Elly spent her first night in her doll-house room.
It was crafted specifically to look a lot like her old room, even down to the furniture, colours and placement. It wasn’t a perfect representation though and during the dark night it felt… eerie. She felt somehow anxious, trying to look at a place that was trying to be like her room but wasn’t…
… much like she was trying to be herself but wasn’t.
The little fairy wiped a tear. It had been a hard couple of weeks in the hospital, nobody knew what happened to them and there were no answers forthcoming. Still being home was a step forward.
Nobody could see her inside the doll house, but complete privacy would be a luxury. There was nothing stopping someone from ripping the roof off her house, grabbing her, or a giant eyeball watching through the window…
She pulled on a small chord and a light switch came on. She was a little grateful for that but… all the little details of her house started to come forth, disturbing in how ‘fake’ it all was. She wasn’t sure why but she slowly got up from her bed. Her parents had provided her with a change of clothes, mostly just stitched out rags that protected her decency. They were hoping to make something a little more comfortable later on, but such things would take time.
The girl started to wonder towards her desk. Normally she would play some online games. She booted up the remote viewer and accessed her old computer. The screen, which was some kind of mobile phone screen lit up. It was a bit too large for her to view comfortably but it wasn’t too bad. She had a small keyboard to type on. They keys were too hard for her liking… just pushing one button was a chore. “Urgh… it’s useless.“
Then something caught her eye. A small pin where some of the wood had been put together… a spec of blood... It wasn’t much, a human- likely her father, had suffered a cut while putting the pieces together. Though at Elly’s new size the blood looked a lot more than it actually was. Some effort had been made to clean but the stain had remained.
“He… really worked so hard…”
She knew her father put a lot of effort into it and what he made wasn’t bad with the resources available… he literally bled his fingers to build this. Realising, her initial anger at the computer subsided…
“Maybe I could E-mail… find out what happened to my friends.” So many were changed. She still had nightmares of that day… the panic and confusion.
Elly tried to send an E-mail out to her friend Damien. That was easy enough, but the E-mail bounced bak. “Huh?” She frowned. She didn’t know anyone else’s contact details… instead she tried to find out about the incident that caused the transformation. She had missed out a lot on news during her stay in the hospital.
What she saw was quite horrifying if not understandable. People were in a panic… some suggested pulling their kids away from all the schools until an answer could be found. Many blamed the teacher, thinking she was a witch. Miss Tella ended up a cat-woman, she remembered. Surprisingly, there were very few pictures of the transformed students… enforced due to privacy laws and what was cited as a ‘medical emergency’, the pictures had been expunged from the internet. “I’m an internet conspiracy,” Elly had to giggle a bit at that, her light wings twitching behind her.
The government said that the important thing was to deal with the issue at hand… and as a precaution the entire school would be quarantined and turned into a base of ‘scientific study’. Many lost their jobs. The area had become a military base, with the room of the change under constant surveillance and experiment. Though so far, nobody else had changed… what happened to her school saddened the young fairy a great deal… but she couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything special in that room… would it happen again or was it just for that one room, in that one place a that one time…
She decided not to dwell on it. She wanted to play a game. “Hm, maybe I can play some apps on this thing.” She thought using the phone touch screen itself would probably be better then the keyboard. Maybe if she got a second phone it could function ‘as’ the keyboard? Plenty of options there.
She did find one other article though, of a transformed student. Some kind of ‘dragon-girl’ going completely crazy. Elly tried to recall who she used to be… but the events were over a week ago now and she only saw a few things. She vaguely recalled her changing though… it would seem people had said she was being ‘intimidating’… which she guessed wasn’t too hard when you were part dragon. “She probably didn’t mean to be,” she thought trying to be generous. Though it wasn’t impossible that she was using her new state to her advantage. Apparently the dragon-girl made a point of constantly disobeying the rules, and when sent to jail simply ‘broke out’… every time they contained her she seemed to find a new level of power… so they decided it was best to leave her be for now.
“She’s lucky… they can contain me in a shoe box,” The fairy groaned at the implication of that. “Urgh, this isn’t helping.” She had to find her purpose in life again, not wallow in misery.
Elly wanted to program video games someday- and there was no reason she couldn’t keep doing that right? She could study, she had her room, her computer, her mind… and the ability to write. So, in that moment she felt… fine. She might just be three inches tall but she just needed some further adaptions to get her life back on track. This could work!
Though suddenly she realised one… sad conclusion as she looked at her computer.
“…. Local one player games forever…”
At least there was the internet so she could still play coop games but… well- it shouldn’t be impossible to make a setup work.
Elly realised it was morning- and felt a huge ‘bang’ on the side of the wall… followed by more bangs. “Urgh- what’s going on-“ she gasped. Was this an attack?!
“Edward!” she heard her sister’s voice. Elly gasped as her sister’s huge eye came into view of her window like some kind of freaky abomination. The very thing she feared last night. “Ah! Stacy- what?!” The fairy stared pulling up her covers as if it would shield her.
“Come on out I want to play!” she smiled pulling her huge arm into the house through the window.
Elly reacted on instinct and tried to move to the furthest corner of her room. “Hey! Whatever happened to some privacy!” She cried out. “You can’t just-“
“I missed you though. You’re a fairy now. We have to play! Please? Please?!” She was almost begging. “Nobody believes me that you’re a fairy. I want to show you to my friends!”
Elly sighed. “Let me just go have a shower-“
“I’ll help!”
Elly looked at her incredulously. “I- I can shower myself thanks!” She insisted. “Just… I’ll see you at breakfast, okay?”
“Yes big little sis…” Stacy sounded upset but then looked up hopefully. “Can I make you breakfast?” she asked with the sweetest smile ever.
“Uh...sure.” Okay this was weird. Stacy was never ‘this’ nice to her… “Oh wait.. she’s treating me like I’m a doll…”
Breakfast was… awkward. Stacy sat on her chair staring at Elly ‘constantly’ who was siting on the table. Stacy had made tiny little sandwiches… or at least tried to. They were just a bit too big, had cheese slices sticking out and… it was a mess. Still it was food, so she ate it happily enough. There were also a few giant berries for her, which was quite delicious.
“You’re so … pretty,” Stacy whispered. “I want to get you a pretty dress.”
“Stacy! It- she’s still your brother.” Her mother insisted.
Finally their father came in yawning looking like he had a very long weary week. “Hey kids,” he smiled. “How was the room Elly?”
Elly rubbed her hands. It wasn’t… as comfortable as she hoped it could be but… her father had worked so hard on it. “It’s… really nice dad. Thank you. I just need to fix a few small things.”
“Heh…. I’ll leave the small jobs to you, if you leave the big jobs to me then,” her father grinned… and for some reason Elly found that assuring. However her father’s expression turned slightly grimmer. “We… we have someone coming to talk to you about the school Elly,“ There was a knock at the door. “I guess that’s them.”
“Someone?” Elly glanced upwards in concern. She looked towards the front door feeling the burst of wind as it opened, ruffling her wings. A man was there and allowed in. ‘Come in then,’ she heard her father say with some reluctance before returning to his fairy-changed daughter. “Elly, I want you to meet Michael… he’s been our- uh- point of contact for news about you in the hospital.”
The man had a black suit on, with tie. He looked like what one might expect as a typical MIB type, though was quite thin. He had clean shaven face but almost looked ill with how pale he was. There were cold blue eyes that watched everything…
“Um.. hello.” Elly whispered at the new giant looming over her.
“Elly… I am from the Government. I am here to help you.”
…”uh.. kay.” Elly glanced at her father who gave a nonchalant shrug.
“Please, call me Mike,” he smiled suddenly in a rather… unsettling way. “Now… we have secured a school willing to accept you, I’m sure everyone here is delighted to know.“
“What happened to my friends!” Elly started. “I can’t talk to any of them.“
“Oh? You tried… ah yes. Standard procedure, I did not think you would try so soon,” Mike explained. “You see, in order to prevent further incidents and to gain a better understanding of what has transpired to cause your unusual transformation, the Government decided to split your class up as much as possible. Some have been given the chance to have entirely new identities in different places, but the condition of this is to remove all contacts… E-mails, phone numbers, Addresses… you understand. Whoever you tried to contact is probably setting up a new life for themselves somewhere.”
Elly was getting more uncomfortable as this new information was laid on by ‘Smiling Mike’. “So… what about me?”
“Indeed. As I said, I am here to help you out. So, these are the conditions…” he took out a piece of paper. “First and foremost, you are ordered to refrain from any contact with the supernatural unless authorised by government officials, including your previous classmates who are henceforth considered supernatural as is yourself and therefore subject to the emergency license program. You will provide us with any information of a supernatural encounter, be it internal or external, psychological changes of which your parents and family will also take note of… refrain from attempting any magic unless in a controlled setting authorised by officials…”
The list went on and on…Elly listened as the whole thing went on for another couple of minutes.
“…and finally, breech of any order of the peace or anything in this legislation will result in immediate suspension of said licence resulting in potential loss of freedom and liberty depending on he nature of the circumstances.” He smiled again slightly broader. “I assume you understand?”
“…not really.” Elly sighed. “Why are you treating me like I’m some kind of prisoner? I just want to get on with my life!”
Mike glanced to the rest of the family then back to Elly. “Frankly, we are not sure ‘how’ to deal with this… some of your classmates were not psychologically stable. I’m sure you read the news of that dragon… we can not do ‘anything’ against her… not even shoot her- and believe me, at one point someone did try… however… of all the changes Elly, we fear yours the least.”
“Oh…” Elly was really not sure ‘how’ to take that. “So… if I don’t comply, I’m going to be put into a shoebox.”
“Ha! You catch on quick.” Mike chuckled. “That’s why we have allowed you to return to your life… there’s not really much to worry about. You don’t have any super strength, or magical abilities, perhaps you might pose a threat to spy on others but… I think given you can be blown away means we’re not all that worried about it. So… I would advise you, as a citizen with this emergency program, to comply… do nothing stupid… and we’ll leave you alone. Clear?”
“…crystal.” Elly wasn’t sure what else to say to that. They were afraid of her, but not ‘that’ afraid of her… given what else they were dealing with. she just a fairy and couldn’t do anything substantial.
“Now, we have given you new identity papers… and the offer remains to give you fifty thousand dollars to find another place to go… should you desire it.”
“I think Elly’s life has been disrupted enough, thank you Mike,” her father said stepping in. “You’ve given the conditions, I believe that’s enough.”
“Of course, of course,” he nodded. “Try not to get into trouble…” He slowly made his way out of the house.
“…sorry about that Elly,” her father sighed. “Just ignore him and do whatever you think is best okay?” he gently patted her with a finger. “I think they are annoyed because they know there’s no point trying to put bugs around your house… you would find them all,” he chuckled.
Elly had to smile at that. “So what can you tell me about my new school?”
Her mother started to show some leaflets. “Ah- yes here. The teachers did have some specific rules for you to follow to…”
