He didn't respond. His tail wasn't even wagging or anything. He just stood there, still and silent.
She walked up to him. "Mitch...it's me Tiffany, we just spent the day together. Hello???" She approached, walking into the alleyway. She was only 4 feet away. Three... two... she reached a hand out.
"Mitch?" she asked. The figure didn't move. Her hand touched his shoulder. A cold, hard tingling entered her fingers. Wait, that didn't feel like a shirt. That felt like...
Her hands slid up and down his body. Stone. The entire thing was stone. A statue?
"What in the...!?" She jumped back in shock before running around his front. "Mitch!?" She looked at his face.
But like the rest of his body, it too was stone. The face was locked in a neutral position.
Tiffany slowly backed away in confusion. What was a statue of Mitch doing out here? Did someone make one? There was a loud creaking as the walls behind her suddenly closed together, as though on a hinge. She was trapped in the alleyway!
"Wait a second..." She said scared out of her wits. The statue, it was too life like. "Mitch!? Mitch!!!!" She screamed pounding on it. No...it couldn't be.
"What happened to you?"
"Nothing." a mysterious voice replied, "That is a replica. He remains lucid where you left him." The stone statue of Mitch suddenly collapsed, melting into a puddle that seeped into the ground and disappeared.
"Oh...thank goodness...but why?" Tiffany asked the disembodied voice.
"So you'd come here."
She was looking in all directions for the source of the voice. She couldn't find it. She felt it. A presence behind her. It made the hairs on her ears rise.
"I am Adomm, and this is an interview. Answer my questions with truth and honesty, and you will be released."
Tiffany whirled and and stared. There hovering a few feet away, was an odd black and white creature. "Uh... ok?" She would have been terrified, except she wasn't surprised. Magic was real after all. The animal appendage in her skirt was testament to that.
"You have been to Pleasure Island." she said, looking at the spool of thread in her hand, "The island of promised fun and freedom. Why did you go there?"
"Pleasure island...yeah I went there because girls weren't supposed to go there. I wanted to show that I could be just as cool as the boys, and all the cool boys from school were going there." Tiffany said truthfully. She probably shouldn't lie to this creature.
"Next question." she said, floating away a bit, "What would you do if you could not get what you want?"
"I...well when I got home I was gonna ask my mama and papa to take me to the doctor to get these removed so I can be a normal girl again..."
Adomm didn't turn, "Answer my question."
"I don't understand?" Tiffany asked blinking. "What are you asking? Do you mean if I can't get rid of the donkey parts?"
Adomm turned, "ANSWER... my question."
Tiffany was starting to feel afraid again. "I...Uh...I don't know...I don't know what you are asking. I usually get what I want from mama and papa, they have a lot of money...uh...I don't know!
"That is expected." she nodded, "If I were to ask a field mouse what it would do if it were caught by a predator, they would not know how to answer either."
"I..uh...yeah??" Tiffany was getting scared. "Look..miss..whatever you are...miss spirit..I'm just a kid. I made a mistake...please can you help me turn me back?
"I could." she replied. "... or, I could finish the job. Or, perhaps you would be better off as something entirely different." She mused, "Maybe even a tree."
"No...please...I wanna be human. I wanna be a girl again, a normal girl that can grow up and be special!" Tiffany pleaded.
She smiled. "Next question." She turned and floated up to her. "I'll turn you back." she said, "But in exchange, I will finish Mitch's transformation into a donkey. Does that sound fair?"
"What? No! We are humans, we are kids we have so much ahead of us!" She begged.
"Why isn't it fair?" she asked, pressing her, "You get exactly what you want. A simple solution.
"No!" Tiffany shouted
"All right, I will turn you back to human. And Mitch too."
"As well as everyone who had been to that island?"
She nodded, "Does that sound good?"
One more question." She turned to face her, the spool floating above her palm. "What do you want? Answer carefully."
"I want to be a normal human girl again, just like all the other human girls, I wanna fit in with them..."
She smiled. Of course. That was what she wanted, so that was what she would get. With a flick of her finger, she pinged the top of the spool of thread, and sudden the string all unwove and whipped around, as though retracting a vaccuum cleaner cord.
She felt her body tingling all over, especially in her aquired parts. They went numb, and then light, and then... gone.
They were gone. Her ears. Her tail! Her face fur! Everything! She was restored.