Picture by Nena Labo

Everything was darkness, your mind racing as you felt your body in dozens of places. You had no idea where you were, or even what you were, but the memories came trickling back slowly. You remembered walking into a hobby store looking for gifts for your brother, but something happened when you entered the art aisle. You were browsing when the shelf started to creak, the entire thing beginning to fall. You didn't have time to get away before the full weight of the shelf crushed you, your vision going black.

Light slowly returned to you as the shelf was lifted from your body. You tried to call for help but were unable to, your lips refusing to obey. With the shelf fully removed, you saw an employee sigh and look at the mess in the aisle. He bent over and started to pick stuff up, seeming to completely ignore you. He piled random brushes, tubes, and boxes onto the shelf before he made his way to you. You watched in confusion as he reached down and picked you up with ease, not even giving you a second glance as he put you on the shelf.

"Ooo, this is a good deal," a girl said after what felt like hours. You had been sitting on the shelf, trying to communicate with people, but everyone just walked right by you, the terrible reality that somehow you were just a product growing more and more likely. The girl picked you up, admiring your form before deciding to buy you. She started for the register, your vision catching a glimpse of a mirror, revealing what was under her arm. A large wooden box claiming to be an art set was where you should've been, a pit forming in your metaphorical stomach.

She bought you with glee, walking home with you in a plastic bag, forced to see the world through the opaque material. She entered a small apartment, pulling you from the bag, unlocking your latch and throwing you open. The feeling of being opened was strange, but the fact you were also within the box was disorienting to say the least. She pulled a few pencils and paints out, placing them delicately on the table next to a notebook. She unscrewed a few of your paint tubes, pushing the paint out and onto a palette, and dipped a brush that was part of your set into it.

She began her work, delicately tracing and painting, your body spreading more of your body across the paper. It felt like the deepest massage, penetrating your body to its very core as she used you. She sketched and drew, a new shape forming from your raw parts. Color danced along the paper until she sighed in relief, sitting back to admire her work.

From the pencil in her hand, you could see what she had made of you; a cute cat girl painted in aqua colors was now a part of you. You could feel the body of the girl as if it was one of your many, the gentle tickle of the collar on your neck, the extension of your ears atop your head, even the heft of your chest in the tank top. Seeing yourself brought a strange joy, a satisfaction as having done a good job. You saw the talent in the young woman and decided that this twist of fate may have been cruel, but at least you got the best-case scenario and would go on to create many masterpieces.