Holly panted with frustration. It had been another close call. Slowly, she collected herself and began walking again. There was a motel nearby where she could rest and lay low for a while.
Before going inside, Holly used magic to put a weak illusion around herself to hide her ragged appearance. She had just escaped from two pursuers. Her clothes were torn and dirty. She just needed to get inside so she could clean up. She walked up to the desk and checked in. She was rather impatient with the receptionist, since she didn't know how long her illusion would last. Once the room key was placed in front of her, she scooped it up and rushed to the room without saying anything more.
Holly let herself into the room and locked the door just as her illusion dissipated. Her ragged state was now visible. Fortunately for her, there was no one in the room to see her, at least no one capable of doing anything. She wouldn't be able to stay here for more than one night, but she should have time to get cleaned up and rest a bit.
Even for someone with magical capabilities, life on the run had not been easy for Holly. She had been hunted relentlessly. Ever since it had come out that Holly had used her magic to transform multiple people into inanimate objects, the council had considered her one of their most wanted. Since then, she had multiple confrontations with council officials looking to arrest her. She had managed to escape them by transforming her pursuers as well, but that just increased the list of pending charges against her.
Holly bit her lip angrily. Transformation magic had served her well so far, but if she kept relying on that, she worried she would become predictable. Unfortunately for her, she couldn't study new spells without access to her family's archives.
"Fucking council assholes." Holly thought bitterly. "They're so focused on regulating magic they don't want any education on it."
Holly had long been frustrated with how tightly magical secrets were regulated. She very much had a survival-of-the-fittest mentality, and believed that mages like her could call the shots for humanity. Instead, they were expected to live in the shadows, only able to learn whatever magic they could study on their own. Now Holly found herself without any means to increase her magical skill set, and it was all thanks to that snitch, Sophie.
It made Holly angry just thinking about Sophie. She was supposed to be a friend. Instead, she snitched to the council about Holly transforming people. Holly didn't know why Sophie was so shocked. That guy Sophie saw Holly turn into a bra was just some drunk jerk. The council even knew about Holly's roommate from her freshman year of college. Sophie was the only one Holly told about that, so there could only be one reason why the council knew about it. Holly hadn't even transformed what's-her-name herself. She had just left a book of spells out and the nosy roommate got herself stuck. Holly never did figure out what she ended up as...
There was no use dwelling on it. She would show them all eventually. She pulled her backpack open and was relieved to see that nothing inside was damaged. She still had a change of clothes. It was much needed as the clothes she was wearing were in tatters from the struggle she had just escaped. She got undressed and examined the damage to each article of clothing to see if any of them were worth repairing. They had even managed to tear her underwear. Holly pulled the tattered panties off.
Holly could tell that they were quite old even before they had been torn. They were lilac colored, though the color had faded with age. The fabric had worn thin. Several small holes were visible. The thread holding the waistband on was coming undone. The panties had all of these signs of wear and tear even before taking into account the large tear that the fight had left in their backside. Holly thought about how long she had these particular panties. From what she could remember, she bought this pair when she was just starting college. That was six years ago.
Holly couldn't believe she had kept a pair for that long. She could probably repair them using magic. However, Holly didn't see the point with such an old and worn out pair. She tossed the panties into the wastebasket without any further thought about it. Holly then began to get dressed, starting with the bra and panties she had made out of the two council officials who had attempted to arrest her.
A consciousness stirred within the discarded panties. They knew that their owner had just taken them off. That was part of the routine that made up the panties' existence. As far as they knew, it was now the start of the wait to be washed. Being panties was a simple cycle. They would wait in the drawer with the other panties until their owner picked them to be worn. Then they would spend the day wrapped around their owner. Once that day was over, it was a long wait in the laundry hamper. Then came the washing. The panties would get a ride through the washing machine and dryer, before it was back to the drawer to await their next turn to be worn.
It was a repetitive existence, but it was hard for the panties to imagine anything else. The cycle was so ingrained into the mind inhabiting the panties, that they believed the wastebasket they had just been thrown into was the laundry hamper. They were completely oblivious to how much they had fallen apart. The panties wished the waiting part wasn't so long. Whether it was in the drawer or the hamper, the waiting was boring and lonely. The panties didn't want to be taken off of their owner. Being worn was the only thing that made them feel useful and stimulated. It was their purpose in the world. Going through the washing machine and dryer wasn't boring, but it didn't give the panties the connection they had with their owner. Being wrapped around their owner's most intimate parts satisfied a yearning for human connection.
It was a little strange that the panties craved human connection. They were nothing more than an undergarment after all. The fact that they were even having thoughts was unusual. Still, every so often, images went through the consciousness dwelling within the panties. Were they dreams, or maybe memories? Thoughts and visions passed through the panties' simple mind. It was like experiences from a different life, a human life. It was hard for them to imagine being anything other than panties. However, there was a vague sense that maybe they might have been something more at some point. There was also some faint doubt about their owner. It was as if their owner had taken something from them, something important. These feelings usually passed quickly though. The worn out undergarment simply wasn't capable of thinking enough to dwell on them. All they knew how to be was a pair of panties. Being worn by their owner was their purpose. They didn't know anything else.
Holly got herself cleaned up and got dressed. She then laid on the bed. Slowly, she drifted into an uneasy sleep. Her paranoia had her ready to snap awake at any sudden noise.
Ultimately, nothing disturbed her overnight. She woke up and quickly gathered the few things she had traveled with. She didn't have much left in the way of clothes. Most of what she had packed before fleeing her home had been ruined in the various confrontations she had fought through since then. She would have to get some new clothes. There was a small department store nearby. Otherwise, if anyone else messed with her, she could always make clothes out of them. She left the hotel room without any disturbance.
Meanwhile, the panties Holly had thrown away remained in the wastebasket. The panties eagerly awaited their trip to the washing machine. The sooner they were washed, the sooner their owner would wear them again. The panties were completely unaware that they had been thrown away.
After a long while of the room being silent, the housekeeping staff came in. They began the work of getting the room ready for the next guest. One of them vacuumed the floor, another changed the sheets on the bed. Eventually one of them bagged up the trash. The panties felt themselves be lifted out of the bin with the other discarded items. The panties weren't bothered by this. They believed that they were being taken to the laundry room sooner than expected. The only thing that was strange was that it became darker as they were picked up out of what they thought was the hamper. Indeed, they were cut off from the light as the housekeeper tied the garbage bag shut.
The trash bag was then taken outside. The housekeeper casually tossed the bag into a large dumpster and went back inside to continue working. The panties within that garbage bag believed that they had just been tossed into the washing machine. They waited, and waited, but no water rushed in. Everything around them didn't begin spinning. The panties continued to wait for the noise of the washing machine starting. It never came, though. Everything around the panties remained still. Eventually, the panties came to believe that they were still in the hamper. They were unable to think of any other reason for their surroundings to be this dark and still.
The only sounds that broke the silence were the occasional car going by or gust of wind. This struck the panties as very odd. The laundry room was indoors. Yet, they were hearing all of these sounds that they would usually only hear while their owner was wearing them outside. It didn't take long for their thoughts to drift back to waiting to be washed. They wanted to get back in the drawer as soon as possible so their owner may pick them to be worn. It was getting lonely in there.
The wait just went on, though. They felt more stuff get piled on top of them. This furthered the panties' belief that they were likely still in the hamper. It felt like they had been in there for so long, but they had no idea how long. All the while, they continued to be confused by sounds from outside.
Finally, the day came when the garbage truck arrived. The sound of the engine was unfamiliar to the panties. It certainly didn't sound like the washing machine. Suddenly they felt everything around them being lifted up. It sounded different, but the panties thought this had to be the moment they were finally going to be washed.
The truck lifted the dumpster up and poured its contents in. For the panties, it felt a little rougher than when they were usually dumped into the washing machine. Plus, it remained dark. Usually, there was a little light as they fell in.
Once the dumpster had been emptied, the truck's compactor began its work. The trash that had just been dumped in was pressed into the packed in mass of garbage that was already there. The panties felt everything surrounding them close in tightly. This definitely wasn't how it usually worked. Where was the water? Where was the spinning? The panties couldn't think much about it as they were pressed inseparably into a dense mass with the rest of the trash by the compactor.
The garbage truck continued its route, adding more to the compacted mass of trash with each stop. The panties found their surroundings closing in more tightly with each one. They could not make sense of what was happening. This wasn't how the washing machine felt at all. However, the panties didn't have much variance in their routine for as long as they could remember, so they couldn't figure out what was actually happening.
Finally, the truck reached its destination. It pulled into the landfill and the compacted mass of garbage inside it was removed. Soon it was packed into an even larger mass of garbage. The panties couldn't guess what was happening from the muffled sounds that could still reach them. Garbage from all over the area was piled in and compacted. Finally, at the end of the day it was all buried.
With that, everything stopped. No light or sound reached the panties. Everything around was packed so tightly around the panties, that they would have been easily crushed if they were anything more than a thin mass of fabric. The lack of any activity made the panties slowly go back to waiting to be washed again. Whatever they had just experienced, it definitely wasn't the washing machine.
The wait didn't end, though. A long time passed with nothing to indicate how long. The panties remained immovably buried in that dense mass of garbage. All they could do was think. The lack of any external stimuli caused those strange thoughts and visions to go through the panties' consciousness more often and more vividly than before. Whether they were dreams or memories, they clearly painted the picture of a young woman's life. Parts of that life seemed vaguely familiar to the panties. It was as if the panties had lived that life.
That couldn't be, though. All they truly remembered was being a part of their owner's underwear rotation. There was no way a pair of panties could have had the experiences flashing through their mind. Yet, there was a familiarity to them they couldn't explain. It was all so confusing. The panties just wanted to be worn again. They wouldn't have to think about this if they could just be worn. The feeling of being wrapped around their owner, rubbing against her skin and her most intimate parts, it would be enough to keep the panties occupied. It's no wonder these strange thoughts came when the panties were bored and lonely. Being worn would give the panties the contact with another person that they so desperately craved. Wait, why had the panties thought of their owner as 'another person?'
The panties couldn't escape dwelling on these intrusive thoughts as they remained there in the landfill, buried and forgotten in a packed-tight mass of garbage. Their former owner would never wear them again.