Chapter 9 - Secrets Out & So Are You

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

Silence, everything was dark and silent. Natalie looked down at her hands but couldn't see anything, it was all pitch black.

'Where am I?' Natalie thought. Soon she heard a clicking noise and saw a door open letting in some light. She walked over to the door and with every step, she felt as if she were shrinking.

Once Natalie reached the door, she slowly opened it more and crept into the well-lit room. Natalie slowly closed the door behind her and started to look around. She heard footsteps coming closer from the door she had just closed along with humming. Not wanting to be noticed, Natalie quickly hid underneath the bed. The singing got. Closer and the door had opened.

The door slammed shut. The stranger noticed clothes on the ground and stopped humming. The stranger bent over and picked them up, allowing Natalie to get a good look at the stranger.

The stranger was a beautiful lady with long red hair. Her left eye was golden and her right was brown. After neatly folding the clothes which were Natalie's, the lady picked up the clothes and put them on top of her drawer. Soon after, she walked over to her bed and laid down.

'How'd my clothes end up there? Did I really shrink?' Natalie thought, looking down at her hands. They looked small and fragile, like she was a child again.

"I wonder when she'll learn about them?" The mysterious person said.

'Learn about who?' Natalie thought, just before everything turned to darkness once again.

Natalie woke up in her bed and heard distant screaming and shouting. She looked around her room to see if anything was taken in case it was an intruder, forgetting about her strange dream. While looking around her room she noticed the dolls were gone from their shelf and Buttons's bed empty.

'So help me if that cat took them-' Natalie thought as she slammed open her bedroom door, stopping in thought as she saw the strangest, terrifying, yet strangely hilarious, scene ever.

A blue-haired girl was trying to grab Buttons and pull him away from a blonde-haired guy who was currently screaming out in pain. Everything stopped however when Natalie entered the living room. She was mortified by the two people who had just, most likely, broke into her apartment.

"It's hilarious right? That blonde-haired idiot made mortal enemies with a cat! Hahaha!" Natalie heard a male voice say from behind her. She slowly turned around and looked up. There she saw a brown-haired man looking down at her. Natalie's terrified brown eyes met his calm ones. Not a second later did the man go down to the floor wincing in pain.

'Oh, the power of kicking where the sun doesn't shine, how wonderful!' Natalie thought relieved that she dealt with one of the intruders already, 'Now for the other two.'

Natalie calmly walked over to the other blonde who was being attacked by Buttons prepared to use her same move on him.

"WAIT!!! Let me do it." The blue-haired girl said. Natalie was confused as she saw the blue-haired girl knock down her supposed comrade.

"Whyyy…" The male whimpered as he went down. The blue-haired girl handed Buttons towards Natalie and happily walked towards the kitchen.

"Why did you do that? Isn't he your comrade? Who are you and what are you doing here?" Natalie said following the girl into the kitchen.

"Oh, we're not intruders," the strange girl said, grabbing a pan and getting ready to cook. Natalie looked confused as she said this. The strange girl continued, "we're your puppets! The ones your mother got for your birthday."

"W-What? That's impossible! That can't be! You're lying aren't you?!"

"How would you like me to prove it then?" The girl said cracking eggs and frying them.

"Hmm… If you are the puppets my mother bought for my birthday then… then turn into them!" Natalie said confidently. 'Any normal person would just say "tell me something only I know that the dolls would," or something of that sort. However, if they are intruders they could have been spying on me for the past few days.' Natalie thought to herself.

"Alright then. Also, my name is Mallory and those two pitiful creatures are James and Ethan. James being the one with brown hair and Ethan being the one with Blonde hair, along with a few scratch marks." Mallory happily introduced herself and the two others.

"Oh! it seems the two boys already turned back, guess they couldn't handle the pain. Here's your breakfast, don't forget about your classes." Mallory said pushing a plate of eggs in front of Natalie. Natalie started at the food for a bit and then turned back to where the boys should be. They were gone and replaced with puppets.

This terrified the poor girl, thoughts started to flood into her head.

'THEY ACTUALLY ARE PUPPETS! OH MY GOSH, OH MY GOSH, OH MY GOSH!!! I CHANGED MY CLOTHES IN FRONT OF THEM!!! THEY SAW ME NAKED AND HEARD ME TALK TO MYSELF AND BUTTONS!!!' Natalie thought, mentally banging her head against a wall.

Once Natalie stopped screaming at herself mentally she looked back towards where Mallory should be. All she saw was a blue-haired puppet, with green eyes, that looked exactly like Mallory. This made Natalie pass out in shock.

"Good thing the five days have already ended, poor girl. Oh well, it was either now or never. YOU TWO! GET YOUR BUTTS OVER HERE AND HELP ME WITH THE GIRL!!!" Mallory yelled in her puppet form.

"Y-Yes ma'am!" The two boys who were laying on the floor wincing in pain said in a cheery voice. The two boys quickly got up trying to ignore their pain and ran towards Mallory to help her, hoping she wouldn't punish them.

The puppets still had the same strength as they would have in their human form so it wouldn't be a problem carrying Natalie. The problem would be their height. Even with that minor set back they managed to carry her to her bedroom, well except for Mallory. She liked seeing the boys struggle.

Eventually, Mallory turned back into her human form, put Natalie in her bed, and pulled the blanket over her unconscious body. She turned back into a puppet and joined the boys who were now sitting on a shelf in Natalie's room.