Joe was on his way home from work when he noticed that a new store had finally opened up in the abandoned building. As he had nothing better to do, he decided to check it out thinking at worst, he just spends a few minutes browsing and leaves. Plus, he may even find something cool. When he entered the store, a parrot, which was purched on the counter greeted him.
"Well, its not every day that a bird welcomes you to a store" he thought, moving over to the first aisle. As he made his way through the store, nothing of significance caught his eye. This was because to him, it was just all junk. Used clothing, dirty books, rags and bottles of unlabeled things everywhere. Sticks and feathers littered the shelves too. The place was clean, so clearly these were placed with intention, but he couldn't even find a single price tag.
After about 5 minutes, he decided to cut his losses and leave empty handed. But on his way out a woman stopped him by gently grabbing ahold of his shoulder. "Excuse me sir, but are you leaving so soon? You haven't even bought a anything."
"I'm sorry, but nothing here seems to be worth buying, to me at least. However I am sure someone would have an interest in this kind of stuff. My cousin loves decorating for Halloween and such, so I will at least recommend your shop to him." Joe was trying to be polite, but most of this would just be tossed if he were to buy any of it.
"No no. You have misunderstood. Everything here is real, and works!" Said the clerk.
"Even that dead body? If so I think you should call the cops or an ambulance at least then."
"That one is fake. Yep, definitely not a corpse. Nope. Completely decorative only. But everything else is real. I assure you."
Joe looked over the woman again. She was not ugly by any means, and maybe if she took a bit better care of her long hair, it wouldn't clump like it was, but he couldn't deny that she was kind of cute. She had to be around the same age as him, in her early 20s or so. He did feel kind of bad since this was their grand opening, and he did walk in. So he decided to stay for a bit to humor her at least. "Fine, I will keep looking around for a bit more. By the way, is that your bird? She is really pretty and well trained too."
At the mention of the parrot, the girl tensed up a bit, and then began to fidget when Joe called it pretty. "Y-yes. My bird-She, is my bird, I mean. And um, thanks. I can send her back out again, but I need to take care of a few thing in the back, so please keep looking. I am sure we have something for everyone." She says and quickly leaves. A few moments later the parrot was back out on her perch watching Joe specifically. That was until he moved out of her view. The instant that happened the parrot took off and landed on top of the aisle, following him.
Joe looked around for a few more minutes until he was almost through the entire store. at that point, another customer entered, and the parrot greeted them too, while flying into the back room. The ckerk walked out a few seconds later carrying a small cube-shaped box. She walked over to Joe and placed it in his hand.
"Uhh, take this. I mean, take this please as my thanks for not leaving and humoring me for a while. Umm... It is the last one of our sample products. So, uh, it is free. Oh, and uh, well..." the clerk stammered on. Clearly she was very nervous, but Noe felt that she was trying hard to do a good job, so he helped her out a bit. "Thank you. What does it do?"
"Oh? Oh! Right! It is a random box of transformations. Basically when you open it, something will be transformed into something. And it is even guarenteed to not be a bad thing. As a bonus, you are able to swap between the new form and your normal one at will, if it is you that is effected. Oh and lastly, anyone besides the one who opens the box, and myself, wont notice a difference until you tell them."
Well, she has an imagination, that is for sure, thought Joe. "Oh and um, I know it is like, really late to be saying this but, I am Carolyn." "Nice to meet you Carolyn, I'm Joe. And thanks again for the free sample."
"Not a problem, I think." Said Carolyn, quietly saying the second part to herself. "And um... Thank you for stopping by. I am here all week, if you want to stop by again. Or not. It is completely up to you" she said awkwardly. "I, should go help out the other customers. Yes. Excuse me." And with that she quickly left. Joe just chuckled to himself, pocketed the box and left for his appartment.
After a short walk, he entered his room, and set the box on the table while he removed his coat. Once he was all set, he examined the box. The box was seamless, so how was he supposed to open it? Crush it maybe? The material felt weak and flimsy. He was just about to try crushing it when he noticed a small crack along one of the edges. "Oh, it is like that!" He said to himself, and slid off the seamless face panel with his thumb. The moment the panel was seperated, a blinding light flashed, causing Joe to cover his eyes. Once the light ended, Joe blinked a few times, regaining his vision. Curiously, he looked around to see if anything was different.