A silent scream shredded her mind as reality melted like wax beneath a flame. She was nowhere, no body, no breath, no form, just the shriek of her being tearing loose from some existence she used to have. Around her stretched a hum: infinite, impersonal, like the engine noise of the universe idling behind an iron curtain. And folding into her from all sides were numbers, not the symbolic ones scrawled by human hand, but the actual forms of numbers, cold and vast, uncountable, pressing in like invisible architecture collapsing inward. Then, with a soundless snap, she was.

Consciousness crashed into form like a thunderclap, one moment outside of time, neither future nor past, the next present. The transition was violent. Vision surged into focus, breath returned in ragged gasps, and sensation poured across her skin like ice water. She blinked. Her surroundings sharpened in a rush of color and symmetry that made her head spin. Too much pastel. Too much noon brightness. The world around her looked like a detergent commercial come to life: rows of identical houses in soft, saccharine hues, each with white railings, hydrangeas in matching planters, and pink-painted doors. The picket fences ran in perfect lines, separating yards that seemed copied and pasted into place by a god obsessed with 1950s Americana. The clouds above didn’t drift ... they held their shape like stickers glued to the sky. One in particular, shaped like a lamb, hadn’t moved at all since she blinked. She checked twice. It was the same.

Every house was a clone, same porch swing, same flower trellis, same windows gleaming with polished smugness. It was a neighborhood curated for bliss. Manufactured peace. A stepford geometry of domestic perfection. And there, dropped into its center like a misprinted character from the wrong book, was her.

She groaned, a sound torn from her dry throat like it had to claw its way out, and tried to push herself up. Her hands dug into the grass. Her arms trembled. She forced her elbows straight and tried to lift her chest. So far, so good. But when her legs attempted to follow suit, the coordination failed. Her hips drooped, her spine bent in a steep downward arch, and her knees splayed out in the grass, refusing to align beneath her like they should. She looked down, her breasts swayed, uncomfortably full and bare in the open air, and her thighs trembled from exertion. Her stomach churned. What the hell was wrong with her legs? Why did her wrists feel like they were designed to press into the earth rather than grip anything? She tried to stand again, growling through her teeth, but her feet curled the wrong way under her. Her ankles didn’t hold weight. They folded. Her body twisted forward with a dull thump, her forearms collapsing into the grass and her cheek mashing against the cold dirt.

She laid there panting, too confused to scream. Because it wasn’t just that her limbs weren’t cooperating, it was that they resisted standing. Every attempt felt wrong, like trying to ride a bike to the Moon. Her center of gravity had shifted down and forward, as though her hips and spine had been pulled into a new blueprint without her permission. Her muscles knew something she didn’t, some alien posture they insisted on returning to no matter how hard she pushed. And the terror rising in her throat wasn’t just confusion. It was recognition. This was happening. She was experiencing this.

And she was naked. Completely. She felt the breeze brush between her thighs. There was no mistaking it: she was like an animal whose sex was as much a part of her identity as her eyes or her name.

From this low, humiliating vantage point, cheek pressed to earth, limbs crooked and trembling, everything loomed. The white picket fence bordered her view like a child’s crib, gleaming slats throwing long shadows across her half-naked back. The doghouse sat behind her like a taunt: white, pristine. She was wearing a collar and a chain too, the chain swinging between her breasts, and the name “CUPCAKE” engraved on her collar. She looked, really looked at the chain rattled behind her, bolted to a stake in the yard like a leash pinning a dog to its territory.

She wasn’t a dog. She wasn’t.

She tried to speak, tried to scream out the truth, I’m not supposed to be here, I’m a human, my name is, but what came out was a soft, involuntary yip. High. Feminine. Breathy. It startled even her. Her eyes widened. She clutched at the collar, fingers fumbling, nails scraping at the buckle, but it wouldn’t release. Her palms didn’t work properly, her fingers refused to close all the way, and her wrists were stuck in a low angle that made them better for crawling than for unlocking anything.

A whistle, too bright, like a soundtrack from some sun-bleached sitcom. She lifted her head instinctively, heart catching with a flicker of hope, someone. Someone who might see her. Help her. But before she could form a word, her mouth betrayed her. Just another yip of happy submission. And there he was, stepping out of his truck like it was any other day, a grin stretched across his face, was a milkman. He walked straight to her like nothing was wrong. Like she wasn’t naked, collared, chained to a lawn. Like she wasn’t human.

“Hey there, girl,” he said, squatting beside her with a breezy laugh. “You’re just glowing this afternoon, huh?” She stared up at him, frozen in her shame, unable to do anything but pant. He reached out and, oh god, his hand landed on her bare hip, stroking down with lazy, practiced ease. She jerked, but not away. Her body stilled. Her skin lit up where he touched. She felt heat blooming under his palm, trailing down her side to the soft curve of her ass. She tried to tell him to stop, to look at her, to see, but another little whimper slipped out instead. Feminine. Flustered. Her thighs twitched.

And then his hand slid lower.

She couldn’t breathe. His fingers brushed between her legs, petting softly, casually. Not perverse. Not even curious. Just kind. Like this was what he did for all the neighborhood pets. And her body, traitorous, humiliating, responded. Her slickness kissed his knuckles. Her hips rocked forward, just a little. Her breath caught on a moan. No. It felt good. It shouldn’t feel good, but it did, and he was already patting her ass and standing.

“All set,” he said brightly as he stopped. “Be good now.” He was gone before her brain caught up, whistling down the street. She stared after him, stunned, burning.

Then her limbs jolted into motion, crawling forward with frantic, clumsy jerks, too slow, too late. The leash snapped taut, jerking her back into the grass. She lay there, cheek in the dirt, thighs still wet, and wanted to scream.

She knew now, knew it with the gut-deep certainty of a nightmare that wouldn’t blink, that this wasn’t a hallucination or some fevered psychosis spiraling off the rails. This was somewhere else. The logic was wrong here. And at least one person in this bright plastic hell, one real, tangible, smiling person, had touched her naked sex like it was normal. Had looked her in the face and seen nothing strange. No alarm, no question. Just a pet in the yard.

Then, with a musical creak and the clink of ice in a glass, the door to ... her ... house swung open, and out stepped a vision ripped from the painted nightmare of a vintage ad. A 1950s housewife, flawless and glossy and gliding down the porch steps in kitten heels and pearls, her lips lacquered red as a candy apple. She spotted her at once and smiled with perfect teeth. “Oh, Cupcake! There you are.”

The world was framed from below, angled as though her own height had shriveled, stolen away and replaced with this humiliating nearness to the floor. She could see under the woman’s dress, the swish of the hem, the padded bra outline through cotton, things she should never be seeing from this angle, this low, like a creature beneath notice.

She groaned again, weak, shapeless, high in the throat, and the woman above her just giggled, cooing like the noise was adorable. “That’s my little chatterbox,” she said, fingers combing through Cupcake’s hair like brushing out a well-kept show dog. “You always get so vocal when you’re happy to see me.” Her gloved hands moved with practiced rhythm, stroking down the sides of her pet’s face, tracing her jaw, then gliding lower, over her shoulders, past the chain that swung between her breasts.

Her gaze followed the sway, lips parting just slightly as she tsked. “Still heavy,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Might not be able to wait until lunchtime, sweetie. You poor thing.” Then, with casual ease, her hands slipped down and cupped the girl’s bare breasts from beneath, lifting and weighing them like she was checking a cantaloupe at the farmer’s market. “Look at you, just bursting again. Always so full at noon.” Her thumbs rolled over the nipples, brushing them in slow circles. “That’s what I get for sleeping in.”

Cupcake whimpered, but it was soft, almost pleased, an ugly sound her body gave without permission. Her thighs squeezed reflexively. Her nipples hardened against the cotton of the gloves.

“Oh, you like that, don’t you? Don’t you?” the housewife giggled, leaning in to nuzzle the girl’s ear like she might with a particularly affectionate retriever. She squeezed her pets breasts gently, then again harder, letting her fingers bounce the flesh. “Good girls love their noontime rubs. Isn’t that right, baby?”

The front door creaked open behind them.

The man of the house stepped out, all clean lines and cheerful stride, black pants, white shirt, suspers, and black tie straight, shoes glinting in the sun. “There’s my Cupcake,” he called out, voice full of mid-day warmth. “Is she already getting frisky?”

“She’s been waiting since she woke up this morning,” his wife beamed, not stopping her soft fondling, fingers now rubbing lazy circles around the areola. “I think she missed us.”

“She’s always so responsive,” he said proudly, descending the porch steps. “We’ve got the happiest little dog on the block.”

“I was just saying how full she is,” the housewife replied, giving another playful jiggle before finally letting go, fingers trailing back up the chain, giving it a little tug that made Cupcake’s collar jingle like a bell. “She’s just bursting.”

The man chuckled, sipping from his thermos. “That’s our girl. Well, I guess I have time to take care of her before I leave for work.”

The words the man had spoken, “take care of her” weren’t words of comfort, not when spoken with that cheery calm, that dreadful domestic routine. It was the tone someone used when refilling a pet’s water bowl or rubbing their belly before work. And the way his belt buckle had clicked, the casual flick of his wrist as he undid it, God, her body knew what was coming before her mind let itself say it. And still, somehow, the fear in her chest didn’t translate to words in her mouth. She could feel the panic in her ribs, the scream trying to claw its way out, but it translated into breathless whines and panicked yips. She sounded excited. Eager. She sounded like a dog being promised a treat, and that betrayal made her stomach twist in on itself with a horror too deep for language.

She spotted it by sheer accident, just beyond the edge of the porch, by the smooth expanse of white driveway. A piece of sidewalk chalk, stubby and worn to a nub, half-smashed at one end. It glowed against the concrete like a flare. Not a tool. A lifeline. She bolted for it, or tried to, her hands flailed beneath her, wrists bending too low, fingers refusing to grip or brace properly, forcing her to crawl. Her breasts swung beneath her like humiliating weights, brushing the lawn with every jolt of motion, and her thighs slid wetly with each jerky lurch forward. Her breath sawed in and out through clenched teeth as she reached the chalk, collapsed next to it, and fumbled it between hands not responding to any commands with finesse. Her fingers wouldn’t close right. Her palm had to press it into the pavement, dragging it awkwardly with a movement more like pawing than writing. But she didn’t stop. Her brain screamed commands at muscles that weren’t listening, and somehow, through sheer force of desperation, the message took shape.

I’M NOT A PET she scrawled, the chalk squeaking in protest as she gouged the white letters into the concrete. Her arms trembled from exertion, sweat running down the valley of her spine. The words came out jagged, crude, uneven as hell, but they were words. Her. Voice. On. Chalk!

A declaration of sanity carved into this pastel nightmare. And then, faster, more erratic: HELP ME, scratched in frantic, broken strokes, the chalk nub grating on the driveway with each letter like a scream echoing through a storm. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Her hair stuck to her cheeks. Her thighs trembled and stuck together with the same traitorous wetness she couldn’t stop, but it didn’t matter. This was it. Proof. Something they had to understand. She lifted her head, eyes wide and pleading, and looked up at them, ready for the horror, the recognition, the moment where the veil would tear and they would see her.