Karyn was upset. She wasn't sure why. She just knew she was angry and she was alone and she was walking straight down a hallway that didn't have an end. Just door after door on either side. Soon, though, anger was replaced by fear, and she was running.
"Hey Karyn, wait up!"
Relief washed over Karyn's body. There was someone else here? She turned around to see a girl wearing a shining cocktail dress with her hair set up in a professional up-do. The name came to Karyn immediately.
"Jen? What are you doing here?"
"What do you mean, what am I doing here? Why aren't you in the dressing room?" Jen opened the door closest to her, and Karyn could see bright lights coming out of it. Karyn walked back to Jen and into the room, where she was met with racks of clothes and lighted mirrors and girls in all stages of preparation for something.
Now Karyn had a direction. It was an odd direction, but it was better than running through an empty hallway.
"What's going on here?"
"Karyn!" Jen cried, "We're in the middle of the pageant! You have to be on stage with me in like five minutes, and you're still in your street clothes!"
Karyn looked down at herself and suddenly felt out of place. Everyone else was either all fixed up or getting all fixed up, and she was so plain looking.
"Help me," Karyn said.
"I can't, I have to get my makeup fixed. Go find Sarah, she's your assistant."
Something didn't feel right about that, but Karyn suddenly saw a familiar blonde figure waving her over to one of the mirrors.
"Come on, Karyn, you're cutting it pretty close," Sarah said when Karyn had sat down. "You're lucky I'm as good as I am or there wouldn't be a chance of you getting on stage in time.
Did Karyn want to get on stage?
She didn't particularly have much choice. As she looked back at the mirror, she found herself wrapped tightly in a dress just as shiny as Jen's was.
Sarah was on her immediately. She plucked hair, sprayed spray, applied makeup. Karyn didn't have any time to think about what was happening before something else entirely happened. Sarah was shifting and shaping and molding and changing Karyn's appearance like an absolute expert. Then the whirlwind was over, and Sarah stepped back with a "Ta-da!"
Karyn looked up and her mouth dropped. She looked gorgeous, but she looked... exactly like Sarah. Not just in style. Her face was an exact duplicate of Sarah's. She felt a pit in her stomach, but Sarah quickly shooed her off the chair and onto the stage where a dozen other girls were already standing in poses, including Jen.
Karyn made her way over by Jen, who whispered to her "hey, you've been in pageants before, you know what to do. What are you wandering around for?"
So Karyn stopped, twisted her knee just so, turned her face to the audience, and put on her most brilliant smile. A foreign observer would see she was in an entirely different position from the other girls, but her mind told her she fit in. It was important to fit in on stage.
Music started playing, and the girls broke their poses and stepped forward in a line. Jen whispered over to Karyn, "look at how everyone adores us. Don't you just love this feeling?"
Karyn scanned the crowd. They all did love her. They were all looking only at her, because she was beautiful. This was a good feeling, wasn't it?
An announcer's voice boomed from the speakers around her. "And the winner is... Miss Karyn Black!"
Karyn couldn't believe it. She'd won? She felt incredible. All the girls crowded around her, handing her flowers and a tiara and a sash. She couldn't remember ever feeling so good. She spun around, and saw that behind her, there was a screen where they were projecting pictures of her from the pageant. She really was beautiful. Her smooth legs and elegant curves, topped with Sarah's face. It didn't bother her that all the pictures of her looked like pictures of Sarah. She was just happy, and beautiful.
The picture changed again, and the next one was in sepia. Karyn turned around, and saw that the whole world was sort of browning. Then it faded, and she woke up, refreshed and relaxed.
