Young Writers Society

"Follow your soul," the wind whispers to you.

You open your eyes.

You're inside some dark, abandoned room that stretches out farther than your eyes can currently make out. As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you realize that you're in a dark, abandoned department store.

You keep having flashes of something else, memories of something you knew you should remember but have forgotten. Even more worrying is the feeling that your body is horribly wrong and distorted. You finally look down at your body, and it is then that you get your answer: your body has been changed. It is made of plastic instead of flesh and bone, and even its more distinct features are missing. Your clothes are changed or nonexistent.

You've become a mannequin.

Your body still moves like it's supposed to. You can get up. You can walk. You can turn your head and look around. But your face is now expressionless.

At least you can still scream.





1. Your character looks like a mannequin. The mannequins bodies don't have to resemble their actual bodies in the slightest - it's up to you. The "gender" of the bodies might be the same, but even that doesn't have to stay constant.

You also can decide where the mannequins are in this department store, what they're wearing, and if they're on any kind of stand. I'd love for the mannequins to be the kind that have faces, but headless mannequins also work.

2. Your character's voice sounds the same as it normally does.

3. Your character can't feel or taste. They can, weirdly enough, speak, hear and smell.

4. If they have powers that come from their soul, those powers will stay constant. If it comes from their physical body, they won't have them anymore. (For example, a healer might draw their healing power from their soul, while a shapeshifter may need a certain genetic mutation that lets them take on different forms. The healer could use their abilities, while the shapeshifter wouldn't be able to.)

1. Please include a description of your character in your first post - you can throw it into a spoiler using the code down below and put it at the top of your post.

Code: Select all

[spoiler]Put your description here![/spoiler]

2. Feel free to pick characters from whatever you want. They can be from another roleplay, a storybook, a novel or even a fanfiction of yours. The world, time and plot they're from ultimately just impacts how they interact with this roleplay, so it's really up to you.

3. You can have as many characters as you want, but there'll come a point where you can no longer add new ones because it would alter the plot too much. I'll make sure to say something when that happens, so don't worry about it for now.

4. Please don't write for anyone else's characters. It's hard to predict what someone else might have their characters do, and it takes away some of the fun for the other writers.

5. You're free to have your character guess what the plot is, but don't make any plot-altering decisions with talking about with me first. You can PM me or chat in the spoilers of our posts if you have an idea - I love scheming! I just want to make sure your schemes can be incorporated into what I'm already scheming.

(I also have a discord server for roleplay scheming! If you don't use discord or don't want to join, don't worry about it. But if you want to join in on the shenanigans, here's the invite link.)

6. Don't post multiple times in a row, and make sure everyone has a chance to get a response in. There's going to be times where it makes more sense to post back-and-forth between two people, but try avoiding it unless you absolutely have to - it prevents the other writers from getting too behind and feeling like they aren't involved with the story.

7. Have fun!

Bo was standing on his little porch, elbows leaning on the railing, a cup of tea in hand, watching the sun lower behind the buildings of the city. He was glad to be close enough to the ocean that the salty ocean breeze seemed to make its way to him, and he took in a deep breath.

This was helping. Calming lavender tea, taking a moment to breathe and getting some fresh air. Maybe one-day things would go back to normal. He closed his eyes and listened to the birds chirping up a storm down the street in the grove of trees.

Then he heard a whisper in the wind. Follow your soul. A shiver ran down his spine.

Apparently today was not that day.

He opened his eyes and it was dark. No more tea. No more cool breeze. No - now there was darkness, and he was in a very big room that seemed abandoned. It didn't look like there was anybody in there - just shadows of things left behind.

He squinted, waiting for his eye to adjust to the dark before he moved around too much. That, and his heart was already starting to race. He'd been taken somewhere else again. Again. And everything felt wrong.

He felt like a part of his memory was gone. It was like when he was on that train and have reverted to his teenaged mind, and though less extreme, still deeply disturbing. He wanted to remember. He wanted to go back home. And his body felt off.

Things were finally starting to come into focus in the dark as he looked down at himself, but even the act of doing so felt so, so wrong on so many levels.

He... he was a mannequin.

A naked, pale, athletically buff dude mannequin like the kind that modeled work-out clothes at the mall. He lifted his plastic, still hand up to his non-existent head.

No head. Just a neck, like his head had been chopped clean off.

How was he even seeing?

He screamed, feeling around for a head that he knew wasn't there but wished was.

Follow your soul, a voice whispered in the wind.

Télos opened his eyes.

The last thing he remembered was being in the palace. He had been with Zephyrus, talking about their mom. Télos didn't like to think about Eras too much, but Zephyrus liked to know what she was like before the Great War. He felt like he was obligated to tell his little brother - not just because he needed the closure, but because it was a part of their family history.

But now he was in some strange, dark place. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness - the strange place looked like it was some kind of shop. It took him another second to realize that someone nearby had just screamed, and that everything felt wrong.

Télos hesitantly approached the source of the noise.

There was some kind of armor stand-looking thing there. It had to be made of plastic, but it was moving like it was alive. Télos was horrified to realize that the screaming was coming from the headless, muscular plastic person in front of him.

His hands shot up to cover where his mouth should have been - he was too terrified to realize that 1) he didn't have a mouth and 2) that he was currently made of plastic.

"Gh-gh-ghost!" he exclaimed, nonexistent eyes metaphorically widening in horror. "Pl-please don't hurt me. I-I don't want to die. I don't want to become your eternal playmate, or lover, or whatever you want with me!"

"What?!"

Had Bo any face to express with, his eyebrows would've shot up as he spun around to see another mannequin talking and cowering in fear. The horror of being turned into a giant plastic doll briefly subsided as his mind worked to figure out what was going on.

The other mannequin was probably a guy in his shoes. Not an enemy, obviously. Simple math. That made sense.

"Dude, I don't want to do any of those things. I was just turned into a mannequin. I'm horrified, and I have no idea who you are. But in an effort to establish some semblance of normalcy, uh -" he reached out his hand to shake. His plastic hand. Ew.

"The name's Bo. I'm not a ghost. Normally, I'm just a human dude."

Télos stared down at the extended hand.

He didn't get how someone could be turned into a mannequin, but Bo didn't seem as scary as he originally thought. He had probably just been screaming because he was suddenly a headless mannequin. Télos would have screamed if he had suddenly become a mannequin - even if he had a head.

He lowered his hand from over his mouth, reaching out so he could shake the one Bo had extended.

"I'm Télos, g-"

He froze.

...His own hand was made of plastic.

Understanding dawned on him in the worst kind of way. A noise that was a strange mix between a whimper and a yelp left his nonexistent lips as he rushed over to a mirror he had seen on a pillar earlier.

There was a faceless mannequin in his reflection, wearing clothes he didn't recognize at all.

"No, no, no," Télos whispered. He reached up his hands to touch his face, but they just slid right down its smooth sides when he tried to desperately make out features.

He looked back at Bo, who was only a few feet away.

"I-I'm one, too?" he whispered.

Bo would’ve fluttered his eyelid, had he had one.

“Oh... I didn’t realize you didn’t know yet,” he said quietly, walking up behind Telos, looking in the mirror too. Man. He really was a mannequin, huh.

“I mean, on the plus side - you got clothes! And a head. That’s two things I don’t got - bot that uh, comparing will do us much good. Still valid to panic. I’m just suppressing it all right now.” He laughed a hollow laugh before snapping his plastic fingers and making finger guns at himself in the mirror. Probably one of the most disturbing things he’d done yet.

The sound of the snap was more of a thwack than anything. Disappointing.

Télos didn't really see having clothes and a head as a plus to this whole situation, but he gave a nervous laugh and tried to pretend like he agreed.

"I guess there's some good things," he hesitantly said. He looked back at his reflection and gulped. "The first thing I noticed when I woke up was you screaming - I didn't even look at what I was wearing."

“You know what? Fair. Sorry for screaming, though. I just, uh. Well. I mean, you get it. Mannequin. I am plastic-“ Bo paused suddenly. “Oh my gosh. Would you hate me if I started singing Barbie Girl right now.”

Télos faltered. He wouldn't mind, but that was mainly because he didn't really know what Barbie Girl sounded like. He wasn't really sure if he should bring up that he didn't know it, but he thankfully never had to.

There was a noise somewhere else in the store.

It sounded like wheels screeching against the tile floor. Télos stiffened at the noise, itching to make his golden sword appear. He turned to face it. They were currently surrounding by men's clothes, thought the styles were something more fitting of a player than a mob. Was he on Earth?

The noise had come from a different section with smaller clothes. There was an array of child-sized mannequins right in front of it, but none of them looked like they had moved.

So where had the noise come from?

He looked back at Bo.

"...I don't think we're alone," Télos whispered.

“You know what, we’re probably not. Odds are, there’s at least, I dunno... one or two more people in the same boat as us. That, or it’s something else entirely. But I mean, on the plus side? I don’t think I can die if I’m a mannequin, right? Eh?” He hoped the playful, joking smile in his voice was clear as he pointed at Telos with finger guns. Again.

Apparently resorting to finger guns to express himself was all he could come up with. He’d have to get more creative.

“What if we looked around? Scream or holler if something scares you and I can come running over and bulldoze it for you. That okay?”

Télos nodded.

Bo was probably right. It was just another person in the same situation as them. It didn't have to be a ghost, even though Télos was almost completely sure it was going to be. This was exactly the kind of place an Earth ghost story would take place in. He was sure of it.

He looked back at the section the noise had come from.

The display split the section in two parts - more masculine clothing on the right, and more feminine clothing on the left. He couldn't tell where the noise had come from, so it was probably a good idea to split up.

"I can take that side," he whispered, pointing at the masculine side. His finger moved so he was pointing at the other side. "You could take the other side. The noise had to come from over there, but I'm not sure which side."

Bo followed Telos’s pointing with his shoulders and his nub neck. “Ah. Yes. Wonderful plan! Sounds great. Can do!” He said in a very cheery, congratulatory manner before turning around and going to explore his assigned section of abandoned mall clothing displays.

He passed a display with women’s sweaters and paused for a moment. He lifted one up to his bulky frame.

Yeah, there was no way that would fit. He’d have to raid a different section in a minute. In the meantime, he kept poking his nonexistent head around.

Télos started going through the aisles of clothes.

The clothes were all small; they had to be for smaller players. Children, maybe? He had the feeling that the clothes were designed for little boys, but he wasn't entirely sure. He ran his fingers through the clothes hanging on the metal racks - wondering if someone could hide inside of them.


On the other side of the display, a small, child-sized mannequin was hiding exactly where Télos had guessed someone might hide - inside of the clothes. Some of the clothes were longer than others, even though most dangled above the ground. The mannequin in question was hiding behind an especially long night gown, hands shaking as he pulled his legs close to his plastic chest.

Everything was so big right now, but especially the headless mannequin walking through the aisles. He knew he needed to get away from this place, but he was too terrified to - especially when he knew he'd be caught the moment he tried to run.

The headless mannequin started walking towards his hiding spot.

Terrified, the much smaller mannequin whimpered - and then froze when he realized his mistake.

Bo heard the whimper, and paused, freezing where he was. He didn't want to make any sudden movements and scare the person away, considering they sounded terrified enough to whimper.

"Oh! Hey there," he whispered. "I know you're scared. I'm scared too. I don't know why I'm a mannequin, and it's really freaky."

Bo squatted down slowly beside the clothing display, peeking through the clothes.

"Are you a mannequin too? I won't hurt you. We're in the same boat, the lot of us."