Wait, what’s going on with you? Of course you wanted to change back to normal! You can’t be seen looking like a freak! The embarrassment alone would be too much, and you don’t want to risk drawing attention to the pencil, either. You shake your head and focus on the mirror, then you start to Draw.
You erase the bunny ears first, and with the last quick swipe of the pencil, the world goes silent. You feel around on the top of your head to make sure there aren’t any residual nubs that you missed, but you can’t find anything out of the ordinary. Satisfied that they’re gone, you start redrawing your human ears.
You do them one at a time so that you can turn your head sideways and get a good look at what you’re doing. You’re fairly sure it’s unnecessary, but you want to make certain you don’t make any mistakes. As you draw, you keep having to fight off errant thoughts about other things you could do instead of a boring restoration, but you manage to keep ahold of yourself.
You draw your right ear, then your left, and as your vision returns to normal, so does your hearing. You take a moment to inspect your work, tugging on your ears and craning your neck to try to examine them from every angle. You can’t say you’d ever focused so closely on them, so you have trouble being satisfied that they’re perfectly back to the way they were before. But after a couple minutes, you can’t find anything obviously off, so you suppose they’ll do.
You let out a sigh of relief as you leave the bathroom, carrying the pencil along with you. You still have to figure out what to do with this thing, and you want to see if you can find a way to help that poor woman you changed, but at least for now, you’re okay. The events of the evening are catching up to you, and at this point, the things you still need to figure out are just overwhelming. Rather than wasting time beating your exhausted brain against your issues, you decide to save your problems for tomorrow and retire to bed.
The next morning, you’re awoken to sunlight hitting your face. It’s the weekend, and you don’t have any plans or responsibilities for the day. Your sleep had been a bit disturbed by some strange dreams, but an extra couple of hours helped a lot. You sigh contentedly and sit up, thinking about what you plan to do today.
You probably need to grab some groceries from the store a few blocks around the corner. Maybe your friends would want to do something later this afternoon. Chris and Sarah had talked about going out somewhere tonight, and if they’re going, you know more will join in. You should text and see if the plans haven’t changed. You reach over to grab your phone off the nightstand, but next to it sits a familiar, ornate pencil.
Oh. So, it wasn’t a dream. The weight of everything that happened the night before crashes back on you, and you realize that you have no more answers now than you did then. You do your best to calm yourself.
Maybe this isn’t all bad. Sure, this thing is obviously dangerous, but it’s also incredibly powerful. Yeah, maybe you’re just too focused on all the downsides. An opportunity like this is completely unheard of, and you haven’t even explored it that much. You’ve hardly even used the pencil yet, and certainly not for yourself. You ought to at least get the full picture of the possibilities before doing anything rash.
You get out of bed and scoop the pencil off the nightstand. You stare at it while thinking of what to do, until your stomach growls. Breakfast! That’s perfect!
You take the pencil with you to your kitchen and sit down at the table. You think for a bit about what you want to eat. It doesn’t take very long to get a clear image of a plate of waffles covered in syrup. It’s not the most imaginative thing, but you want to try something familiar to make sure that you don’t miss anything off. With the image clear in your mind, you focus on the table and begin to Draw. Soon, in front of you sits a picture-perfect plate of waffles, steaming hot, just as you imagined.
You remember that you forgot to grab utensils. You’re about to get up before you realize it’s unnecessary. You start to draw again, setting a fork and knife in front of you and drawing a cup of coffee to boot. Everything smells good and looks right, so you pick up your new utensils and tuck in.
A few minutes later, you’re happily full, having thoroughly enjoyed your meal. With the success of the waffles, you went ahead and drew a few more courses of other foods you felt like trying. When you couldn’t eat anymore, you erased whatever was left, plates and all. You didn’t even have to clean up.
You could definitely get used to this. Maybe you were too worried about things at the start. Your mood now improved, you started to get ready for the day and prepare to run errands, until, again, you realized that that may not be necessary.
You grabbed your grocery list off of the fridge where you keep it and looked at what was on it. Milk, bread, eggs, toiletries… the usual weekly buys. You took the pencil and worked your way through the list, drawing each item in turn. In a couple minutes, you had a whole trip’s worth of shopping sitting in the floor of your kitchen and a grin on your face.
Yeah, you were definitely too hasty. This pencil is too good to be true. With your spirits lifted and your morning opened, you decided to go for a walk. You throw on some clothes and, on impulse, draw a pair of shoes that you’d had your eye on for a while but found much too expensive to purchase. You don your new kicks, pocket the pencil, and make for the front door.