"Why even bother going out again today?" Maria had asked Sarah, who had ignored her, grabbing her bag as she headed for the door.

"What's the point of studying in another city if I don't get a few souvenirs?" Sarah had said to her, before her expedition to the shopping mall, to get something to bring home once she had finished her course at the college she was studying at. Now she wished she had listened to her, since in the hour or so she had spent there, she hadn't managed to find anything worth buying. Just more generic stores, something she had been to far more than enough.

She sighed as she headed down an alley, away from the more modern areas, where only a few small family-owned stores remained, most of them driven out of business by the attraction of the large mall. However, she stopped as she reached one particular store, hidden away far out of the sight of most the regular mall patrons but just close enough to make sure that it at least attracted some customers, and headed to the window to have a look at the place.

Lined up along the shop window were rows of small, intricately detailed porcelain dolls, each one obviously hand-made, the stitching on their dresses as elaborate as the real thing. She knelt down to examine them closer, and marvelled at just how lifelike they were..

Her curiosity firmly piqued, she walked inside the tiny store to take a look at what was inside, the door jingling as it closed behind her, Sarah taking a quick look around to take the place in. There were even more dolls lining the walls in glass cases, tiny dresses lined up next to them, price tags and labels adorning them. In one corner of the room however, was what appeared to be the crown jewel of the store, a small shelf carrying what at first glance looked like just more dolls, but on closer inspection, were revealed to be of an even higher quality than the other dolls. Since she was an artist, focusing on that as her main degree at her college, she was surprised by the fact that unlike most dolls she had seen, they didn't have that slightly creepy almost-but-not-quite human quality to them, but seemed to jump that effect entirely, instead looking like tiny, pale, porcelain humans.

"Looking for something, miss?" Sarah almost jumped at the sudden voice, swinging around to look at its source, an old man at the counter, apparently the store's owner. He was a short man, appearing to be in his sixties or seventies, mostly bald, some gray hair still at the back of his head, with a piercing gaze, a long, slightly pointed nose, and a very artificial looking smile that made Sarah slightly uncomfortable.

"Oh, um, not right now, thanks. I'm just browsing." She said, as her shoulder bumped into the side of the glass case, a quiet thudding sound of one of the dolls inside falling over onto the cloth-covered floor inside of it. She waited for the man to look away, hoping that she had managed to suppress her expression of surprise, and quickly spun around to examine the damage she had done, only to see that nothing had fallen over. She looked for any sign of something being knocked over, but everything seemed to be in perfect shape. She let out a quiet sigh of relief that she hadn't broken anything, and went to take a look at the other dolls.

After a minute or two of appreciating the dolls, and not quite appreciating the price tags on them, she noticed an old sign hanging on one of the halls, advertising an offer to custom make a doll for a customer, at a considerably lower price than the ones on sale. Sarah thought that it just hadn't been changed for a while, that it was probably higher, or the dolls that would be made as a result of it wouldn't be as well-made as the others, but the affordable price tag was too much for her to resist, and she approached the store-owner, inquiring about the sign, the man confirming the price to her, before explaining it to her in greater detail.

"Now, to create a doll for you, we can work from a photo, or a drawing. Whatever you want done is up to you. If you'd like one made of yourself, we have a mirror that you could use to take a photo of yourself." He said, pointing her towards a mirror mounted on the wall next to the counter.

Sarah took a quick look at herself, deciding on what to do. She didn't think she'd make a particularly good doll. After all, the other ones were all little pieces of perfection, and she, to be honest to herself, wasn't. Brown hair in a short ponytail that barely made it down the back of her neck, slightly tanned skin, a face that was slightly too wide, the nose slightly too big… Vaguely pretty, but not beautiful, and jeans and a plain white t-shirt wasn't exactly that elaborate or detailed. Besides, she could draw; it'd be fun to see a design of her own get made. She opened up her bag, which contained her sketchbook, and flipped through the pages, eventually settling on one that she was particularly proud of, a young girl in a high-necked frilly yellow and white dress that brushed against her feet, with long, almost hips-reaching ginger hair, and an extremely pretty face set in a smile. Something that would fit in with the other dolls.

She carefully tore the page from her sketchbook and handed it to the man, paying him for it, still slightly uncomfortable with his unwavering smile. "It should be done in two or three days. Come back then, it'll be waiting for you."

She thanked the man and headed out of the store, noticing the sun starting to get lower in the sky. She had wandering around a lot longer than she thought, so it was time to head back home.

--

Sarah slowly came into consciousness, trying to force herself back to sleep, just to get a minutes more rest. Her attempts weren't helped by her roommate Maria getting out of bed quite noisily, and occasionally poking her in an attempt to get her up. At about the fourth poke of increasing , she finally got up, rubbing her tired eyes as Maria talked to her.

"Took you long enough. If I let you sleep like that every morning, you'd never get to anything on time, you know."

"I've got one that goes for four hours, let me have five more minutes next time." Sarah said wearily, knowing that that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Maria had a very short capacity to resist whatever urge popped into her head. If she wanted her to get up, she was going to annoy her until she got up. Short would sum up Maria fairly well too, since she was at least a head shorter than her, with black hair and a somewhat mousy body.

"Besides, with skin like that, you look like you could get out more."

"What do you mean?" Sarah said, glancing over to a nearby mirror, seeing that her face seemed to have paled from her usual healthy colour to a more pale shade. How had that happened? She didn't feel sick, or any different… Maybe she did need to get out a little more, she'd probably be back to normal by the end of the day. She grabbed her bag and headed out, putting it out of her mind for the day.

When she returned to her room hours later, her skin hadn't improved. In fact, she had gotten even paler, being almost ghost-like in complexion. A quick examination of her body showed that it was like this all-over, no tan-lines or anything.

"Hey, some guys like the goth look." Her friends had joked, but she was slightly worried about the whole thing. People didn't just lose all of the colour in their skin overnight, but after a quick temperature check, she seemed to be normal. She headed to bed, hoping that she'd be a little better the next morning, but she didn't have high hopes.

--

The next morning, she managed to get a few more uninterrupted minutes, before opening her eyes and pushing a ginger lock out of her eyes, as she began to get up and hang on, ginger hair? She rushed over to the mirror, and saw to her surprise that her hair had completely changed colour, from her normal brown to a bright ginger colour. Her first thought was the most natural one, that is was the result of some dumb prank, albeit a very well done one, since she couldn't see any of her natural colour at all in the mass of hair.

"Why did you do this?" She said slightly angrily to Maria, who was eating her breakfast when she looked back at her in surprise.

"Do what? Nice hair, by the way, I didn't know you dyed it."

"Don't play dumb, this is just another one of your dumb pranks." She said, Maria's expression changing to confused.

"What? I didn't do this, don't blame me for it."

"You think I'm going to believe that? That's exactly what you said after the pineapple trick!"

"I'm telling the truth this time though! And you have to admit that the pineapple trick was impressive."

"Whatever. Just admit it whenever you feel like owning up to it." Sarah said, heading out. First the pale skin, then the hair change. Of course it was a stupid joke, it had to be, there was no other logical explanation for it. The sooner she just admitted it, the better.

--

That night, Sarah stepped out of the shower, drying herself off, wishing that the hair dye had just come out while she was in there, instead staying strong no matter what she tried. She sighed, brushed it out of her face, now reaching halfway down her back, rather than the back of her neck like her usually short hair did, and dried her face, noticing something in the mirror. First she thought had had something on her face, and then she noticed that her eyes were slightly darker, like she was wearing mascara or something, which was odd, since she hadn't put any makeup on that day. She wiped at it, but it wouldn't come off, remaining just as clear when she tried water and soap, only ending up with stinging eyes.

That was it, she decided, she was going to force Maria to admit she was doing something, and make her pay for whatever she would need to remove this stuff. She finished drying off and pulled some clothes on, angrily heading out to confront Maria, staring up into her face as the other girl once again looked confused.

"I don't know what the hell you used, but if you don't tell me how to get this stuff off of my face right now, I'll… I'll…" She trailed off as she realised that she was looking up at Maria, rather than down, like she always did. In fact, everything else seemed to be a little bigger, meaning either everything had grown, or she had…

"Are you smaller today, or is it just me?" Maria asked, just as surprised as Sarah was at the change in stature. Sarah ignored her, rushing back to her room and throwing herself onto her bed. What was happening to her? She needed to get to a hospital and figure out just what was happening as quickly as she could tomorrow, and… Her slightly panicked thoughts were interrupted by some beeping from her phone, notifying her that the doll she had commissioned was done, and that she needed to pick it up tomorrow at her earliest convenience.  That was it then, Sarah decided. She would pick up the doll, and then immediately head to the hospital. After that, she didn't know, but at least it was something.

--

Sarah stepped into the alley, once again tightening the belt on her jeans to stop them from falling down, her baggy shirt hanging off her now tiny body as she headed towards the shop. She regretted doing this first now, she should have gone straight to the hospital… Well, it was too late now, so she might as well just pick up the damn doll first. She opened the door, seeing her reflection in the glass, her skin looking extremely unhealthy, like plastic or something, hearing the same jingle as before as it closed, finding the store to be empty, despite all the lights being on.

"Hello? Is there anyone here?" She said, as she began to feel slightly lightheaded, the already larger room seeming to get larger by the second. She went from light-headed to dizzy fairly quickly, heading for the door but finding herself stumbling towards the counter, dark spots dancing over her eyes, the last thing she saw before she collapsed the bald shop owner, stepping out as everything went dark.

When Sarah came to, her joints felt oddly stiff, moving oddly as she pulled herself up slowly, unable to move them quite as freely as normally. She brushed her hair out of her eyes, flowing down to her hips in a long ginger wave as she found herself inside an enormous glass case, suspended high in the air. She ran towards the case, almost tripping over the dress she found herself wearing, a frilly yellow one with white sleeves ending in almost as white hands. She pulled the dress up out of her feet as she ran towards the glass, beating on it with her tiny hands, unable to do more than produce a feeble tapping sound on the glass.

She spotted her reflection, gasping as she realised what had happened to her, her features frozen in porcelain as she saw the other dolls behind her, equally fancily dressed, walking towards her as she realised that even if she could escape and somehow survive the fall, she had nowhere to go. The other dolls varied wildly in designs and dressed, one of them stepping forward to address her.

"So, you'll be staying with the rest of us then."