Carl felt himself changing further as the book mark clung to the book despite his efforts to pull it free. A strand of red hair fell across his face as he realized he was changing into the red-headed heroine from the swords and sorcery novel, Mirale, in the scene described on the page where the bookmark was clinging. The scene in question had Mirale dressed for a formal dance in the King's court as opposed to her usual adventuring gear and clothing.
"Stop, stop!" he shouted at the bookmark, then winced as his voice went an octave higher in pitch as the change neared completion, leaving him with the red-head's very attractive body, as mandated by the genre, stuck in a dark green gown with an embroidered bodice over top. Between the bodice and the low-cut gown, Carl found himself blinking at the rather attractive view of... his own cleavage. "Damn it!" He shook himself out of the distraction and yanked at the bookmark again -- this time it came off!
Carl immediately noticed that both the book and the bookmark had changed -- there were missing sentences, paragraphs, and even entire blank pages. Carl quickly noticed that all the missing text appeared to have dealt with Mirale. On the back of the bookmark, on part of the blank surface, there was a blurry red-topped green-dress clad figure. "The bookmark absorbed her...?" Carl momentarily forgot his situation and even his changed voice as he tried to puzzle out what was going on. The bizarrely animated image of the sands in the hourglass snapped him out of his thinking. "Great... what does this mean? I'm stuck like this until the hourglass runs out, that I only have that much time to do... something?"
Biting his lip, Carl tried to put the bookmark back in the book, hoping it would put Mirale back. The bookmark just fell back out again, not doing anything special except for the sands still flowing. "Darn it," he swore. He winced at the almost musical sound of his voice. "Okay, okay," she muttered. "I'm stuck in Mirale's body, no going to the men's room." She frowned at the bookmark, then grabbed another book from her collection. This one was a fantasy novel with the brave, strong, and handsome hero fighting against the evil dragons that were ruling the land (or so the back cover read.) The bookmark fairly lept from her hand into the book and clung to it.
"Alright!" Carl cheered, and waited to at least become male again. Being the handsome hero from the novel would not be a bad thing. After a moment, he realized she wasn't changing... or rather, the room was -- it was feeling darker. Looking behind herself at a sudden crashing noise, she saw that furniture in her room was getting pushed around as a dark, dragon shaped shadow started to grow and coalesce there. "Oh no!" Carl frantically tugged at the bookmark, not certain if this was a villainous dragon or one of the rare good ones revealed later on in the novel, but not wanting either in her apartment! She bookmark resisted her once again, not coming free until there was a large, black dragon squeezed into her living room, filling it completely and making the floor complain. Carl barely had any room to move herself, almost crushed up against the bookshelves in fear.
The dragon just huddled there, crouched and bent into the room, not moving and almost statue-like. Carl frantically looked at the bookmark and saw that a black, winged serpentine shape had joined the rough shape of Mirale on the back. Now there was some tiny text on the bookmark, too, which read, "Mirale and the black dragon Artheos".
Carl looked at the text, then at herself and the frozen dragon. "Mad libs... it's like a mad lib!" she shouted suddenly in a burst of inspiration. "It's putting together a story..." She looked at the still running hourglass then around at the corner of the room she was crowded into -- there were only a handful of books she could reach now. "I... I guess I'm the main character," Carl murmured, studying the layout of the rough image on the back of the bookmark. "Is the dragon a secondary character, or the antagonist? How do I get out of this?" She bit her lip and studied the bookmark with the sands quickly running out. "Can I get out of this?"
Carl looked down at the handful of paperbacks in the corner with her. "If it really is a mad lib, what is it going to add next?" she muttered.
Looking at the diminishing sands, then at the frozen dragon, Carl realized she had to do something. She didn't want to be trapped in the corner with a cramped and angry dragon should it unfreeze. With some trepidation, she chose another book and felt the bookmark lean towards it eagerly.
