Morning came and a pale light woke Jeff. Surprisingly he had slept, and even dreamed. Dreamed of dresses, parties on a beach, handsome looking men… bimbo’s dreams. One more time, he tried to push up the lid of his prison, but in vain.
He was hearing noises in his sister’s room. Much more activities than he would have expected in a morning. She seemed to be going in and out of her room followed, by the sound of the stomps Jeff was hearing, their mother. Were they looking for him ? That hope crossed his mind and was reinforced when the felt the box being moved. Maybe his family had found the Chronivac and understood what had happened. As the box was opened, Jeff was once again frozen, back to his toy status. He saw his sister looking down at her dolls, move several ones in the box. She seemed to be looking for something.
“I am here Suzy ! It’s me, Jeff ! Help me sister !” wanted to scream the poor new Barbie. Again, no sound.
She picked a doll, one wearing a similar outfit to the one he had on expect it was pale blue, and took it out of the box. She searched again and picked one more, again similar but white. She seemed to be looking for ballerinas. She saw Jeff and picked him.
“No, I’m not one of them !” He thought as he was carried out and laid next to the other fashion dolls. He immediately regretted his outfit choice.
Suzy looked at them and seemed satisfied. She picked the dolls and laid them on her bed, next to a bag. Their mother came in and looked briefly at Jeff and his clones before going back to her daughter.
“Your friend’s mother is already here. Is your bag ready ?”
“Almost ! I got change already packed along with my swimming suit and towel. I just need to pack my dolls as well !”
“Did you took your toothbrush dear ?”
“Oops I forgot !” and Suzy rushed out of the room.
Jeff hoped their mother would follow her so he could be free to move but instead she came straight to the bed, picked the three toys and added them to the bag and finally closed it. Jeff was trapped alongside with two Barbies in the darkness of his sister’s bag with no way out. He felt he could move again but the packing was too tight for him to free his arms. He heard his sister coming back, he felt the bag move and being carried.
“Mom, where is Jeff ?”
“I don’t know, probably at some friend’s house and played video games all night. You know how he is”.
He started hearing other voices. Obviously Suzy’s friend and her father had came to pick her up. The poor boy heard cheering, advices from their mother to his sister and a loud noise as the bag he was trapped in was locked in the car’s trunk. Jeff heard the car starts and felt the vibration and turns. Trapped in the dark, not able to move correctly, he was afraid of what was going to happen now. When he wanted to see world from a toy perspective, that was clearly not what he had in mind.
Suddenly, a message appeared in front of him. it was like application’s window on a computer screen but it seemed to float in front of his eyes, following where he was looking.
“You have reached the limit range of your Chronivac. Nothing can be modified out of this area. Please come closer to your application. Every object affected by changes outside of this range will see its timer suspended until its return in the Chronivac working area. The following changes planned are currently suspended : ‘object : Jeff – Transformation : Barbie to Boy – Time remaining before change : 31 hours 24 minutes 33 seconds – on hold’ “
Jeff read this message a few times before it disappeared. He now knew two things : there was a timer set for his return to normal, and that was a relief, but he needed to spend more than a day at his house as a doll before… and was trapped in his current form until he could get back in range of the Chronivac.
He tried to calm down. He just had to play the doll part until Suzy came back home with her toys, and wait a little more to get back to himself. If he was lucky, he would even manage to reach his computer before the timer expired.
More time passed and Jeff felt the car finally stops. He heard some giggling outside, the trunk was opened, and the bag was lifted. The person carrying it walked a little, went up a stair and dropped it. After a few minutes of silence, the bag was finally opened and Jeff was frozen again.
A hand picked all three dolls and took them out of the bag. Outside Jeff saw that he was in a girl room, quite similar to his sister’s one. There were lots of pastels colors and displays of plushies and dolls. Suzy carried Jeff and the other ballerinas to a low table were other dolls and dolls furniture were disposed and around which two girls were waiting. He vaguely remembered them for being schoolmates of Suzy, but he wasn’t sure of their names.
“here are the ballet’s sisters” claimed Suzy, “ready for our great play !”
She placed the dolls on the table. Jeff was aligned with the two other barbies.
“aw look how pretty they are !” said one of the other girls with long blond hairs.
“I love their matching outfits !” added the second, a little brunette.
“Each one of us picks one ! Who starts ?”