Daniel the Cake was lowered slowly into a dim, cold room, coming to a stop on a large steel table. The temperature had dropped several degrees. He could see his breath. Impossible mechanical arms lined the ceiling. Some buzzed back and forth deep in the cavernous place. Daniel couldn't see the end of it; it was huge.
One of the arms ended in a huge flat spatula. It must have been five feet wide. Daniel eyed it nervously as it oriented itself at the bottom of his base, and with a single quick motion, picked him up for transport.
Daniel shouted and yelled, waving his arms, but no one answered him. He was carried on this lift deep into the enormous fridge to a shelf, where he was deposited, facing out. The spatula set him down gently, and with a second quick motion, scuttled off to parts unknown.
Daniel craned his neck to the right. A white cake, like himself, stood silently. It looked vaguely human, but Daniel wasn't sure. A definite female torso stuck up from a square cake base. Her hands, if she had any, were buried in the flat surface. A crown of blueberries surrounded her head, long brown hair fell down her back. Blueberries lined the base as well, and she had two blueberries where her nipples might normally be. Her eyes and mouth were closed, and she was not breathing. To Daniel's left, a bowl of chocolate pudding stood motionless.
Was this to be his eventual fate?
Daniel hugged himself in the cold, and began to quietly sob. He was beginning to lose hope of seeing anyone ever again. He had his humanity taken from him, his mobility, and now his freedom. He didn't know how long he could live being half human and half cake... It was supposed to be impossible. Maybe it was. Maybe he would slowly transform down here, bit by bit, into a motionless dessert, losing consciousness altogether. Or would his shape be altered again later? Fully aware as a nonliving layer cake. Cold sugar tears streaked down his frosting face and into his candy mouth. He hated the taste of them. Daniel couldn't take these dark thoughts anymore and he let out a scream.
Abruptly the cake girl to his right opened her eyes. Spotting Daniel, she lifted two hands out from her cake base and slowly began to speak.
"You... you're new here, right?"
Daniel was thrilled. Another person! Sort of. "Yes! What's going on here?" He sobbed. "Who's doing this to us? What is this place?"
Fully alert, the cake girl began to speak more normally.
"Calm down! I'll tell you what I know. My name is Robin... I came to this place on a whim, thinking it would be a good idea to become something else for a little while. A transformation sounded like fun..." Her face darkened, and tears welled up in her eyes.
"But I was left in a room by myself to fill out some insane paperwork." She practically spit out the last word. "I wanted to turn myself into a cat for a week. A Russian blue. But I must have filled in some boxes wrong. How was I supposed to know? I was stuck in a room and they turned me into a cake!"
Daniel's eyes widened.
"One of the workers came in and explained to me what had happened. They'd had a malfunction with their equipment, they said. They told me this would only be temporary, and that they would have me moved, only for a few hours, until I could be... fixed."
She had started crying. "What month is it?" Robin asked softly.
"September." Daniel almost didn't want to answer.
"Seven months. I've been down here for seven months. They just left me here."
Daniel stared down at his hands, absorbing all of this.
"Not just me. Others have been down here, come and gone. Not any as long as me, as far as I can tell. All of them... food." Robin's voice was a whisper. "You know what else? I used to be a boy."
Daniel said nothing.
"They put us down here for cold storage. Long term. The thing is, their transformations are never quite over, or finished, when something goes wrong. The mutations continue. When I was left here, I was a boy, like you." Robin cupped her breasts. "These didn't come along until later. I bet I'm not even finished yet."
Daniel gestured to his left. "What about the pudding?"
"He was pretty talkative until about a week ago. One day he just started to melt. Once in a while I hear him gasp. I think he's still alive, but the arms will take him soon. He's almost done." Robin's face darkened.
As if on cue, the pudding let out a ragged cry for help. Fingers grasped into the air, and melted just as suddenly. The surface remained motionless.
Robin turned to face Daniel, her blue lips turned upward in a grim smile. "If you're down here, there's no way you're finished yet."
Daniel recoiled in horror. Suddenly, his hands began to tingle.