In the darkness of the night, the grey light of the moon cast itself down upon the landscape, covering it in a dull haze that painted the road below little more them black and white. The sky was clear, littered with the speckled mess of stars which stretch across the sky, and now hanging above it all as it neared midnight sat the moon. Through the dark though, another light shot out though, that of two red brake lights motionless on the side of the road.

        Nearing the front of the car, two more headlights could now be seen, illuminating the scene. The small Audi's hood was popped open and an evident hissing could be heard coming from within. The lights themselves pushed forward through the night, falling upon a road sign, but also small figure with their arm outstretched to the sky.

        "Come on, come on... Shit!" In a frustrated thrash the girl sat down, leaning against the sign post brightened by the car's headlights. The girl had light brown curly hair and bright green eyes that now stared at the cell phone in her hands. There was no signal. "God, theres probably not another cell tower around here for miles," she thought as she lowered her head into her arms. Of all the times her engine could of died on her, why did it have to be in the back woods of Washington? With a deep sigh, the girl stood back up to read the sign she had propped herself up against.

                 "Dammit, next town is miles away, does anyone even know I'm out here?" she thought. She had driven up to North across the border the day before to meet some old friends, but they wouldn't think to check up on her, definitely not this soon. "Well I'm just in between a rock and a hard place, aren't I," she mumbled to herself as she ran her fingers over her hair. "God, I just wish I could get out of here." But only seconds after the words left her lips she felt something; a quick, light tap on her shoulder.

   
Jumping back in shock, her phone practically went flying out of her hand as she threw herself away from where she was tapped. When she looked where she was just a second ago, a look of confusion came over her face. Standing in the pale moon light there was a meek, red headed man only an inch or so taller then she was. He was very thin, but as she look over the man's head she could see the figure was carrying a bag upon his back that staggered feet above his head. Along the side of the bag there were all sorts of things, some junk, toys, masks, and all kinds if various goods that hung from it at all angles. Gapping up at the bag, the girl's attention only returned when she heard the man below the bag chuckle with a "ohhoh, hello there!" as he waved a boney wrist at the girl.

        Now looking back to the man's smiling face, she replied still in shock "umm... Hi?" Now with a quick strike of a match, the man extended his arm and lit an oil lamp that dangled in the breeze from a plank attached to the bag, covering the area with a soft glow. Now only adding to the scene in front if her, the girl could see how that man was dressed strangely in a long purple shirt, pants, and very old fashioned shoes. Looking up, she could see how the man's ears jutted out from his head, coming to a point. Calling her focus once again, the man's cheery voice rang out in the night. "Oh how rude of me, I forgot to ask your name!" Glancing back at his still smiling face, the girl slowly answered "umm.., Emily. Yeah, Emily Lind, and you are?" Despite the timidness in her voice, the man called out as lightly as ever "oh my name isn't important, you can just call me the peddler."

"He's a peddler?" she thought as she shifted her weight. "Is that even still a real thing?" He began to walk towards her broken car. "What is important is your issue here... You've met a terrible fate, haven't you?" A bit taken back by the statement, Emily was quick to respond with a "Well, I.., um," but before she could even get the thought out the man in front of her was reaching behind him onto his pack and from it he pulled what looked like a long wooden chest. Turning back to Emily, he said "Well, I think i might just have a way to fulfill your wish in here" as he reached down and patted the chest. Giving a sideways glance at the chest in front of her, she approached it slowly. With a light tone of sarcasm in her voice, she looked to him with saying "I don't suppose you have a new car in there, do you?" The man only smiled, and as he sat on the ground next to the car, he motioned once more to the wooden box in front if the girl. "Honestly, if this guy was going to kill me he would have done it by now, so I might as well humor him," she thought as she kneeled to open the chest. With one more moment of hesitation, she glanced up to the man's smiling face one more time before her hands felt the latches fastened onto the sturdy wood. Flipping them together, Emily lifted the lid of the chest from its base and peered inside, but looking into the darkness of the chest, she felt herself falling.

     
Now surrounded by the darkness of the chest, her heart sank as she realized she was falling into the dark. "Wait, what?!" She yelled out as her brain racked to understand what was happening. Reaching out in all directions, she flailed through the open space but felt nothing even graze her touch.  "Just relax Em, come on, this can't be real," she thought as she close her eyes as hard as she could. "When I open my eyes I'm going to be done with this!" But upon opening her eyes, she saw the same darkness as before, but now there was something in the middle of it all, and it was getting closer.

       
In a moment the object came rushing towards her, or more likely she was falling towards it. As the object came closer and closer, she braced herself, holding her head in her arms, but when she hit she felt something she didn't expect; softness. Opening her eyes, she quickly reached down to touch the floor below her and was met with a soft mesh. Now standing up slowly, she stood wobbly on the  loose footing below her and looked down at what she now stood on. "Jesus, there must of been some kind of drug in that box or I'm really losing it." Now serving as her platform in the sea of darkness around her was a teddy bear much larger than she was. Letting out a small chuckle, she mumbled to herself, "I seriously don't think this day can get any weirder." But a second after she spoke the words, something caught the corner of her eye; a piece of polished wood laying on the bear's neck.

Stumbling on the loose fabric below her, she reached down and picked up the wooden totem. The object in her hands was about longer then she was shoulder to shoulder and was a strange shape that almost looked like two X's that connected at the end of one extension. Holding the object out in front of her, she started to say out loud "You know, it kinda looks like," but stopped as she noticed something on her arm. Where the stripped sweater she had worn just a moment before was now a green shirt that stretched a little past her wrists all the way up to her shoulders, where they met a patterned darker green dress that reached to just above her knees. Dropping the wooden crosses in front of her, she now scanned her body and around her, trying to find out how she got this on. "Just great, I have completely lost it, what the heck was in that chest?" By the time she was done looking herself over, everything had changed. Her shirt had become a dress and undershirt combo, but looking down, her sneakers now took shape as very simple cloth boots with stripped socks scaling her legs. When she went to try to at least role up the shirt, she found that it wouldn't budge past her wrist, but what really concerned her though was a growing ridged feeling all over her body. Putting her hands on her head, her frustration finally climaxed as she yelled into the darkness "Just get me out if here!!!" Staring into the same darkness that surrounded her, after a moment she heard a sharp whisper in her ear. "As you wish."

With she felt a sharp pain dig into both of her hands. As she clenched in pain, she looked down to her hands and to her shock she saw two thin strings hooked onto her wrists. Before she could even react she felt another sharp pain at her knees as two more strings shot into her skin. Now trying to focus on her hand through the pain, all she saw was the same soft, polished shine that the wood  had possessed over her skin. With that she felt one last sensation, a click in the middle of the hair on her head, but the feeling came almost numb as the last string set itself in place. Now struggling to focus, she felt the strings tug up and soon found herself ascending away from the bear below her.

By the time she came back to it, the bear she had just been standing upon was a dot in the darkness below her once more. Struggling against the strings that pulled her up, she stopped as she now saw herself ascend from the same chest she had opened not 5 minutes ago, only it seems to had grown a great deal. Looking down into the chest through the darkness, she could see piles of various toys filling the space within, with what looked like the teddy bear lying in the middle if it all. Before she could even contemplate all of this, she looked up once more and stared into the smiling gaze of the peddler.

The man in front of her was huge, to the point where his hand could wrap around her waist with ease. Looking at his arm, it extended above her head where his hand held the wooden marionette handle, but before she could even get a good look her gaze snapped back to the peddler with a pull of a string. Shaking his head, he looked down at the puppet in his hand. "You know, last time I checked toys didn't move unless they were moved." Staring back at the giant, she hung shocked with anger. "You.. You did this to me?!" Chuckling once more, the man pulled a string and moved Emily's arm to point at herself. "What, this? I did little more then grant your wish! You needed to get out of here, so I gave you a simple means to an end." Looking at the scenery around him and then back to the puppet in his hand, he continued, "And frankly you should thank me! I don't think all of this would of ended very well for you, and honestly is this so bad?" Reaching into his massive bag which still rested on his back as he sat, he pulled out a hand mirror and held it to the puppet. Looking into the reflection of the hand mirror, she could see herself now, or rather what she had become. At first she barely recognized herself; what she saw in the mirror was an small elf doll dresses from head to toe in green. Looking over the toy, it barely stood two feet high, had simple hinged joints visible at the wrists and knees and wore equally simple clothing in the form of what she had seen before with the addition of a drooping green hat that sat on the toy's head. If it wasn't for the fact that the doll stared back with the same face Emily knew was hers through the mirror, she never would of though it was her. Lowering the mirror back into his bag, the peddler pulled the puppet up by her strings and brought her back to eye level. "Now I will be moving from here, and in the end we will both win in the short run; you get your wish of leaving and I get a new puppet to sell." He chuckled to himself but Emily only hung there in shocking realization. "If your lucky, I might just put on a show with you for the children in the next town!" Looking down at the toy in his hands, he saw only a look of anger on the toys wooden face. Before she could even get a word out, the man tapped her on her head and she fell limp with the dumb smile of a doll marking her unmoving, tilted head. "Hmpf, now that's how toys should be." Reaching down, he pulled out a tag from his pocket and wrapped it around the puppets unmoving foot. Tightening it around her wooden ankle, he wrote in quick, neat handwriting "Ema the elf doll: $19.99 and with that, he hung the limp puppet onto a nook on his bag and let her hang there as he reattached the chest as well. Now all Emily could do was yell in her head to be released.., or at least be played with. After a few minutes or so, she stopped only as her mind slowly turned to new thoughts of.. being owned and played with. All the while, the peddler just stood up and began walking, now carrying his new wares to sell at the next town. As he walked out onto the road of the night once more, all you could hear was the distant eerie whistling of the peddler that echoed through the now vacant scene of the wreck as it slowly returned to silence.