Across town, the 8-year-and-1-week-old Molly Stevens was in her room, opening for herself what was in all probability her last birthday present of the year. Someone had left it on her doorstep: a big, sturdy plastic box, pink and white, with a cherry red bow atop, and a note, on which only the following was written: "For Molly. These dolls are very very special, so take good care of them!" Nobody had any idea where it had come from, or who possibly could've given it to her. Mommy had even insisted Daddy open it and give it a look-through before Molly herself could mess with it, just to be safe; there was a funny vibe about the whole thing, that none of them could really quite place. Still, Daddy had eventually given the all-clear, and brought the big old thing into Molly's room for the girl to enjoy, herself, along with a pair of safety scissors to get all the sub-packaging open, then left Molly alone to her playtime. With an excited squeal, she pulled the lid off with a yank, a rush of wind exhaling behind it and out of the box.
Someone, apparently, knew just how much Molly enjoyed playing pretend with her little dollies, because this box was just absolutely chock-full of all new little playthings! Packed inside, amongst other smaller accessories, was a neat little grid of smaller prismic boxes made of clear plastic, plain and unadorned save for the apparent name of the doll within, written in big, bold lettering. Greedily she snatched up a random box to inspect, stopping just long enough to read the name "Jon Gibson" before finally opening the thing and removing the doll.
A horrible chill ran down Jon's spine, but thankfully nothing else immediate seemed to happen. What a stupid wish, what a stupid thing to do and say! Quickly, he put the stone back in its box with grandpa's note, and stowed it away under his bed, not wanting to touch the thing again that night. Down to the living room he went, keeping an anxious eye out for whatever "interesting" thing was supposed to be happening.
Molly held the doll-version of Jon in her hands as carefully and gently as a baby, inspecting it with a connoisseur's scrutiny. The doll was so lifelike, it was unreal! It didn't have any of those unsightly segmented joints Barbies have, or that single piece of rigid, unhairlike "hair" other dolls had, nor the lifeless rigidity of a hard-plastic toy: it was a soft, poseable, slightly squishy thing that might as well have been real flesh-and-blood writ small! And the details! The exquisite care taken with the eyes; the perfect molding of the ears; the effort to sew on pockets, and every individual belt loop of the jeans; whoever made Molly her new dollies certainly hadn't taken any shortcuts, and she loved it! Carefully setting Jon down and aside, she picked out another doll, this time a girl, to see if all the other new dolls were made with the same over-the-top level of workmanship. This one was named "Sarah McMillan," she saw, as she opened the box and removed the new toy.
Out of nowhere, an awful shiver ran its course through Sarah. It was so bad she almost completely lost track of what her friends were saying for a moment or two, but she recovered quickly. Not that Melissa was saying much of consequence anyway: just some idle gossip to fill the air while she was with her girlfriends out at the mall. None of them noticed, nor did any of the other walkers-about; then again, the food court was as depopulated as it probably ought to have been at that hour anyway. Not many people were really around to see.
If anything, this second doll was even more detailed than the first. There was makeup, miniature versions of jewelry, designer fashion in the outfit, a teeny little purse, lipstick on that blank little smile: the doll might as well have been a foot-tall human for all Molly could tell it apart from the real deal. And there was something about the way it felt in her hands... to check her idea, she ended up rolling the doll about in her hands and poking its chest for a better feel.
Sarah gave a startled yelp that was just this this side of being a full-fledged scream. Someone was groping her! She shot from her place like a frightened rabbit and whipped around, preparing to scream her head off at some letch about personal fucking space, and came face to face with nobody at all. In fact, the sensation had not abated: some phantom asshole was still feeling her up, or at least, that's what it felt like: nobody was around except Melissa, Amber, and her other friends, who were both blameless and just as shocked and confused as Sarah was as to what was happening.
Now Molly was really impressed: it wasn't just some sculpted, rigid chassis underneath or some fluffy stuffing inside, it was a skeleton! A human, anatomically correct, faux-bone-and-faux-tendon skeleton, with vertebrae for a flexible spine, ribs in the ribcage, squishy boobs and squishy chest cavity, and everything! Idly, she wondered what sort of wizard it was that could've afforded to give her such an elaborate set of dolls for her birthday; even the tiny little outfits he'd included as dress-up accessories were just above and beyond in detail and raw craftsmanship! She couldn't resist; she just had to see what Sarah would look like in some of this other fashion, straightaway!
Sarah was red in the face and yapping at a thousand words a second with her just-as-talkative friends to figure out what the hell had just happened to her, when the next thing just happened to her. There was a sudden, tugging sensation at the top she was wearing, a dragging sensation, a weird pull from nowhere; and then her top was gone. Just, vanished, into thin air, like it'd never existed: all that she had left on up there was just a lacy pushup bra, which all of her straight-as-an-arrow friends were now staring at open-mouthed. A clasp in the back came undone, on its own; and while Sarah, with a sudden franticness, reached back to try and fix that, the bra disappeared too.
The first of her sandals disappeared while her hands flew to cover her newly exposed nipples, and the second disappearing was enough to signal to Sarah that this was a run-don't-walk situation. People were staring as she bolted by, flying to bathrooms boobs in hands like an axe murderer was hot on her heels, and her wonderstruck friends behind that. They stared harder, of course, as it became clear that her skirt was disappearing as she ran. Nobody saw her fully nude, however, as her panties managed to stay material until she was fully inside the women's bathroom, and shut inside a stall where she could freak the fuck out and die of embarrassment in relative safety.
Undressing her newest doll had been a bit harder than Molly had thought given how small all the pieces like that clasp were, but still, the job was done, and the old outfit was now in a heap on the floor beside her play-area. It was only once Sarah was entirely undressed that the first deviations from anatomical perfection had made themselves known: the doll was technically sexless, as was the standard for children's toys, after all. Not entirely nipple-less, surprisingly, having only some smooth nubs to suggest them in contour, but not areolae or color or any of the usual wrinkles in shape that would make the real deal. Similarly with the groin: some grooves were there, but the whole plumbing was not, so it'd only look like it were there if clothed. Molly found herself wondering why this sort of thing was such a big deal for whatever businesspeople made these dolls, which usually made entirely humanesque toys otherwise; she'd been told it'd be one of those things she'd understand when she was older, at any rate.
Anywho, it was time to pick out a dress for Sarah! Molly was momentarily at a loss for what to choose, so great was the variety of outfits the toybox had provided: there were sailor outfits and schoolgirl uniforms, witch's black hats and wizard's black robes, fairy dresses with magic wands for magical girls, bunnysuits and bunny ears, frilly maid outfits and frilly maid headbands, all manner of casual T-shirts with all manner of sassy prints on them, swimsuits and wintery sweaters, and, come to think of it, all the other outfits all the other dolls were wearing at the moment. This toybox really had it all! But soon enough, Molly knew what she wanted: when dressing up a new doll for the first time, you couldn't go wrong with the classics, and you couldn't get more classic than with a cute, frilly, Disney-esque Princess look.
"Hey, um... Sarah?" came the voice of Amber, from over the stall Sarah had just blurred into. Had Sarah to guess by the clack of the footsteps, Melissa and Tiffany were behind her, but otherwise, thankfully, the bathroom seemed to be empty. "Are you, like, doing okay, in here?"
Sarah wanted to scream. Completely nude, hiding in a bathroom stall and heaving for breath, still covering her nipples with her hands and blushing furiously from what was almost the worst imaginable wardrobe malfunction, Sarah really wanted to scream. "Oh, y'know what, Amber, I'm actually perfectly alright," she seethed back, sarcasm dripping from her voice, "Just figured I needed some air, nothing to it. NO I'm NOT fucking 'doing okay' you airhead! What part of any of that back there is supposed to be okayyyYYAH!"
There was a sudden feeling of something being dragged up her bare legs and then yanked with some force up her groin, almost as if some unseen colossus could've carried her that way. Underwear, distinct from the panties she had been wearing but no less lacy, had just materialized on her lower half. "Ohmigawd, it's not over!"
"Sarah, what's going on?" came the alarmed, excited voice of one Melissa Smith.
"I have no fucking clue what's going on!" Sarah snapped back, as a corset suddenly appeared around her waist and started tightening itself. "This stuff just came out of nowhere, and... Hey, wait, you aren't trying to make a damned Insta out of this, are you!?"
"I, uh, it's, not important!" On the other side of the stall doors, Melissa kept her phone camera fixed in Sarah's general direction despite there being nothing to see but bathroom from where she stood. Sarah could see it perfectly in her mind's eye, and that got her blood boiling all the more; 'Some friends I have,' she thought. "It's not nearly as important as what's up with you, Sarah! What's happening in there, here and now?"
What was happening just then was another feeling of some fabric something being dragged up her leg again, this time holding much more tightly and with much greater friction down the entirety of said leg. She wasn't surprised at all when a stocking materialized, which might've been white if it weren't almost completely transparent, squeezing and shaping her leg up to the lower thigh. "I told you, I don't flipping know!" Sarah called back as the other phantom stocking started to shimmy its way up the other leg. "There's new clothes and things that are just, like, like, unvanishing, y'know, like, ghosts floating onto me and then appearing from nowhere, somehow!"
"So you're, like, getting dressed, like you got undressed, out there?" Tiffany asked, curiosity being the dominant flavor to her voice.
"Kinda?" Sarah replied. Whatever phantom thing was wrapping itself around her now, it was clearly the biggest single item of the set: some sort of gown? It wasn't clear until it materialized: a soft pink-and-white regal dress, like a ballgown but cut for more casual use, with skimpier fabric and a much less poofy skirt that only came partly down her calf. It certainly wasn't shy of showing off skin, especially not Sarah's generous cleavage, which it and the corset cooperated to thrust out as prominently as they could without actually exposing a nipple. "Look... if it's just you girls, I might as well just show you, but Melissa you gotta, fuckin', swear on a bible or some shit that you're not gonna post that thing without my say, got it!?"
There was some general assent, then Sarah took a deep breath. "Alright... then here I gURK!" As she was opening the door, the straps pulled tight on the back of her bodice and tied themselves taut, making sure every inch of Sarah's upper contours were outlined and on perfect display. Her friends were impressed, as they ought to have been; Sarah was plenty enough used to looking good, and if the circumstances were different she might've actually been proud of herself and her look. But now...
"Ah! The arm!" Sarah yelped, feeling some other phantom cloth snaking its way up that. "Watch the arm!" She said, lifting it up for them to inspect in the moments before a dainty white opera glove appeared, covering it from bicep to fingertip.
"Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, that is freaky!" Tiffany commented, watching intently as the other opera glove materialized on Sarah's other arm. "What, like, Indian burial ground did you anger a gypsy on top of to get this to happen!?"
"How many times am I going to have to say that I don't have any fucking idea!?" Sarah snapped at them furiously as a silver tiara with a trio of little heart-shaped pink gems in front appeared on her head. "You were there, ladies, we were just, just talking, shootin' the breeze, doing nothing, and then, this started happening, with God and everyone watchAUGH, GOD DAMMIT!" Sarah losing her shit was interrupt by a tall pink stiletto heel clacking into existence under one of her stocking'd feet, nearly throwing her off balance and almost to the ground if her friends hadn't caught her. The other heel nearly caused a similar incident; Sarah had walked more than enough in high heels to keep her balance on them in most cases, but one near-instantaneously blipping into the previously atoms-long distance between her flat feet and the ground was an entirely new experience altogether. Sarah looked ready to cry; "Why the hell is this happening to me!?" she yelled out, expecting no answer.
Molly hummed a tune to herself as she applied the finishing touch for now: a little necklace, with an adorable heart-shaped red pendant for her adorable new little princess. "Heh. Make way, ye meek, for Her Royal Radiance, the Gracious and Gentle Princess Sarah of House McMillan!" Molly said, taking her creation and holding it high for a little play-pretend. In an absolutely terrible imitation of "Ancient" English grammar and accents, she continued, "'Tis the fairest and the loveliest maiden in all the lands! Forsooth, thou dost behold a maid of great heart and great kindness, and e'er a true friend to all what walketh on this our fair earth, who ne'er didst speak a word unkind, and shalt with sobriety of mind and tranquility of soul leadeth our lands to peace and great fortune when at last yon day dawns when she doth sit the Queen's throne."
Sarah was leaning at the bathroom mirror, taking in the fullness of the changes that had just happened to her outfit for no apparent reason, rubbing at a temple while her friends crowded behind her like so many curious ducklings. "My head doth greatly ache," she grumbled, standing up and correcting her posture to something more ladylike. "Prithee, let cessation be upon us at last, for heaven's sake."
Sarah's friends couldn't help but stare. Cessation, it seemed, was not upon them at last. "Hey, uh, Sarah?" Melissa asked, turning the latter's attention to the phone camera she was still viewing it all through. "You, like, totally meant to talk like that, right?" she asked cautiously.
"Of what dost thou speak?" It took Sarah a moment to comprehend what exactly was wrong with what she'd just said. "Of what dost I speak!? Mine own tongue doth betray me!"
Tiffany just laughed. "Cat got your tongue, princess? You're totally talking like a real lady or something! Acting like it, too, by that stance!"
A minute ago, when Sarah was still in the throes of panic, she probably would've snapped something vitriolic right back Tiffany's way, but as she was now, she just sighed. "Jest not, dearest of friends, for I fear this may yet verily lie beyond my talents to combat. And a burdensome worry doth seize me: What more of yonder sorcery yet lies in posterity, indomitable as it doth appear!?"
Happy with herself, Molly carefully set Princess Sarah down and aside, not far from where the doll of Jon lay. She wasn't done with her yet, not really, but y'know, it'd be a shame and an outright waste for there to be just one or two lonely dolls out to play during playtime! She looked through the rest of the boxes, at dolls named "Karyn Black" or "Zoe Gibson" or "Athena Devries" or just sooo many other things, dolls and dolls and dolls just waiting to be opened and played with, and outfits and outfits and outfits just waiting to be worn, so many little stories just waiting to be told: with so much potential, she just knew playtime today was going to be so, much, fun! Right?
