veins in its eyes.

“Wh-wh…?”

The seat lid flipped open fully now, and the jagged toilet teeth seen from below were now just as prominent on the job. The toilet roared with a flush and fierce growling. Drops of toilet water frothed along the lid as a long and pointed wrinkly tongue somehow shot out of the toilet bowl and hung over the side. Machine had mixed with man and some wild creature was before her, looking ready to devour her entirely. It was a toilet no longer, but a certified potty monster.

It shook and rocked from side to side, snarling and loudly banging its toilet seat mouth. The tongue took spastic swipes at whatever was in reach, and Michelle suddenly in tears had her back against the wall.

The impossible sight made her knees weak and her tears flowed free. It was coming for her. It wanted to eat her, kill her! And to think: she actually wanted to use this thing…! Sit on it!

“N-no! P-please! Please don’t hurt me! I’m sorry!” she dearly apologized to the toilet, but it seemed far more a beast rather than like a person. The pointed and rounded teeth were in disarray, but they looked like they could cut, maim, and kill. The terrified tension in her body made it impossible to move as her life flashed before her eyes. Her fight or flight had been shot completely as she cried with sinking knees. The exit was right next to her, but her eyes were transfixed and she could barely move.

The sight made her tummy ache and deep woes of regret started to hit her, almost uncharacteristically so. Then cracks were starting to form.

Along the tiled floor and wall where it was bolted, like a beast about to break its own chains. Drops of water were flying everywhere and the poor girl was almost completely paralyzed. The toilet thrashed, and finally it burst forward, stopping just short of the girl who shrieked and hugged herself in tears. Something still had it caught and this was her last chance.

Finally after a few seconds of horror and traumatizing fear, Michelle sobbed as she crawled out of the bathroom with her heart running a marathon. The moment she crossed the threshold the door slammed shut, and suddenly the thick, suffocating fright in her lungs dripped out of her.

She survived.

And she cried, clutching her shoulders to self-soothe and somehow come to terms with what she just saw. A dream? A hallucination? It was like the pacifier all over again, but ten-thousand times worse. So much fucking worse…! She…she’d have to go back in there… If they found out how to get these clothes off, and then these diapers…her only option was that?

“N-no…!” tears rolled down her flushed cheeks. Anything, anything but that…! Any other option than using that thing! She…she used that? Normally? People could sit on that thing? But…no! T-toilets weren’t like that! Not normally! But she saw what she saw, and her life had truly been in danger. She sobbed, sick with the feeling of dread, grunting as her body squatted and she tried to cope. She felt sick, delayed and heavy. She squatted and pushed, trying to get the bad feelings out of her body, wrought with anxiety just from thinking about the creature. The memories were etched in her like stone and now she couldn’t forget. She wouldn’t forget.

Her jaw hung open as she gasped and the release suddenly hit her. All in one, thick and heavy go, the physical manifestations of her fear and shame left her…but was held close. In the midst of her panic attack her body had decided for her what to do next. And now her diaper felt heavy and hot.

She panted and she quickly figured out what she had done, but staring down the door that separated her from the monster was all she could think of. It made whatever she’d done in her diaper far more miniscule compared to what she just survived. If…if it meant never seeing that toilet thing ever again…was a messy diaper really that bad?

After a little longer, Michelle was eventually taking one heavy step after another down the stairs. Alice and Roxy were in the living room, sitting on either the floor or couch, now with cushions as well, just like upstairs. The room looked orderly again.

“Hey Mitch, find anything– Whoa, what happened to you?” Roxy was the first to ask, seeing her friend’s red eyes and cheeks.

Alice was on her feet and rushing over.

“Mhhmmf, hmmfmmrhh?” Alice sweetly and attentively asked, but not a single word was understood. Michelle wordlessly looked at her mouth, and Alice pulled out her pacifier. “S-sorry… Michelle, are you okay?”

She was concerned, clearly, and so was Roxy, but Michelle couldn’t help but look at them with disbelief.

“Y-you…?” she looked at either one, but they both seemed as clueless as concerned. “You didn’t hear that…? Any of it?” None of the snarls or flushes as loud as thunder? None of their friend’s screams or cries?

Alice looked at Roxy, and neither one seemed to have a single bell rung.

Was she really not as loud as she thought she was? That couldn’t be right…? How did they not hear her…?!

And then Alice’s nose twitched.

“What’s that smell…?”

Michelle’s confused look shifted to shame and embarrassment.

“I-it’s nothing… A-anyway, have you guys figured anything out yet?” Michelle walked ahead and around, trying not to cringe as she felt the mess in her diaper move around. As embarrassed as she was, her mind refused to let go of the relief that it was done anywhere but in that terrifying bathroom.

“Hardly,” Roxy sighed, falling back on the couch. “There’s nothing, Michelle…” She was laying on her side, rubbing her cheek against the stuffed bear. “I have no clue what we’re supposed to do…”

“Th-the room was clean again, though!” Alice spoke up with a pacifier halfway headed into her mouth, but both girls looking at her was enough to convince her to stop.

“Why do you keep trying to suck on that thing…?” Michelle asked, yet the girl’s strange behavior was starting to feel passable in wake of everything else. “And the room’s back together…?” They were right. The couches were aligned again and the CRT television was no longer on the floor. The sticker screen was reapplied, and maybe even slightly more detailed. “Wait, that’s right! Roxy!”

She raised her eyebrows and Michelle went to sit right beside her, but then remembered what was between her and her diaper. “T-the…the couch,” Michelle tried to play it off and transition into just a squat beside it. “Have you noticed the cushions?”

More confusion, but Roxy felt them anyway, going through the same visual motions that Michelle once did.

“They’re…soft?”

“Yes! Soft! They used to be plastic, or whatever, but they’re real!”

“That…is weird,” Roxy slowly started, and Alice was feeling the cushions herself. “But what does that do for us?”

“W-well…” Unfortunately she hadn’t thought that far, but suddenly she didn’t need to. With a gasp she ran over to the wall. “Look! See? See?!” Her hand landed on the hole in the wall, but it wasn’t a plastic lattice anymore. It was something far closer to an actual window. The “glass” was still plastic, but it was more than they had in the beginning. Little by little, the husk of an imaginary home was starting to turn into the real thing.

“Wait, you’re right. That plastic wasn’t there before, right?” Roxy stood and walked over, hugging her bear like it was second nature.

“Can we break it open…?” Alice, never once a rule-breaker or anarchist, suggested such a destructive yet brilliant idea.

“Not if everything is cheap and flimsy, no,” Alice looked around, more than likely about to express her doubts, but she stopped. She walked over to the couch by its side and pushed it with her foot.

The couch slid easily, but Michelle said, “It’s heavier. Like, real materials, kind of heavy.” She sounded surprised herself.

“M-maybe it’ll all be real if we just wait?” Alice suggested, and Michelle couldn’t have been happier to be on the same page as everyone.

“Y-yeah! It has to!” Michelle insisted. “Th-the…the bathroom already uhm…turned real…”

“Wait, it did? The toilet did?” Roxy suddenly perked up. “You didn’t think to start with that first?” And Roxy was off to the races, but Michelle dragged and slowed her down by the wrist.

“Wait, wait!” Michelle begged. “Y-you can’t go in there!”

“What? Why not?”

“Y-you said it yourself, didn’t you? Since…since we can’t take our diapers off?”

“Well, yeah…but I just want to see. You do too, don’t you Alice?”

“Yah!” Alice answered simply, but with a mouthful of silicone. Michelle promptly reached for it and pulled it out.

“Alice. Focus.”

“Sorry…”

But in other news, “Please, you guys can’t go up there! Stay away from the potty– p–...? I mean, stay away from the bathroom!” Michelle insisted. “Just…stay away, okay? It’s for the better, I promise!”

“Mitch, I just wanna see…” Roxy took another step, and Michelle violently tugged her back.

“Michelle, what the hell?!” Roxy complained “Ugh and why do you smell so bad? Why are you being so–?”

Michelle gave her a desperate look, feeling the tears almost ready to come back all over again.

“Please…! Don’t! I-I…I don’t wanna go back in there…and I don’t want you to either! Neither of you!” She’d been scared enough to never wish it on her worst enemy, let alone her best friends The thought alone was making it hard to stand again. It was making her stomach do somersaults all over again. But she had to be brave…she had to be strong. At least I’m in a diaper…

Alice tapped her friend on the shoulder. “Did…did something happen up there?”

“Th-the…the potty; it was real. It looked like the real thing! I-I know it was plastic when we first saw it, but after I checked the other room and was coming back, it was…real! Porcelain and it could flush! I-I tried to take my clothes off and use it, but it…” she sniffled. “It came to life…!”

“To life…?”  Alice went quiet.

“Like that pacifier, or whatever?” Roxy asked, and with a traumatic look in her eyes, Michelle slowly nodded.

“But wait, her pacifier is fine now. It’s normal isn’t it? Normal enough for Alice to keep trying to suck on it when no one’s looking…”

“No I don’t…!‘ the girl tried to lie, but two doubtful looks had her sulking in shame.

“Yes though! That’s what happened! Th-the potty became a monster, or something…! I-I can’t explain it….but I was scared, and I still am…! It nearly killed me! It-it broke off the wall and had teeth, eyes, and a tongue…!”

“...I want to go see,” Roxy decided, dragging her bear by the arm up the stairs.

“W-wait! Roxy, please!” Michelle cried and latched onto her panties. The girl fell on her knees and her diaper cover fell down.

“Mitch! Quit it already!” Roxy bickered. She dropped the bear from both hands. It hit the stair right in front of her. Then she grabbed the sides of her panties using both empty hands and pulled them right back up and over her diaper. Then, she picked up her bear once again and marched upward.

“W-wait…you let go of it!” Michelle exclaimed, but the girl was already ahead of her with Alice bringing up the close rear.

“M-Michelle…?” Alice whispered for her, and reluctantly she stopped to listen.

“What? Alice, we can’t let Roxy go in there!”

“Did…uhm…did you poop your diaper?”

The question was abrupt and she started to recoil.

“Wh-what? N-no! What are you talking about…?!” She looked over her shoulder. “L-look, we can’t let Roxy go in there!” And before Alice could answer, Michelle hustled ahead, finding it harder and harder to keep a straight face as the mess mushed against her backside. “Roxy…! Don’t go in there!”

The closed door was enough to make her heart rump, thump and jump to an uncomfortable degree. It was the fear of imagining what was exactly on the other side of it.

But it was too late. The door was opened with Roxy’s empty hand, and a cold sweat came over Michelle just from seeing the layer of light on her friend’s face.

“Stop! Stop!” she cried, “Close the door! It’s gonna eat you–!” And curse her own hectic and frantic behavior, but she opened her eyes and stared into the abyss once again.

And the abyss did not stare back.

“Wait, you’re right?” Roxy curiously walked in without a care. “It is real…?”

“D-don’t go near it!” Michelle tried to grab her, but she was too far beyond the doorway, a line Michelle dared not to cross.

“This…this was just a toy before though, right?” Roxy lifted the heavy lid with confused fascination, and Michelle was so paralyzed by what she expected to happen that she couldn’t stop Alice who slid right by, stepping inside the creature’s den as well.

“D-don’t touch it like that…! It’s gonna bite off your fingers!” Michelle cried with her hands on the doorframe for support.

“Maybe it’s like my pacifier, though?” Alice was just as curious and just as unguarded. Just looking at the thing made the messy diaper girl lightheaded and trembling. She wanted nothing more than to shut the door, lock it and lose the key.

And then it boomed. It shook, snarled, and screamed. The sound was deafening and was the harbinger of a thousand horrors and pure destruction and pandemonium. It was coming to life with another roar and Michelle shrieked. She wanted to save them, but she couldn’t. She was powerless and weak as she collapsed to her knees, firmly sitting in her mess.

“Michelle!” Roxy put on a confused look, but ultimately chuckled. “Why are you so scared?”

“I-it…it made that noise…!” she sniffled and wiped her eyes. “Get away before it wakes up…!”

“...This noise?”

And somehow liked she had tamed the beast, on command Roxy made the creature snarl and gargle again. Michelle screamed and slid back on the floor with her panicking and uncoordinated feet.

“Please! Please get out! It’s coming! I swear!”

“Michelle…?” Alice gave her a sideways look. “Roxy only flushed the toilet?”

“F-flush…?”

“Yeah, like this,” and Roxy demonstrated as she pressed the lever, but facts and logic didn’t matter when there was magic afoot, hence Michelle’s cowardly whimper as she slammed her eyes shut with her hands over her ears.

“Roxy, stop,” Alice said as the grin was growing on the girl’s face, and she did pull her hand back.

“Okay, okay… But really, Mitch, don’t you think you’re overreacting? Okay, yes, I believe you. The toilet came to life. But so did Alice’s pacifier? We’re not scared of that? Heck, Alice still likes sucking on it.”

“Hey…!”

Roxy walked back into the hallway, crouching down in front of her terrified friend, holding her bear with both arms. “Does it really scare you that much?”

“Y-yes…!” Michelle whimpered back. Whether it was reasonable or not, she felt the way that she did, and she wanted nothing to do with ever experiencing something so startling ever again!

Alice closed the door on her way out, and it felt like she could breathe again.

“Also…you totally pooped yourself, didn’t you?”

“Wh-...” Michelle started, but fear gave way for heavy embarrassment right then. “I…I couldn’t use the potty!”

“Yeah…” Roxy lamented as she pinched her nose, saying quite plainly in a nasally tone, “We really need to get out of here before I lose my sense of smell…”

“I…I’d change if I actually could…!” Michelle groaned as she got back on her feet. “I…I need a drink…”

“And I can’t believe I’m getting thirsty now, too…” Roxy frowned. “I guess since Mitchy messed herself the new bar is keeping our diapers dry…”

A lukewarm joke, and one with even worse timing.

“Actually, I…” Alice murmured, “I gotta pee…”

“J-just do it in your diaper!” Michelle blurted out. The ‘P’ word was scary in its own right to use. Potty… “It’s safer! A-and we can’t take our diapers off!”

“Sounds like she doesn’t wanna be left out~!” Roxy teased, and Michelle bit her lower lip.

“That’s not it! I’m trying to keep you guys safe!”

“I’m not gonna disagree that we have no choice, but somebody sounds a bit too pleased to poop their pampers…”

“Roxy, shut up!” Michelle whined, and her friend was already sauntering off to the stairs.

“Come on, you said the milk is normal enough, right? Are we gonna go drink some? All it sounds like to me is we have time to kill before we can actually get out of here.” And the big bad friend with the rude-dude attitude, smirking and giggling, acting so haughty in a dry diaper, all the while clutching her teddy bear like a dear friend.

“Do we really have to wait…?” Alice wondered aloud as they walked into the kitchen. Given how stocked the fridge was, Michelle opted for greed and left her barely started-bottle on the table and started anew with a fresh one.

All three friends got themselves a baby bottle of milk and sat in a circle on the floor. Quiet but at other times chatting, more than likely just trying to cope with a situation far beyond their full understanding. Nevertheless, it was calm and as collected as it could be.

“I wanna go home…” Alice sighed, and the mood couldn’t have felt more dreary.

“Us too, Alice…” Michelle solemnly nodded. “Don’t get upset though, okay? We’re almost out of this… Once the house becomes…’real’ enough, the doors should work too. Then we’ll get out. God, we’ll go buy all the candy we want afterward.”

“It feels like we’ve been in here for hours, though…” Roxy groaned, and there was little disagreement.

“I haven’t been counting,” and neither have the clocks with sticker decals, “but yeah…it feels like it’s been a bit.”

“And I can’t believe I’m actually gonna drink this…” Roxy grimaced. She held the bottle with both hands and her stuffed toy was resting in her lap.

“Wait! Roxy! See?” Michelle pointed with a fat finger. “You’re not holding the bear anymore!”

Roxy looked confused, but she looked down. “O-oh? …Well…I dunno… Alice is still using her pacifier, right?”

Michelle turned her head ninety degrees to the right, catching their friend trying to sneak a different kind of suck.

“Alice, quit it!” Michelle scolded with a firm tug on her soother.

“Why do you guys keep doing that…?” Alice moaned, quickly substituting for a bottle.

“And Alice is different!” Michelle argued, “In case if you forgot, that stupid thing is clipped to her shirt! You can let go of that any time! Here, look!” And to prove her point, Michelle lunged for the bear and grabbed him by the leg, yoinking him right out of her lap.

Michelle waited for the clarity to strike her friend, but instead it was a loud shout.

“DON’T TOUCH HIM!” Roxy went right back for it, but Michelle just barely kept it out of reach.

“R-Roxy? What’s your problem? Don’t you get it? This isn’t stuck on you anymore!”

“I DON’T CARE! GIVE HIM BACK!”

“Roxy, you’re acting like an actual kid!” Michelle got on her feet and backed up, and her friend that was taller and stronger than her started to charge with an angry look. Why was she going berserk? It was just a stupid teddy bear!

“Give him back…! GIVE HIM BACK!” she screamed and now Michelle was running.

“Roxy, calm down…!” Alice called after her too, and suddenly Michelle was fearing for her life.

“Roxy, I think this thing did something to you…!” Michelle called from the lead of the chase, not particularly happy to be running with a mess in her diaper. Her friend had somehow turned into an addict and her manic withdrawal had just been triggered.

“I…I don’t care! I want him! Give him now!” Roxy’s voice started to die, but she was just as determined. And…sniffling? “G-gib….give him back…!”

After the third lap around the first floor Michelle was maintaining the gap, but either Roxy was really starting to cry or her ears were getting better.

“R-roxy, are you actually crying?” Until finally Michelle heard the running die down and full-blown sobs erupt. Michelle skidded to a stop and turned on her heels, backing up as a new and confusing sight unfolded in front of her. Her friend, ready to move on to college and move away from home…was crying…over a teddy bear she was desperate to get rid of. She was on her stomach, sobbing, slapping and kicking the floor. Alice reached out her hand, but the moment the flailing started she kept her distance.

“I WANT HIM! I WANT HIM! I WAN’ HIM! I WAN’ HIM…!” Roxy, wailed, sniffled, and sobbed. Michelle was at a loss for words, wondering what to do next.

“M-Michelle…just give her back her bear…!” Alice said from the other side of the tantruming tyrant.

“I-it’s not even her bear…! She just found it, Alice! Roxy doesn’t act like this! She doesn’t act like a kid when she doesn’t get her way…!” How could she give this thing back in good conscience? Michelle looked down at the bear, confused and genuinely scared. Its black-beaded eyes seemed innocent and fine, and yet…all they’d been encountering were monsters… Was…was this one too…?

And Michelle kept walking back as she looked at the cursed object she didn’t understand. It was as if it took a piece of Roxy away with it, storing that part inside itself. Her stability? Her rationale? Emotional composure…?

Roxy didn’t like teddy bears… Alice didn’t suck on pacifiers… And potties weren’t supposed to be scary… And Michelle had spatial awareness. Or at least she thought she did.

As Michelle walked back, the open area into the living room she expected was open no longer, despite having run through it multiple times just a minute ago. Sticky cords were suddenly against her bare arms and back. She froze from the foreign feeling and immediately stepped forward to escape it, but the webs were stuck on her and like a giant rubber band she was elasticized right back where she tried to leave.

“A-Alice?! H-help!”

Alice, who tried to sooth her raging friend, looked up in surprise. “Michelle?! Wh-what happened? What is that?”

“I don’t know what ‘what’ is!” She tried to look up from both shoulders. All she saw were turquoise bands on hooks bolted into the doorframe. “I-I’m stuck!” Everything seemed to happen exactly when she couldn’t see it, because her lower half wasn’t the way her vision had left it. Her clothes were the same, but suddenly green threads were growing and spreading around her crotch,

“No! Stop! Alice, please, help!” Michelle took another step, but her foot didn’t fully hit the ground, making for a weak and pitiful step forward that just lightly bounced her up and down.

“H-how…?” Alice asked, and Michelle couldn’t have answered any faster.

“PULL ME!”

And Alice did, but the threads had fully wrapped around the trapped girl’s crotch, ending in something that first resembled, but eventually became a fully padded seat.

“No– no! Lift up, not forward!” Michelle tried herself, but the only thing she could see was the seat she was in, yet the sides were too slick and slim to actually grab.

“I-I…I can’t…!” Alice grunted. Her strength was the least of them all, and it showed as she panted and Michelle was dropped into another bounce, massaging her used diaper over and over.

“What the hell even is this…?!” Michelle cried. She couldn’t stop bouncing up and down, softly but repeatedly. It wasn’t a fun or exciting bounce, but instead one that felt like it was supposed to soothe, and yet it only made her more annoyed and agitated.

“Hang…on…” Alice paused to catch her breath, but picked up off the floor what Michelle dropped.

“Wait– Alice? No! Don’t! She can’t have that!” Michelle tried to reach, but she was quickly whisked back into place by her bouncer.

“But she’s really sad, Michelle! You can’t make Roxy cry!” Alice frowned with the teddy bear in her hands. “Roxy? Uhm…I have your bear?”

Their friend, who had finally stopped yelling was bawling on the floor, raised her tear-stricken face and her eyes went wide when the offering was presented.

“M-my bear…!” she squealed. Roxy. Roxy of all people, squealed. Michelle watched with saddened confusion as her friend who had somehow become a fractured version of herself swiped the bear and hugged it with a sickeningly childish love.

“R-roxy…” Michelle called from her bouncer that she could not escape. “I-I’m sorry for taking your bear…but please, can you get me out of here?”

And the look she got was far from friendly. The look on her friend’s face was disgusted and disdainful.

“You want me to help you?” Roxy spat, wiping her tears. “Looks like you got what you deserve!”

“Roxy, please! I did what I did to prove a point…!” And it hurt even more to be treated so distantly. Roxy was sane again and she sounded like herself, save for the bear being by her side once again. Her mind really had been warped, and she was either too stubborn or choosing not to realize it. Would Alice act like that if she lost her pacifier, too?

“You did it to be a jerk!” Roxy marched forward, coming face to face with her friend. And courtesy of the bouncer that kept Michelle’s feet off the floor, she was just about eye-to-eye with the tallest one of the trio.

“A-a jerk…?! Roxy, I’m your friend! I’m just trying to help you! You’re holding onto that thing like you’re an addict!”

“And don’t talk about him that way!” she spat defensively. “Just because you pooped yourself doesn’t mean you have to take it out on me!”

“I’M TRYING TO HELP YOU!” Michelle screamed, but the louder she got, the more and faster she bounced. It moved like it was in tune with her emotions.

“C-can we all just calm down…?” Alice grabbed Roxy’s arm.

“I want an apology,” Roxy demanded.

“An apology? For trying to make you realize what that stupid bear is doing to you?”

“Don’t call my bear stupid!”

“Michelle, you’re instigating…!” Alice complained.

“Have you both lost your minds?! I’m trying to point out what should be obvious here!”

“Let’s calm down, okay?” Alice tugged Roxy back. “Can we all take a break?”

And whatever they decided to do, it wasn’t Michelle’s decision to make.

“W-wait, where are you two going?! Get me out of this thing!”

“As if,” Roxy scoffed and crinkled away and back into the kitchen. Alice and Michelle stared at one another, both at a loss for words.

“A-Alice…?” Michelle pleaded.

“I…I tried, Michelle…” Alice awkwardly drilled her shoe on the floor. “Just give Roxy some time, okay? I’m sure she’ll help… But you probably should apologize… I’ll talk to her, so…wait here, okay?” And while Michelle doubted her friend was intentional with her choice of words, it stung no less.

“G-guys…?” Michelle spoke out to an empty room, and they were gone. “Guys…!” Michelle called and tried to run, but she angrily whimpered when her shoes barely scraped the floor. She was trapped until either this thing or her friends decided to free her. She only tried to help and this was what she got? “D-don’t just…don’t just leave me here…!”

But they did. And time went on, and on.

And on and on. So long that Michelle was getting drowsy. Tired? But this was no time to sleep or take a nap. Far too much was at stake, and she couldn’t count on her friends enamored with pacifiers and teddy bears to save the day.

Keep yourself together! Stay vigilant…! Keep…keep your head in the game… Keep your…

After a long period of bouncing and mostly quiet ambience, and in spite of repeatedly bouncing up and down, rubbing her butt over and over into a messy seat, she somehow dozed off.

But alas,

Bounce.

Squish.

Bounce.

Squish.

The mess became soft and the grossness that once permeated the air was starting to seem almost normal, like she wasn’t smelling anything bad anymore. She could feel it, but that was it. As if it was a near odorless mass. Soon enough, it was all like white noise, and Michelle fell asleep.

Sleeping soundly to the feeling of her own squishing diaper.

“Michelle…! Psst! Michelle!” A voice whispered

“Mmm…” Michelle mumbled back, still half asleep.

“Let’s just leave her then. Maybe that’ll teach her a lesson for being so mean all night…”

“Roxy, stop it! We’re all friends…!”

“Hmmf.”

“Michelle…are you awake?” Alice whispered again.

Finally the girl’s eyes opened.

“Wh-what…? Did…did I fall asleep?” The bouncer wasn’t so autonomously bouncy any more. It was more than just her toes on the ground now.

“Yeah…” Alice nodded, but her nose did twitch a little. The sign of smelling a diaper in dire need of a change. “Are you actually comfortable uhm…sleeping like that?” It was a loaded question; sleeping while standing as well as sleeping with a loaded diaper.

“I…I don’t know…? C-can you please get me out now? How long was I sleeping for?”

“Uhm…and hour, maybe, but look!” Alice excitedly pointed. Michelle looked over her shoulder.

And while the girl was shocked to hear such a long time passing by, she did turn her head. She briefly ignored the pictures now with finer art and sharper detail, and even the TV with no longer a fake screen but a black screen hiding behind a round glass cover, like a normal box would have. But right next to her jaded friend with a look staring at anything but her, there it was. A door. A real door. Even from here Michelle could see the intricate metal carving that plastic molds just couldn’t match. This was it…!

“A-a door…? A door…!”

“Yeah!” Alice excitedly nodded. “We can leave now!”

Michelle’s mouth hung open in an astonished gasp. “H-holy…holy crap…!” Literally. “P-please!” she grabbed Alice by the shoulders. “D-don’t leave me! Take me! Get me out of this thing!” Now that the exit was within their grasp, just to see one of them by the door, knowing at any second she could be left behind had her terrified. And before Alice could steer her attention, Michelle tried turning her whole body but ultimately slingshotting back into place.

“R-Roxy…! Please come over here! Please!”

She couldn’t see how her friend was reacting, but she did see the desperate look Alice was giving her. Soon enough she heard the heavy footfalls and Roxy was standing in front of her, as well as her bear that was being held like royalty.

“What?” Roxy asked with disinterest.

“Roxy…I’m sorry…! I’m sorry for making you mad! I’m sorry for being mean! I-I don’t want you to hate me, so please; get me out of this thing!”

“Yeah?” she raised her eyebrow. “Sounds like you just wanna get out of your bouncer.”

“I do!” Michelle cried, but quickly added, “A-and I wanted to apologize…! I don’t want to fight! I don’t want to be left here!” Was she really begging her friend of countless years to not leave her behind in a kidnapper’s situation?

“...You don’t just owe me an apology.”

“I-I do…? I… Y-yes! I’m sorry! Alice, I’m sorry for including you like this! It-it wasn’t fair to do that to you…! If…if you want to suck on your pacifier, that’s fine! Power to you! Yeah!”

“Uhm…thanks…” Alice answered unsurely, but it must have been the first positive affirmation she’d gotten thus far. It was the first time someone said something that caused her to put the soother back in her mouth rather than take it out.

“No, not Alice,” Roxy crudely spoke. “Bear.”

“Bear…you…you want me to apologize to him?”

“So you’re not gonna?” Roxy threatened, and Michelle cracked immediately.

“NONONONO! No! H-his name is Bear, right?” She named him?! “Bear! M-Mr. Bear! I’m sorry, okay! I’m so sorry for taking you from Roxy like that!” She begged dearly and apologized profusely, all in spite of it being an inanimate object. But that’s what scared her, because she couldn’t be so sure anymore.

Michelle was quiet aside from her sobs, terrified once by a potty monster, but now from being abandoned by her own friends who were supposed to be with her through thick and thin. All because somehow a toy had driven a wedge between them.

“Okay, fine. I forgive you.”

Michelle’s face lit up like the sun.

“Great! Now please help me get out–”

“But Bear doesn’t yet.”

The pivot from joy to despair was immediate. “What? Why?!” She didn’t hear that stupid toy say one goddamn thing!

“He wants you to go get a friend yourself. Maybe that’ll teach you to be nicer to other people’s friends.”

“B-but…! N-no…! Okay! Fine! Sure! A-a friend, right…? ” Was she suggesting what she thought she was? Grab something that horrid nursery and have it attached to her? She’d…she’d be like Roxy was now! Stubborn, ignorant and controlled…! She was still herself, but…she wasn’t! But as long as she got out of this bouncer, there was always the route of lying. She could run for the door. Escape. Sure, Roxy would be upset, likely angry, but either her mind would be sane again or Michelle could apologize again and again. As frustratingly fine as she felt, she knew she shouldn’t be fine with wearing a diaper filled with her own waste. It was supposed to be uncomfortable and it was supposed to smell. She was supposed to feel that way and yet she didn’t.

“Just let me out and I’ll go grab one!” Absolutely not.

“I grabbed you one,” and Roxy held it out in one hand which her friend flinched at. She was expecting Bear’s cousin, or something. Maybe a distant relative like a panda or monkey, but that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t even the same family tree. She wasn’t holding a stuffed animal, but a bracelet…? A scrunchie, sort of. Neon green with frog eyes and its tongue wrapping around the whole ensemble.

“Y-you did…?” Michelle looked at her hand nervously. She certainly wasn’t expecting that… “W-well…can I go pick something out myself? I’d rather I got to choose…”

“You can get another after you put this on. So what’s it gonna be? Take it, or don’t?” Or in other words, be rescued or be left behind.

“R-Roxy…!” Michelle pouted, stomping her foot, but she was already back to bouncing. “A-Alice, you can’t let her do this!”

“It’s just a toy, Michelle…! We gotta hurry before the door goes away, or something…!” Alice urged, and suddenly the peer pressure doubled in size.

But the question that scared her the most was what would the bracelet even do to her? Would she actually think of it as a “friend?” Would it warp her mind? Make her into someone else…? She didn’t know and never wanted to, but she had no choice. Not unless she wanted to keep bouncing in her messy diaper.

“F…” Fuck! “Fine!” Michelle shot out her hand and the bracelet slipped on her wrist. She braced for the shock or sensation, just like Alice and Roxy must have felt, but it didn’t come. Nothing. She slowly opened her eyes, waiting for something to happen, but it didn’t. She felt the same as she did just a second ago. Was it…a dud?

“Okay, I’m lifting you now,” and while Alice held Bear, Roxy grunted, but she did lift Michelle much easier than Alice could have. It was high enough for Michelle to kick the dangerous trap out of the way to land on her own two feet again.

“Th-thank you…!” she laughed just glad to be free, barely noticing the plastic jingle from her wrist. Looking down at it, the frog eyes weren’t as stable as she thought. The black pupils were just black balls bouncing around in the plastic dome eyes.

“Can we please go now…?” Alice urged them, and both girls nodded. Roxy took the lead, Alice went second, and finally Michelle who was apparently still trying to get her land legs back.

“Are you alright?” Alice noticed her slight wobble.

“Y-yeah…I think these diapers are starting to affect how I walk…” Michelle groaned, and she also couldn’t help but notice, or rather have a suspicion that Alice’s diaper seemed a bit…thicker. Slightly, just barely, and maybe the tiniest tinge less whiter…

“Alice, uh…did you…?”

“Guys, come on!” Roxy called, and beside her was the end of a long and terrifying nightmare.

The door was wide open and looking out into the black void.

“It-it opened…!” Michelle exclaimed and rushed forward. There would be time to figure out how to get the clothes off later. Escape was far more important!

And all three emerged from the house of horror and mystery. They could see nothing but what the light leaking from the glass windows of the house shined on. There was no front yard, or at least a traditional one. It was hard, but it wasn’t the road, asphalt, sidewalk, grass, or dirt. It had a smooth finish and grooves and different tones of brown slits and swirls.

“Wh-where…where are we? What now…?” Alice stood nervously in place, as did the other two. Ahead was darkness and so was above. Their hard plane of nothing extended beyond the point of visibility to a place they dared not travel.

“One…one step at a time…” Roxy took a breath, turning around. “We just need to… n-need to…?”

“Need to what…?” Michelle asked as she tried to see something beyond, but was at a visible loss. Finally she looked the same way as Roxy and now Alice. Back where they came. Back at the house.

“That…? That’s the house we were in…?” Michelle asked.

“Y-yeah, but…” Roxy’s face started to sink.

“That’s the…” Alice murmured, and her trembling hand scanned her front, popping something she desperately needed in her mouth.

Aside from their friend sucking on a pacifier, their silence was now deafening as their prison was just a cell of something far greater.

The two stories. The slanted roof. The windows, the door and plastic vinyl-siding. It all looked familiar. Eerily and terrifyingly. The cruel joke was finally here to deliver the punchline and all their guts were suddenly sore.

Michelle trembled as she lifted a finger, sounding like she was trying not to laugh. “D-doll…dollhouse… Th-that…! Th-that’s it, right? That’s the dollhouse, isn’t it?! The one we moved before w-we passed out?! Why were we in that? Wh-what the fuck…?!”

“N-no…that’s…what…? What does that even mean…?” Roxy’s arms fell, but Bear hung from her hand.

Then night turned into day.

The eternal darkness in the blink of a blinding eye gone from nothing to endless something. Light filled the world and the party flinched and rubbed their eyes, spinning around.

A distant, but deep buzzing hum came somewhere from the sky, but there were no clouds or sun. Just thick and giant wooden rafters that had to have been larger than life. Bigger and thicker than the largest trees known to man.

Their empty floor was wide and expansive, but it did come to an end. Their world was flat and wooden. A…giant’s table? Like mountains in the distance mighty thick shelves stood in aisles, littered with trinkets, toys, knick knacks and more miscellaneous things much larger than their naked eyes could perceive at such a distance. The walls were mighty and high like they were in the bottom of a quarry, rough and stained cement.

“Wh…what…?” Michelle whimpered in a terrified voice. Alice was sitting still, hugging her knees while she sucked, and Roxy stumbled back, falling over herself.

And then a loud voice sent out a laugh that gave them all goosebumps. A shrill, old voice.

“Oh my! Are you already finished?”

High and far away on their left, they could make out stairs, and down them descended a giant.

“S-someone’s coming…!” Michelle cried, then grabbed her friends by the collars of their clothes. “H-hide! We need to hide!”

“And go back in that thing?!” Roxy practically screamed.

“N-no! Hide behind it! Something! I-I don’t know who’s coming, but I don’t want to get caught! Now get your ass in gear!” And Michelle quite literally brought up the rear by pushing directly on Roxy’s padded backside while she took Alice by the wrist. And it was an unfortunate detail, but Michelle could now feel the warmth radiating through Roxy’s own underwear.

They ran, crawled, and scrambled as fast as they could, frightened and shocked by a worldview that kept their mind in shambles, but at least one of them was stable enough to know how to move. The table was large and wide, but they were still close to the house and were soon huddled and crouched by the side casting a shadow from the giant fluorescent bulb in the sky.

“What’s…what’s even happening…!” Roxy ran her hands through her hair, and Alice quietly rocked on her crinkling bottom, sniffling while tears rolled down her cheeks. For once Michelle didn’t feel like telling her friend to quit the pacifier. Michelle herself slapped her hand against the house, making more noises from her frog friend wrapped around her wrist.

Loud steps scraped across the floor, drawing closer and closer.

“Just…” Michelle near-strangled herself just to sound quieter than a mouse, “Be silent, okay?”

Everyone collectively nodded despite their different depictions of grief, and everyone either wet or messy stayed as still as they could.

“Girls…?” An old voice beckoned. Close, or far. They couldn’t tell because they’d never met something so tall and so giant before. “Are you still in the house…? Hmm? I know you’re somewhere…!”

“H-how…?” Roxy sputtered, but a hand slapped right over her lips, jingling frog eyes right in front of her  just for good measure.

“Not…now!” Michelle mouthed.

A minute went by. Then two. Nothing happened. Nothing was said from the unknown giant, and no one did anything to move or make a noise.

But Alice slowly pulled out her pacifier, just enough to get the quiet, almost muted words out, “S-should we look…?”

It was a question with an easy answer, but one that inspired dumb decisions. Quite hesitantly, and bracing for the emotional and mental pain of doing something so reckless, Michelle fought every fiber of common sense in herself and slightly eased off the wall, shuffling ever so slowly, trying to crinkle as little as possible as she inched closer and closer to the corner of the house.

And she looked.

And the monster looked back.

The moment her eye peeked it immediately came face to face with the far larger pupil watching from above like a satellite in the sky. Her muscles locked up once she saw it all in full. The faded, wispy hair. The bags under her eyes, the wrinkles lining her face, and her full set of dencher teeth grinning down at her.

The exchange was silent, but inside herself Michelle was screaming.

MOVE! MOVE! RUN! HIDE! GET AWAY!

Her lips quivered, and the old woman’s smile grew just a small bit wider.

And in a loud, old voice she chuckled,

“Well hello there!”

The girl first to witness the beast screamed as she flung herself back, falling right into Roxy’s lap. The ones with their backs to the wall suddenly fell back as their cover began to ascend. Not just the wall, but their entire property; the whole house.

“Let’s get this out of the way…!” The giant old woman grunted, and suddenly the home was on the other side of the table. “Did you dearies get used to living in there?”

Everyone was speechless, like mere peasants witnessing the first coming of Christ, but only if he were the bringer of destruction itself.

“D-don’t…don’t hurt us…!” Roxy stammered, but she spoke in a begging voice.

“Hurt you?” The woman had an animated surprise on her face. “Oh, goodness, no! I would never hurt you! I don’t know who raised you girls, but I come from a house where we most certainly do not break our toys!” she answered sagely.

“W-wait…wait!” Michelle in her tears and fear managed to put a coherent thought together. “Y-you’re…you’re that woman! The one who let us in…!”

“That I am!” she smiled with a nod. “And you’re the three girls who wandered into my basement for free candy!” she chuckled, and Alice quivered even more.

“A-and that’s…that’s the dollhouse we moved upstairs…!” Michelle yelled back. At least their surroundings were now starting to become terrifyingly clear. “We– We’re back in the basement again?”

“That’s right!” the woman smiled and agreed, but she said no more, like there wasn’t a single problem afoot.

“Wh-who…who are you?” Roxy asked next, but she was just as wary and just as afraid.

“Me?” the woman raised her eyebrows, bringing a finger up to herself. “Oh…! Well…” she twirled her hand, and a long stick pinched between her fingers twirled with every twist and flick of her hand. “A grandmother who loves her grandkids quite dearly!”

The air was uneasy, everything felt wrong. No matter how old she was, she was far bigger than they were. They hardly felt innocence or good intentions, which is why the best they could do was huddle together for physical comfort.

“Did…did you do this to us? Did you make us…” Michelle wanted to phrase it differently, just so she didn’t have to confront their own reality, but the facts were painfully apparent. “D-did…did you shrink us?”

“Sh-shrink?!” Alice blurted, too grounded and too simple to extrapolate something as insane and scientifically fictitious as what was right before their very eyes.

“I couldn’t just keep you girls your normal size!” the woman fussed with a sigh. “As you were, you’d be far too big for my granddaughter! She’s only seven!”

“Why though? Why did you shrink us? What are we even doing here?!” Michelle tried to sound demanding, but her voice cracked and shook. And just as she asked, so did Roxy.

“We even helped you move that dollhouse! Why are you treating us like–?!” Roxy tried to say, but from both Michelle and Roxy’s tops, a nub grew off their clothes and left a trailing strap as they floated in the air, then simultaneously plunged into their mouths. They immediately tried to pull the pacifiers out, but they were hard stuck.

“Girls, please remember that my granddaughter is going to be the one playing with you? I won’t expect you to have manners as well as a seven year old, given you’re just toys, but I’d appreciate some manners.” The woman’s stutter and innocent fog in her head was gone. She sounded clear and with ill intent, especially after seeing the residual purple glitter sparkle from her stick.

“Now, one at a time~!” she flicked her wrist, and Michelle’s pacifier fell out of her mouth. “And your question, sweetheart?”

In one simple move, it made it clear just how little control they had, and how much power was in this woman’s hands. “Wh-why…why did you shrink us?”

“Hm? Oh, well, I mentioned my daughter was bringing her over tomorrow, didn’t I? I thought I said I was giving her this dollhouse?”

And somehow she expected them to sift through the lies and truths.

“Y-yes, I-I remember, but…” was there even a way to negotiate? “But why us?”

The woman tilted her head with confusion. “You were in the dollhouse, weren’t you?”

“Yes, we were…but–?”

“Did you see the dolls in there?” she interrupted and asked, and Michelle looked lost and helpless.

“N-no…?”

And not a word needed to be said. The old woman with both hands offered her palms, gesturing to all three of them.

“And I solved that problem!”

“U-us…? W-wait! No! You can’t! That’s–!” Pop went the pacifier.

“And I think you wanted to ask something…?” Another wand wave and the pacifier fell out of Roxy’s mouth.

“--WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK…?!”

The woman widened her eyes, and so did Alice and Michelle.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO US?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT’LL HAPPEN ONCE WE–!” The pacifier was forced back in, and in angry grunts Roxy desperately tried to tear it back out, but it wouldn’t budge.

“And toys for children do not use adult language,” she gave the girl a narrow-eyed stare. And even now, despite how fierce Roxy could be, she still kept the teddy bear close by. “Not that she’ll be able to hear you, but good toys make for good play, and I expect you all to behave for my sweet little Holly!”

“Mmm! Mmmmfff!” Michelle begged with cries behind her gag, and after the woman noticed her, she made another disinterested wave and suddenly her mouth was free.

“Watch your words, young lady,” the granny warned.

“Wh-why do you keep calling us toys…? We’re not dolls…! We’re…we’re people! Why can’t you just let us go, please! We won’t tell anyone…!” and for extra good measure, “SHE won’t tell anyone either!” Michelle rocked her much more agitated friend on the shoulder.

“One thing at a time…” the woman sighed. “Yes, you are toys, and you are dolls. That dollhouse is your new home. I needed your girl’s help and I just know you’ll do a splendid job for my cute granddaughter! I’m sure it’s been a few years since you girls played with dolls of your own, but finding nice quality ones these days can be so difficult!” she huffed. “Magic works wonders for such specific little things!”

“P-please…! Please just let us go…! Please just–!” but the conversation was forcibly ended.

“Let’s see…oh! I’m sorry! We haven’t heard from you yet!” the woman chuckled, and with a wave Alice’s pacifier came out next.

Alice’s eyes went wide and her friends waited dearly and expectantly for her to try something. She looked at them, frightened and scared, then up at the giant larger than life.

“Well?” the old witch grinned.

And without a word, ready to cry all over again, Alice shoved the pacifier right back in her mouth, no magic needed.

“Awh!” she laughed, Michelle’s hope fizzled out, and Roxy looked enraged and terrified. “I can see that one doesn’t need much instruction!”

And now it was a matter of what to do. How to escape someone that could physically and mystically stop them. How could they communicate a plan if two of them were forced into silence, and another was petrified into going mute by choice?!

“You see, girls, that dollhouse is a little something that I’ve had for a long time! Unfortunately my daughter didn’t like dolls so much, but thankfully her little girl does! I’ve been giving you all some time to get used to your new home before tomorrow; I’m sure you all must be awfully tired! Mm…and let me see here for a moment…”

The moment they tried to run, save for Alice too frozen to move, the old woman’s hand already had them. The chosen one was Michelle, hanging on for dear life as the woman’s palm with her sitting on it raised at a frightening height.

“If I had to guess…” and she made a loud sniff right next to the girl. “Oopsie, I think someone made a poopsies!”

And somehow in spite of the terror, Michelle found it in herself to blush.

“For having such good manners, just this once I’ll make it fast…” and with a tap on Michelle’s backside, despite getting used to it, the smell stinking from her diaper disappeared. She leaned forward just slightly and the diaper crinkled with a new, much drier lease on life, like it was dry all over again. “You’ll need to be patient with Holly, but I’m sure she’ll get good at changing diapers!”

And back down Michelle went, happier than ever to be reunited with what felt like stable ground.

“And one for you!” the woman soothed, cooing at the sobbing Alice in her hand, giving her a magic diaper change of her own.

“And while I would have given one to your other friend, I believe she needs to… Hm? Where did she scurry off to?”

Michelle and Alice looked around, and sure enough Roxy was gone. She was gone? How?!

“Ah! There you are!” the woman chuckled, and somewhere that looked like half a mile away for the dollified girls, the wrinkly hand descended then plucked something behind the doll house and lifted it. Flailing and suspended by the scruff of her dress was Roxy, screaming behind her pacifier, muffled and muted.

Roxy was now in her palm, finding the fury in herself all over again.

“What? Are you trying to say something?” the woman tilted her head. “Goodness, I’m not going to let you speak if it’s just more potty mouth again?”

And vehemently Roxy shook her head.

“No? None at all? …If you say one bad word, the pacifier goes back in– and no diaper change. Understood?”

And Roxy nodded obediently, and that’s what made Michelle worried.

The pacifier came out.

“Alright, come on, out with it! I have to go to bed soon too, you know? What did you– Ow! Y-you just bit me?!”

While Michelle and Alice couldn’t see it directly, they had certainly seen their friend’s head sink low for something. But as much as they wanted to root for her, it felt powerless. Like some cheap shot at a pointless rebellion.

Roxy knew there wouldn’t be time to speak, which is why she settled for a smug grin, tucking her bear by her side in the same motion. But their captor looked angry. Mad.

“So that’s how it’s going to be from you then, is it? This is not a three-strike household young lady, and you broke the rules once already, and there will be absolutely no biting my granddaughter!” she exhaled through her nose, and her other hand arched high, pointing the wand down at their friend like a death ray. “I think we need an example to be made.”

It was a brief, meager green flash. Nothing was clear until it suddenly and abruptly was.

Michelle and Alice collectively screamed when from a drop more than thirty feet high their friend was dropped. She fell fast and slammed into the table. They cried as they hurried over, frantic and bawling.

Roxy was dropped.

They crowded over her body to see her condition, and by some grace her arms and legs didn’t look broken, by some miracle…!

Roxy, please be okay…! Please be…

Michelle panicked as she caressed her friend’s cheek, but she stopped at the hard cheekbone. And…the hard cheek… The solid face…the lifeless eyes made from porcelain and plastic. The painted blush and solid lips carved onto a solid face. Her fingers were stiff and fused, all as one with just her thumb pointed out.

Everywhere they felt or touched their friend, it was hard and cold. There was no warmth. Her arms didn’t bend and neither did her legs. It was too fast for rigormortis but too late to do anything. It wasn’t Roxy. It was something that resembled her. But still fitted in her hand, hard and just as stiff was the bear, pressing against her poofy skirt just above her thick diaper.

R-Ro…Roxy…

There weren’t even screams. A stunned silence. Their friend. The strongest, the bravest and most rebellious was before them, but she wasn’t. The spearhead of their trio was now the dullest and decrepit.

She was a doll.

Inanimate. Lifeless. Unmoving, other than where her plastic joints allowed, but it wasn’t Roxy herself. Roxy was gone and a cruel imitation of her appearance was left in her place.

“With how the magic works, Holly won’t tell the difference between you two and this one!” Granny chipperly added, and as her shadow loomed over them, Michelle couldn’t bear to look up at her, far too shaken and afraid. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be. A sick, horrible dream. Right now, they were all home. All three of them, celebrating a fun Halloween night and eating their candy like three college-bound, lifelong friends would. Someone just got a bad mushroom mixed with their snickers, and right now it was all a sick and horrible fever dream. It had to be. It couldn’t be anything else!

But nothing was changing. They weren’t waking up. They weren’t magic; not like this woman, because no matter how much Michelle and Alice cried over their friend’s plastic corpse she wouldn’t turn back. She was gone. Gone for good all because of one reckless, stupid decision!

A loud clasping of hands brought their attention. “Well, I think that’s enough chit chat, and I hope this explains things, girls! Now I’d say it’s time for bed!”

And she made one final wave with her wand, now pavloving the girls into trembling with fear, scrambling to hold each other together over Roxy the doll.

But the damage or change she had caused wasn’t apparent. Not at first. But then they saw it. Alice could barely point straight, but she didn’t need to when the target was growing in size. From the house, a four-legged beast barreled toward them. It’s blanketed fur waved in the wind through its ribcage of bars on either side, flapping its rigid front open and closed like a lion. The carved claws from its feet pounced with the front and back working in tandem. It was another impossibility stacked on top of so many more, and the girls didn’t even try to run. Resistance was futile, and all hope was lost.

The crib they’d seen from so long ago, stashed away in the nursery, was now sprinting towards them like the monster it and everything else in that dollhouse was. Rushing to them and ready to take them back, deep inside the confines where they’d remain for who knew how long…

It was made of wood and metal, yet it’s “mouth” stretched and opened like it was soft skin. Michelle hardly blinked when the monster crib’s tongue of blankets and pillows shot out at her, wrapping around her like a swaddle and flinging her inside the beast’s stomachs. Alice was just as demure, defeated and subdued. Soon both girls were bundled in the crib, scratching the table with its front-footed paw like a horse.

“Off to bed, dollies!” the woman chuckled, and the crib spun around, headed straight back to their prison.

The pacifier’s magic had worn off and it fell out of Michelle’s mouth, but courtesy of the strap, it didn’t go far. Alice still held onto hers. They laid on their sides, rolling as the crib rocked and rode across the empty plains of the table, somehow squeezing back inside, barreling and tumbling, slamming against the walls of the home as it traversed the stairs meant for someone far narrower. The crude beast finally burst back into the nursery where it huddled back in the corner, turning around, shuffling in place. It shuffled and moved little by little, dying slowly down until the life in it was gone, and no one could’ve been the wiser that it’d just swallowed two petrified girls.

Broken and cracked, but obedient.

Just as toys should be.

-----------------------------------------

“Holly…!” the seven year-old’s mother called down the hall, down the stairs. “Lunch is ready!”

“Okaaayyy!” the little girl shouted right back, just as loud. “I just gotta finish changing her!”

“Those dollies that granny gave you?”

“Yah!”

“Sweetheart, they can wait! These chicken nuggets aren’t gonna stay hot…!”

“Chicken?!” Holly squealed and her hands stopped short.

“Yup! So come and get it! There’s plenty of time to play after!”

“O…Okay!” and dropping everything she was doing, Holly stood on her feet and scurried out of the room. A room of pink walls, a twin-sized canopy bed, pale gray carpet, and toys on toys littered throughout.

But sitting at her activity table was a house seen prior in an older, much more magical woman’s basement. A dollhouse and all its accompanying accessories.

“D-do you think she’s gone…?” A frightful voice whispered.

“For now…yeah…” Michelle sighed back, turning her head over to look at Alice. “Didn’t finish with you?”

“N-no…” the girl grimaced, propping herself up by the elbows just to look. Her diaper had seen far better days. It was thick, heavy and bloated. Discolored and terribly full.

Michelle went back to staring up at the ceiling, feeling the same wet and smelly fullness with herself, having gone just as long and using it just as much.

“Is…is she getting bored of us…?” Alice whimpered. “Wh-what if she stops–?”

“She’s not getting bored, Alice,” Michelle sighed. “I think she’s just starting to find the changing part less fun…Or…she’s just going through phases… But yeah, having a seven year old only remember to give us a diaper change once a day isn’t exactly great…” Granted, there were just some days when the girl was far too busy to play with them, or when her mom decided it was time to go out. This far in and they’d had the unfortunate experience of their changes being canceled on account of mommy’s midway plans.

Alice, Michelle, and Roxy– what was left of her, laid beside one another, all in diapers and the same clothes they started with. Two were wet and messy, and the other was fresh and clean. The first and the luckiest, but least cognizant to actually appreciate the benefits of a dry diaper.

“M-Michelle…what if we tried writing a message to her, or something?”

“And make her think the house is haunted? Halloween was months ago, Alice. I don’t feel like scaring kids…”

“B-but…!”

“Alice, we’ve tried. Moving doesn’t work and neither does speaking! She doesn’t see any of that! Not like her stupid grandmother did…” The woman had alluded to it, but in spite of having no grasp on what magic was at work, Holly, the granddaughter now the proud “owner” of three dolls, wasn’t being intentionally ignorant. She didn’t react to gestures, screams, or cries. Maybe she’d feel it if they bit, kicked, or punched her, but neither one dared to try that. Michelle sadly looked at their friend.

It was suicide.

“Well…until she gets back,” Michelle fully sat up, barely flinching as her thick and wet diaper squelched underneath her, “wanna go get some milk?” Perks of a bottomless fridge.

“Y-yeah, I guess…” Alice murmured.

So they stood up with a heavy weight between their legs, wearing diapers wet and messed in far beyond what a normal one could handle. Courtesy of granny, it was hypothesized early on that Holly wouldn’t be having to deal with leaks or blowouts… Probably poor design for toys.

Soon they were sitting on the couch, sucking down a bottle, drinking what they’d been sucking on for the longest time now. Quiet and silent, save for the distant squeals and laughs from Holly and her mother on the first floor. Enjoying the freedoms that they no longer had.

And in moments like these, when the moments felt too grim or too heavy, Alice slowly dropped her bottle and inevitably popped her pacifier back into her mouth, holding her knees to suck and self-soothe. Michelle slid right next to her, holding her by the shoulder, and for herself she held out her hand, staring at her wrist.

Whether it was magic or self-taught, Michelle didn’t know, but the feeling felt nice enough. Engaging in her one of terribly few recreational activities, she wiggled and shook her wrist. Plastic balls bounced and made noise, and a silly smile grew on her traumatized face.

She wiggled and watched her new friend’s eyes bounce around, all in its green and funnily long-tongue splendor. Froggy. While thinking of how she got it brought her to tears, all she needed to do was just shake her wrist a little harder and forget.

So even if her diaper was full and they couldn’t quite take care of themselves anymore, they were surviving, not to be confused with living.

Drinking milk and playing with baby toys in their free time. How ironic, though.

Toys playing with toys.