Young Writers Society

What if you mix a girl who can travel through dimensions with an abandoned doll that has nothing left in his own world? Surly nothing bad will happen; and they certainly won't get trapped in a bunch of different dimensions floating through the cosmos while trying half the time to survive while the other half looking for something the girl doesn't even know whether it exists or not...

As you can tell, a very light-hearted story with little to no conflict.

Warning: This story is meant for those 13 or older.
Content Warning and reasons:
-Bullying
-Physical Abuse
-Fear

LSS: Everywhere in a Toy Store OOC

Characters
Marshmallow - OrabellaAvenue
Rags - LucidNightmare
Millie - OrabellaAvenue
Primrose - OrabellaAvenue
Opal - LucidNightmare
Grandpapa - LucidNightmare
Forrest - LucidNightmare
Evan - OrabellaAvenue

Millie
Dimension 3.141G: When Pigs Fly

Her mom always said that she wouldn’t get Millie a pet bunny until pigs could fly. Knowing this, Millie never assumed that a year after that she would get a bunny named Marshmallow that followed her around everywhere.

Nor did she think she would ever have to run away from a flying pig.

But here she is, doing both. Marshmallow is trailing close behind at Millie’s heels while she flees from many (quite angry) flying pigs.

Hmm. Maybe mothers don’t know everything after all. At least, Millie’s mother. In fact, she doesn’t know quite a deal about Millie. Though, that’s probably what happens when one keeps so many secrets. Maybe she should change that.

Anyway, back to the subject of this story. Or rather, this dimension. Or rather, what’s not (supposed to be) in this dimension.

Millie and her little bunny Marshmallow enter the woods, the small adorable ball of white and gray fluff following the heels of a girl hoping the trees will block the flying pigs from continuing their pursuit. Alas, not only can these flying pigs fly, they can also walk. And at an alarming pace, too.

Millie is great at multitasking, but sometimes too much is just too much. Trying to rack her brain on what to do while not only trying not to trip on the branches that littered the heavily forested landscape, she also has to avoid tripping over Marshmallow, who, as a rabbit, is quite a deal faster than a human. The only reason Marshmallow is not miles ahead by now is because, A) he is tired, and B) he hasn’t the slightest idea where to go. (Also, he cares about Millie. Doesn’t want to leave her behind and such to a group of bloodthirsty pigs.)

In addition to all that, the pig’s insistent noises fill both her and the sensitive rabbit’s ears to the point where they can’t hear anything else but the oinking of the herd of pigs. While fumbling with her dimensional travel device, almost dropping and losing it multiple times, she has to focus (or try not to focus) on all that while inputting her own dimensional ID. (Fun fact: it is hard to work with a small object while running the fastest you possibly can. And that’s without taking all the other tasks and distractions into consideration.)

Something small and pink goes rushing past Millie’s head, and in her already confused and panicked state, she gasps and stumbles, just managing to catch her balance. The sudden change of pace causes Marshmallow to bump into her lightly, throwing him off balance as well. He quickly regains his momentum, hopping to the side of Mille instead to avoid another collision. Another pink thing goes soaring past her face, and it takes her a moment to identify what it is before she goes sailing past it.

A mini flying pig.

Another goes sailing past her face, and before she has a chance to duck or change direction, she slams into it. It doesn’t hurt, as the small creature is roughly the size of her nose, but it surprises her just as much as walking into unexpected tree branches. (Even more so, she thinks, as she had been running into tree branches this whole time. Having a tiny pig slam into your face certainly isn’t something she expected.)

More and more tiny flying pink pigs come soaring out in front of them, likely launched by the others far behind. They buzz around her head, tugging at her hair if they could, before they are swatted away. She is lucky the air resistance around them slows them down, otherwise getting them to leave her alone would be a whole other issue. At most they are an annoyance, but combined with everything else, it makes the whole situation even more infuriating and stressful. She is grateful Marshmallow is low enough to the ground that the pigs have a hard time getting to him.

How did I get myself into this situation? she grumbles to herself. If I could just talk to them and explain what happened, we wouldn’t have to run away like this.

It had been precisely this problem that caused the event of running away from flying pigs to occur. Not knowing the language of the pigs, which in her mind she called Oinkish, she hadn’t understood the meaning of a mother pig, nor had she realized she was between the mother and her piglets.

Although zig-zagging through a heavily wildlife-littered forest while running as fast as you possibly can seems like a bad idea (and… it is…) it is what Millie decided to do. Marshmallow, being the agile bundle of cuteness that he is, easily hopped over debris, through leaves without hardly making a sound, and stays almost exactly at Millie’s side at all times. Millie isn’t so lucky.

They lose many pigs at their tail, but some of them that can handle the zig-zagging begin to catch up faster as Millie’s trips and stumbles become more frequent. However, the tiny pigs cease, as the adults can no longer guess where the two were going to be.

Millie stops zig-zagging, and the rain of tiny pigs is reestablished, but by that point, it was too late. The adult pigs have caught up, and one has gotten ahold of Millie’s skirt. She is stopped mid run, with the air partially knocked out of her, and she can feel the pig’s cold slobber dripping down her back. She shivers.

Marshmallow pauses, his body moving up and down as he breaths, almost seeming as if he is dancing to a song. His little nose wiggles as he sits there, looking up at Millie.

Now, dear reader, Millie is not in danger. She never goes to a dimension that she knows is dangerous (at least, that’s what she tells herself), and at this moment, she is not in danger. Before she had accidentally angered the mother pig, the other pigs had gotten along very well with her, and though they could not communicate, they made it very clear they wouldn’t hurt her. (In fact, they didn’t hurt any creature. They were a peaceful race of flying pigs, vegetarians, and were not like the wild hogs they evolved from.)

For this reason, Millie does not struggle (much), or cry out in fear, and tells Marshmallow very calmly that he can wait for her in the field where they entered.

Millie, on a typical day in a typical world, would never run from the government. However, with the advanced society of these pigs, their complicated law system, and the fact that she could not understand a word they said, Millie decides it would be easier to leave to go to her own dimension. She did not have the time to spend locked up in prison for years (as fun as that sounded) especially when she was from another dimension, and she reasoned that maybe laws shouldn’t apply to her exactly the way they applied to others in dimensions different than her own. (While this may sound selfish, she had created this idea in an ocean in a different dimension where there was a law that you couldn’t go on land. This, of course, was an impossible law for Millie to follow, at least if she wanted to keep her life.)

Marshmallow, somewhat understanding Millie, hops off to the field. A few of the tiny pigs follow him, but the adults seem to be preoccupied with Millie, or they simply don’t care or see Marshmallow as a perpetrator of the law.

The hustle and bustle of the crowd of pigs around Millie dies down, and she can feel the pig holding her skirt loosen its grip for a second. In that moment, she tugs on her skirt against the pig, its grip further loosening, and she thinks she hears fabric tearing among the chorus of oinking.

With the force of the pig pulling her back suddenly gone, she falls forward and stumbles to catch herself from face planting. Regaining balance, she dashes away from the group of pigs, who are confused and have not yet fully processed what has happened. Following the direction Marshmallow has gone, she runs in the direction of the field, with the flying pigs in tow. They aren’t as close as they had been before, but the echoing of their oinking still feels like their snouts are right in her ear.

She sees the opening in the trees, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good because she sees Marshmallow waiting for her, and in this space she can finally open a portal to her dimension. Bad because open space means the “flying” would be put back in “pigs”. She just has to hope they won’t be able to gain distance fast enough so she and her bunny can get away.

She fumbles with her dimensional device, dropping it, and catching it just before it hits the ground. She fiddles with the dials as it bounces around in her hand, setting it to her dimension. As she nears Marshmallow, she looks behind her and prays the pigs won’t be fast enough to jump through the portal with them. She doesn’t know how she’d explain flying pigs to her parents, and doesn’t exactly know how to lure giant flying pigs back through a portal without letting more in. This was pretty much her only chance to get back home, or they’d confiscate her stuff and she’d spend the next 3 years in pig prison.

She opens the portal right in front of Marshmallow, and he hops through.

Although more level than the forest, the grass is still unsteady and she wobbles as she runs, one foot falling into a hole that makes her land face-first in the dirt. A small pink pig flying past her and landing in the dirt, she crawls the last little distance between her and the portal, and goes straight into it, avoiding the edges so as not to burn herself.

She closes the portal with the device, looks around to check for flying pink pigs that may have managed to scramble through, and collapses on her back with a sigh. No pink. No pigs. No flight.

Marshmallow sits on her face.

“Mheyyf!” she says through his fur.

She slides him off, and takes a good look around, and suddenly understands why he had plopped his little furry body on her face.

They are on top of a building. A tall one. In a place she doesn’t recognise. In a city with old buildings. Old buildings that are new. What she means to think is, old-fashioned buildings that are brand new. Nothing like anything in her own dimension.

She checks her dimensional device to confirm, and sure enough: she isn’t in her dimension.

“Ah. Okay. Not ours,” she says as wind rushes in from behind her and blows hair in her face.

“Well,” she says after a moment of brushing hair out of her mouth. “Better than flying pigs chasing me everywhere.”

The only question is: why does she feel like she is being watched?

Rags
Dimension D011: Daily Life of a Ragdoll

It was black for a while. I couldn’t feel myself or my surroundings. I just floated in the abyss. A sense of weightlessness consumed my every thought.

Then I hear it. A melodic tune slowly fades into the space I drift in. It’s a soft voice that’s singing. It isn’t very loud or obnoxious… just calm.

I recognize the voice. I remember listening to it often. It rarely sang though. Only when things hurt did the voice sing to me.

I cling to the familiar feeling. Then light pours into the void, spilling everywhere and blinding me as I open my eyes.

“Waky, waky, little dolly!”

“Awww! Did the little dolly have a nice nap?”

“Poor little dolly looks so sleepy!”

Everything hurts. But where’s the voice to sooth me?

“Seems like little dolly wants to take another nap! What do you say boys!?! Should we put her to sleep again?”

“Yeah!” several voices shout at once.

I stare at the boys that hover over me as I groan softly on the street sidewalk. There's about 5 of them. I look at the one that seems like the leader dead in the eye and plead with him not to do this.

He smirks at me as if I said something funny. Then he nods to the boys as if to say, “Go ahead, get her.”

Two of the teens grab my arms and wings and hoist me up into more of a sitting position. My fabric tingles with irritation where they touch me. The other two minions grab my legs and hold them down tight. I squirm and wriggle around to try to break free as the leader slowly approached. He’s enjoying this. I’ve seen that same expression before. The leader of the group kneels down to my level and gets close to my face.

“Any last words dolly?” He asks, invading my personal space.

I look up at him with tired eyes. I’ve been through this song and dance too many times to play their game and give them what they want to hear. Like “Please, don’t hurt me!” or “Please, let me go!” I won’t give that to them. I won’t give them the satisfaction.

“No,” I say.

“No?” the boy asks, surprised.

“No,” I repeat.

“Well, that’s too bad, I was hoping for something more… But… It doesn’t matter,” he says as he backs away a bit. his tone of voice suggested that it did in fact matter to him.

“So, Daniel… you gonna punch her or what?” one of the goons questioned.

“No… I plan to do something a little worse,” the leader explained. “I thought we could…”

“H-him…” I whisper.

“What did you say, dolly?” Daniel narrows his eyes at me.

“I’m a him” I speak out a little more.

The boys burst out laughing. Their grips on me loosen as they chuckle uncontrollably.

“Oh, wow! You? A boy? You can’t be serious,” the gangster wipes a tear from his eye.

“No way!” one of the minions shouts.

“She’s joking!” another one adds.

“Come on, you’ve got to do better than that, little dolly,” Daniel grins.

I don't respond, I’m too busy thinking about how I’m going to escape. So, while they’re still laughing at my expense, I easily twist out of their grasps and scramble away.

“Hey, get back here!” one of the boys hollers.

“Don’t let her get away!” Daniel commands his goons.

Clambering onto my feet (if you can even call them that) I sprint as hard as I can down the street. I pass by cars, buildings, and confused citizens bustling about the city. I don’t look behind me for fear that they’re not far back.

After running for about 15 minutes, I think I lost them, so I slow down. If I had a heart, it would be beating very fast right now.

Still a little shaken by the experience, I open the door to a tall building and trudge up the stairs. All the way to the top. With a trembling hand, I push open the door to the roof. I drag my tiered feet over to my makeshift bed of wood and tarps and other random objects. With a thud, I collapse on the rickety thing and close my eyes.

That is, until a swirling mass of colors and light appears, and a little girl falls out of it. Then I open up my eyes wide. I bolt for the nearest hiding spot and duck behind an old box as the strange girl stands up. A small rabbit at her side.

Rags
Dimension D011: Hide and Hi

I watch carefully as the little girl looks around. She seems a bit confused at first. Like she was expecting something else, and this wasn’t it. The expression soon vanishes though and is replaced by concentration. I watch the girl carefully as she dusts herself off. But my attention is soon pulled away by the small white rabbit that accompanies the child. It’s sniffing the air and the ground, following a scent it caught. The rabbit’s stubby little legs hop this way and that… inching closer to the box I hide behind. It’s these moments when I’m glad I don’t have a heart because I’m sure the fur ball would hear it if I did.

The little girl turns her head toward the bunny that is now right next to the box and says, “Marshmallow? What are you doing?” She walks closer.

Oh no. I stop peeking and duck behind the rough cardboard. I hope she didn’t see me.

The rabbit sticks its tiny nose around the corner of the box. Then it hops into view and looks at me. I cover my mouth to muffle a scream. The bunny’s ear twitches as it steps closer. I try to shoo the thing away, but it just stares at me and blinks.

“Did you find something, Marshmallow?” the girl trots after her pet.

No, no, no.

“Marshy?”

No, no, no, no, no.

“What is it, little Mar-Mar?”

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I look up to see the small child inhale sharply as she looks at me. An expression of horror on her face.

No.

Millie
Dimension D011: Rotten Stool

She gasps, falling backward, a pair of button eyes staring back at her as she falls.

Following Marshmallow’s small fluffy tail behind a bunch of boxes, Millie didn’t expect to see a giant doll behind them, although that’s not the reason she was startled. It was the fact that its face changed when it saw her, and into something she recognised as fear. Its arm moved in front of its torso in a protective motion, and although its features softened slightly as the initial shock wore off, she could tell it was still scared.

Her own shock wears off, and she balances herself so she is no longer leaning on the random stool she had fallen onto. She takes a step forward, noticing the slight jolt of surprise the doll made as she moves (which reminds her of wild bunnies when you move nearer).

“Hi! I didn’t mean to startle you, I’m sorry.”

Marshmallow backs off from the doll and returns to Millie, brushing his fur against her legs as he partially stands on her shoe.

The doll hesitates, squishing itself more into the wall as it tries to back away. (The squishiness of the doll made it so it could squish a lot into the wall. Mille wondered if it could become almost flat if it squished hard enough.)

The doll says, “Hi?” quietly. She didn’t expect the doll’s voice to be masculine; it looks very much like a girl doll with pink fabric and bows and jewelry. The voice isn’t deep, either. It sounds like a kid, maybe a 13 year old boy or so. She decides the doll most likely would like to be called she/her based on the clothing it’s wearing, so she mentally refers to the doll as such.

Marshmallow hops from one of Millie’s boots to the other, making her more off balance, and she grabs the stool to steady herself.

“This little ball of adorable fluff is Marshmallow,” she says. “Sorry he got so close to you; he probably smelled you and wanted a new friend.” She squats down and pets him, her eyes trained on the white fluff while speaking.

She looks up at the doll and says, “I’m Millie. What’s your name?”

She doesn’t reply.

Millie looks around. “Soooo… Watchya doin’ up here? Fairly windy, fairly cold, fairly…” she looks at the rotting wooden stool. “...old. Doesn’t seem like a fairly fun place.” She pauses a moment, smiling. “Says me, who used to spend a ton of her time surrounded by tools and books and papers inside in the messiest little office you’ve ever seen.”

She looks to the doll, half-expecting her to say something in return. She just stares at Millie, fear still obvious throughout her composure.

“I like this little stool you have here. Is it yours? It’s a nice antique - or, rather, I, um, love the patterns on it. Still old though, you can see the soft insides of the wood from rotting. How long has this been up here?” She looks around, as if something on the top of the building would give her a clue as to why. “What’s that pile over there?” she says, pointing. “Wood, tarps, a bunch of other random things… Did you put those here? Or were they already there? Come to think of it,” she says, turning back to face the doll. “Or really, back to this again, what are you doing up here? Is it for the stool? Ooh, do you have a plan to make a little fort with it? Free furniture that can stand up on its own is free furniture that can stand up on its own. Ideal for making a little pillow fort.”

This, too, brings nothing out of the doll. Millie wonders at first if the doll can even understand her, but recalls she said hi earlier.

“Do you… understand what I’m saying?” The doll gives the faintest of nods. “I’m sorry, I–”

The doll makes a sound, as if she’s speaking, but Millie didn’t catch what she said.

“What did you say?”

The doll looks at her, her eyebrows scrunched (huh, doll eyebrows. Who knew?). She opens her mouth again and says, “Who are you?”