It’s sometime in the middle of the night when the dryer finishes. The beep doesn’t rouse James, who’s in a deep, drunken sleep.
It’s not until evening that he awakens to make himself breakfast. He walks past his dryer, completely unaware, and grabs some milk from the fridge, and a box of cereal from the cabinet. About three bites in he decides he’s cold and walks over to the dryer, bowl in hand, and sets the dial for another ten minutes so that his sweater is freshly warmed.
He finishes his cereal and pauses as he’s rinsing the bowl, hearing something odd. It sounds like muffled shouting, maybe even moaning.
James shuts the sink off and listens more intently. It’s coming from inside his apartment. He walks towards the laundry nook, and then it hits him.
The night prior, the weird little flat man he had stepped on and put into his pocket. His work jumpsuit pocket…which he had put through the wash, and no the dryer, twice over.
Eyes widening in horror, James lunges for the dryer door and yanks it open. A plush, pale object spills forth. It’s squirming, and he catches a hint of hair poking out from between the dryer door and interior. There’s a few folds of clothes pushed into its wrinkles, and a few freckles dotting it.
“Oh.” Is all he can think to say.
He pokes it. It squishes inwards and lets out a pathetic mewl. James withdraws his hand quickly and simply stares at the thing, realizing that it is indeed hot, steaming flesh, and probably— definitely, what’s become of his ‘little friend’ that he’d promised to take care of.
James scratches his head and plops down on his ass in front of the open door, then gently tries to grapple the thing. It’s very soft, very plush in a way that makes his fingers push into its doughy skin, eliciting a cascade of cries and whines as it reacts to his fondling. Goosebumps blossom from where his fingers brush it, and with a bit of ginger pulling and pushing, he’s able to wrest it out of the tangle of clothes and bed sheets.
He cradles the puffball and looks down at it, in all of this pathetic glory. It’s Cory alright. Swollen and indistinguishable as a human being. He still has his Sandy head of hair, but not much of a head. Instead he’s one amorphous blob, with swollen donut lips that pucker, with a little tongue running in and out, glistening with drool. His brown doe eyes are squinted, wet with moisture that collects on the lush lashes adorning them. His nose is more distinct than it was last night, but that’s not saying much considering that it was pressed flat. Now it’s more of a gentle bump along the overall curve that is his little, abbreviated body.
He has vestigial lumps for hands and feet, with wriggling, fat little sausage fingers and toes. A deep belly button sits in the middle of the orb, with two rosy, little nipples above. At the bottom zenith is another pucker, likely his rosebud, and above is a slight little twitching bump that leaks…something.
The entire thing squirms in his hold and lets out more gurgles and agonized sounding babbles, all unintelligible. James himself is at a loss for words.