*Themes: living plushies, swimsuits, hypnosis, dream-based concept

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I was sleeping for a good bit until I had some slight discomfort on my body, making me toss and turn until I realized I was resting on foamy ground. My eyes popped wide open and I found myself on fabric ground with missing clothes. The pair of pants and a thin cotton shirt I had worn to sleep were gone, and I was only left in my boxers. Above me, plushies of different animal types and colors were looming above me, staring at my near-exposed body with their pairs of typical beady plastic eyes that stuffed animals had. Some even poked their plush appendages at my body in curiosity.

I blushed, trying to cover up my chest in embarrassment, immediately asking the most rational question at that point in time, “Where… are my clothes?” The crowd of plushies tilted their heads at me with gazes from their eyes, wordlessly parting to let me get a full view of where I was. I was on a fabric “island” surrounded by a blue cotton pillow “plush sea,” and some of the plushies just pointed at the sea. “The Sea Plushies took your clothes!” One of the feline plushies pointed out. “But…” Before it could finish, I heard its fading voice behind me as I rushed toward the “sea.”

When I was almost at the fabric sealine, a tan-yellow bear plushie stepped in front of me and held a stuffed paw up, stopping me dead in my tracks. The plushie resembled the plushie I normally snuggled to bed every night, one I aptly named “Cuddles,” but I could not confirm that it was her. I bent down and questioned the bear, “Why can’t I just dive in to get my clothes back?” “Hey there, human! I don’t advise that you try that! I’m Cuddles the bear!” She introduced herself, solidifying my guesses that she was the same plushie I knew and loved for years. “I’m the leader of this beach town community on the island, and we’re the Land Plushies!”

Cuddles continued to explain that the Sea Plushies were originally Land Plushies, but they were captured at night, put into stretchy mind-controlling clothing before being dragged into the sea. I raised my eyebrow at the idea as I sat beside her, still slightly shocked that my favorite plushie was alive beside me. She added that most Land Plushies fear the sea at nighttime because the Sea Plushies would attack in hoards if they got too close to the sealine or were outside at night. The Land Plushies would usually lock themselves in their plush homes that were much safer, although some still do get captured by a handful of bold Sea Plushies who broke in.

As soon as the Sea Plushies were mentioned, a swarm of plushies in various pastel-colored short-sleeved swimsuits emerged from the blue pillow water. While Cuddles retreated into the distance, I kicked and punched at the suited plushies, finding it surprisingly easy to defeat and knock them out. With the attacking group unconscious, the bear plushie returned to check on me, sighing audibly once she found me to be unharmed. “These plushies are under mind control from the weird stretchy clothes. Let’s remove them before they wake up again.” I nodded and gathered the defeated Sea Plushies in a pile, starting to take off the hypnotizing suits from the stuffed animals with help from other Land Plushies

Since I was much bigger than the plushies, it was easy for me to help remove the parasitic swimsuits, tossing much of the stretchy clothing in another pile beside me. As I unzipped the brainwashed Sea Plushies from their suits, they shook their heads and bodies, reverting to their normal Land Plushies selves. While I was helping out, a Sea Plushie streaked between my legs and ripped my boxers off, leaving me blushing as I covered up my bits with both my hands.

The one who stole the last article of clothing I had was quickly spotted diving into the pillow sea with my boxers in its maw, giving me a mischievous wink before it vanished into the deep blue. Staring at the pile of swimsuits I had removed from the plushies, I was desperate to find cover for my body. I was tempted to wear one of the suits in the meantime so that I would not be unnecessarily exposed to many pairs of plastic eyes. I picked out a turquoise swimsuit and zipped myself up in it, surprised how well it fitted me despite the fact that it was supposed to only be worn on plushies.

Once the Sea Plushies had been freed from their stretchy controls, the Land Plushies shifted their gazes to my direction and gasped with a paw over their agape mouths. Thinking that I was controlled by the sea, I calmly explained, “They took all my clothes away and I had no choice… But, I’m not affected by the control of the suit!” Cuddles the bear heaved a sigh of relief before suggesting that we retreated for safety since it was nearly nighttime. While the other Land Plushies scattered, she brought me through the plush town to a special plush hut with golden star decors on the outside.

The first thing I realized was that the plushies did not have normal beds, only resting on comfy satin cushions. Cuddles had a pink, circular heart-shaped cushion bed with star designs sewn into it. She hopped onto the cushion bed and “closed” her eyes and fell asleep quickly, leaving a space for me to sleep beside her. I lay my head on the cushion, staring sleeplessly at the golden star on the ceiling above my head. I turned my body to the bear plushie and wrapped my arms around her gently like I always do before I sleep, my face emitting a smile as I drifted off to sleep with the living stuffed animal.

In my deep slumber, the suit took this opportunity to control my unconscious body, wiggling my fingers and toes for a test run. Under the hypnotic trance, I slowly loosened my arms from the bear, getting up from the cushion bed and trudging my way back to the beach. At the pillow sea’s edge, the suit took a swan dive into the pillows and manipulated my arms and legs to swim down through the blue pillows. Eventually, the swimsuit on my body took me to a plush courtyard in an underwater palace, where fabric seaweed and plush barnacles decorated the walls.

By the time I awoke, I was shocked to find myself surrounded by Sea Plushies in colorful swimsuits. It seemed all odd for two reasons. First off, the Sea Plushies were not charging at me or attacking in any way. Secondly, I could still breath and even see clearly in the pillow sea. The Sea Plushies helped me up onto my feet, telling me that I had a sitting with the Sea Plushie King deep in the palace. As they beckoned me to follow them, I walked alongside them through the palace’s corridors, stepping into a big fabric chamber where many of the other Sea Plushie royal subjects stood.

Their eyes trailed me as I approached an anthropomorphic serpentine plushie in a navy-blue swimsuit, sitting on a plastic red coral throne and swaying its stuffed tail on the side. “Welcome, human, to the Sea Plushie Palace. I am King Serpy, the plush serpent. I can tell that you’re a special one and I have other plans for you, unless you wanna be my prisoner?” I shook my head and awaited his other proposition, much to his delight as his grin widened. “Seems like you prefer to help me instead? Come, let’s change you into something better than a typical suit.”

He clapped his plush hands twice and one of his servants brought in a folded, silky foam-green spandex bodysuit with black scale-like designs on the suit. A stuffed reptilian hung from the tail bone of the suit, stuffed to shape just like King Serpy’s tail, only smaller in comparison. It was a serpent outfit with the spitting image of the king. Sea Plushies led me into a plush changing room and barricaded the room on the outside, ensuring my safety as though they were my personal bodyguards.

I placed the serpent suit on the shelf provided inside, took off the current swimsuit on my body, and let it drop to the floor before I went to pick it up to return it to the Sea Plushies. However, it vanished the instant I went to reach for it. I shrugged it off and changed into the serpent suit, pulling the outfit up my body and feeling the sleek material brush my skin. It covered my body up to my wrists and ankles, and it felt like I was in a stretchy silk skin. I zipped myself in it and stared at my reflection in the plastic mirror. I was now a serpent-suited human smiling and posing with the lengthy tail that dragged behind me.

When I returned to King Serpy, he was now on a green circular cushion bed, similar to the one that I slept on with Cuddles the bear. “It’s still late at night. You may rest in the plush clam, my prince. It’s comfy, I can assure you!” The plush serpent pointed at an open plush clam with a giant salmon-red pillow in the middle. Once I laid my back on the pillow, the clam closed and kept the enclosed plush space at a comfortable temperature, warm and cozy just like the way I like it. However, a thought kept my mind awake. I could not help but think of Cuddles and the Land Plushies.

I wiggled out of the clam bed, sneaking past King Serpy who was snoring loudly on his green cushion, his tail curled up around his front. I swam my way up to the surface of the pillow sea, wanting to rejoin the Land Plushies in the beachside town. However, upon being spotted by the Land Plushies, they knew what was up as soon as they saw the scaled-pattern of my new suit. They screamed, scampered, and ducked for cover in their huts, “The human has been taken by the sea!” The bolder ones, those who remained at the scene, held foam weapons at me and chased me back to the shoreline. “You’re now part of the sea. You’re not welcome in the Land Plushie community anymore!” Once I was far from the town, they left me be and returned to their homes.

I sat at the edge of the pillow sea and teared up as the skies turned brighter with sunrise, tearing up and soaking the sleeves of my serpent suit in tears. King Serpy surfaced and sat beside me, wrapping its plush tail around me, patting on my back to try to console me. “I-I betrayed the Land Plushies. I-I just feel bad about it…” I tearfully said between sniffles, giving the plush serpent a hug. The serpent hugged back and suggested, “If you really miss some of your Land Plushie friends, why don’t you bring them to the sea and you could still hang out with them. However, we’ll have to put them in the suits if you’re alright with that.”

I gave his offer a few seconds of thought and nodded, agreeing to help him unite the plushies underwater. Over the next few nights, the Sea Plushies and I captured many Land Plushies and put them into swimsuits, building up an underwater army. It was relatively easy for me to catch the Land Plushies as my size towered over them. I could hold multiple squirming Land Plushies in my arms at once, tossing them into the pillow sea for them to be suited and converted into Sea Plushies. Some tried to fight back by poking their foam weapons at me or tugging on my tail. With a twirl of my body and tail, they were thrown to other Sea Plushies to be suited and taken into the sea. The population of Land Plushies was slowly declining, and I was leading them to their inevitable extinction.

One night, King Serpy and his army of Sea Plushies had surrounded a hut with the star decorations, the hut where Cuddles the bear and leader of the Land Plushies lived. The plush serpent gave me the honor to put the suit onto the last Land Plushie, passing me a teddy bear-sized pink swimsuit with a yellow star on the back. With confidence, I strided into the hut and shut the door behind me, astonished to find that the bear plushie was already waiting on the edge of the cushion bed for her conversion. Her head was dipped and she raised a paw, gesturing to me to listen to what she had to say before I suited her up.

“You came to us, and we thought you could bring balance to the Sea and Land Plushies. Look at what you’ve done! The once happy and peaceful Land Plushies were taken by you and the plush serpent, and now… Now, it’s just me… Will you be satisfied by taking me down to the depths of the pillow sea and leaving the land as a ghost town?” Despite her last pleas, I clothed her in the pink swimsuit and zipped her in, holding her in my arms like I do with her every night before I sleep. She turned limp under the control of the brainwashing swimsuit.

It took a few seconds to kick in, but the words she had said earlier rang in my mind, hitting me in my gut with a pang of guilt. I tried to unzip the bear plushie out of her pink swimsuit to reverse the hypnotic effects but the zipper had vanished. No matter how much I stretched or tugged, I still could not rescue the bear. It was then I realized that the Cuddles I knew for years was gone. As I carried her outside the hut with me, beads of tears rolled down my face and dripped onto the now mind-controlled bear. I approached King Serpy, begging him to undo the brainwashing from the pink swimsuit.

“Alas… The swimsuit you’ve just put on her was enchanted with an unbreakable curse that you can’t remove it forever. Not even I can remove it…” The plush serpent stated. I collapsed onto my knees, weeping as I hugged Cuddles tightly, crying out, “I don’t wanna be in this stupid plush world anymore! I-I wanna go back home!” King Serpy sighed, calling for the whole army of Sea Plushies to hug and console me. The accumulated warmth and softness of their embrace let me feel like I was huddled in my blankets back at home. Drowsiness soon swept over me and I passed out among the Sea Plushies, still keeping my arms tightly wrapped around the bear plushie.

When I was startled out of sleep, I was back in my clothes with Cuddles in my arms, now free of the cursed pink swimsuit. I was sweating slightly from what felt like a dream of mine and sat up on my bed, looking out through my bedroom window. It was still nighttime. I gave her a tight hug to gather my composure and calm down before snuggling her in my sleep. And I whispered, “I’m sorry Cuddles. I promise I’ll never betray your trust anymore.” As I dozed off again, the bear plushie shifted its mouth into a beaming smile.

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P.S. Cuddles the bear is more of my dream’s parody representation of Snuggle Bear from a fabric softener brand called “Snuggle”