It was a cold, cold evening – as December evenings often are. Snow was falling beyond the frosted glass of the bedroom’s window, lit faintly by the bedside lamp, and as far as Aura was concerned it could stay out there! He was cozy, all snuggled up under three blankets and a duvet, as comfy and tucked in as a plushie fox could be.
Still, though, for whatever reason he couldn’t make that final leap. His eyes were droopy, he were all cozied up and warm, but tonight sleep simply wasn’t coming to him like it should’ve.
Oh, well.
He laid there a while, watching the snow – before, finally, turning the lamp off.
Ten minutes passed. Then an hour. Then an hour and a half, the brightly lit LEDs of the alarm clock framing the “1:30” in harsh relief against the streetlight-lit dark.
Sigh.
“C’monnnnn,” Aura groaned, sitting up. What’s the point of being all sleepy beepy if you can’t go-to-sleepy, anyway?
Sitting there in the dark, the plushie fox plopped back down on the bed – sinking in beneath the sheets and blankets, letting the warmth of his pillowy bastion against the cold creep in. One of the blankets was even wool, he thought sleepily. Like a sheep. Heh. Beep beep.
The plushie fox could hardly even really focus on anything else, seeing as there wasn’t really much to focus on. Squeaky sheep were just… the best. He dozily thought about how nice being all puffy and wooly would be. Wouldn’t need to worry about the cold then, would he? A built-in pillow and mattress!
Aura began to feel nice and soft, the faint sensation of swelling the best trick of his imagination it’d played yet. He could almost picture it – huge, oversized squeaky hooves squishing into a beach ball of a white fluffy squeaky sheep, blush plastered to its cheeks. Yeah, that’d be the stuff.
Heh. Sheep counting helps with sleep, doesn’t it? Let’s see… 1…. 2…
Before he even got to three, it was over – and the plushie was falling asleep.
…only to suddenly be back in his bed.
It happened so quickly the fox wasn’t really even sure if they’d actually fallen asleep, but what happened next couldn’t have happened anywhere else – a faint, distant hissing reached his ears.
It sounded… like a balloon being blown up, complete with the breaths between, and as Aura watched, surprised, his blankets began to slide away, revealing an expanse of expanding, squeaky white rubber.
“W-Woah!”
The blanket, finally not having enough friction against the swelling tummy, fell aside – and Aura got a good glimpse of his puffy paws, swelling and stretching and squeaking over into toyish approximations of black squeaky sheep hooves.
This HAD to be a dream. Couldn’t be anything else!
Pressing his paws to his tummy, the fox pushed – effortlessly squishing in, and with a loud POOMPH his handpaws followed suit, squeaking over before his very eyes. He wiggled them and rubbed them together, delighting in the feeling of stretchy, swelling rubber.
“G-Gosh!” The fox giggled, cheeks rosy.
He could still see his puffy hooves for the moment, a good gauge of how big he was – but, as he began to swell sideways and up, the fox started to find it a bit tougher. Not that he really minded, of course, it felt…
…well, great. To be big, and squeaky, and sheep-y, who wouldn’t wanna spend the holiday season as a baa-lloon? Nobody, that’s who.
He squished his hooves into his swelling squeaky tummy again, hoping to change a little faster. His wish was answered by a loud puff, midsection swelling against his neck and head like a neck pillow – and, to his delight, his hooves disappeared over his tummy’s horizon, squishing into the rest of him as his arms began to follow suit. If he listened closely, he could hear the muffled squeaks of trying to wiggle them echoing through his tummy.
Heh.
The squeaks and squirks practically filled the room as he kept swelling, echoing off the walls and through him, right up into his chest and hollowing-out snout.
He’d never had a dream like this before, but what a place to start! He’d have to have pizza before bedtime more often if this was the result he got…
Aura woke up in his bed. No swelling sheep fluff, no squeaks. Just the dark, the snow lightly falling outside, and the alarm clock.
1:14.
…Huh?
Just a dream. Ugh.
Lifting the pillow and fluffing it a little, the fox laid back down – thoughts of sheep still spinning through his mind. Okay, where was I? 3? 4. 5…
SQRRRK.
Aura’s eyes snapped open, just in time for his snout to swell outwards, ballooning into a baa-llooning snout, printed grin and oversized overfilled squeaky rubber taking up a good quarter of his vision. He couldn’t see past his round, squishy white tummy, but he knew somewhere down there were an enormous pair of black squeaky hooves, easily the size of his pillow.
“B-Baa?” Aura giggled, even as his wool began to swell out around his head…
He glanced over, dreamily, spotting the clock. 1:45.
Huh.
Aura woke… up?
All that filled his vision was an expanse of white, and the faintest light of the streetlights outside. Snow?
Wool.
He wobbled, trying to do anything more than wiggle his arms in futility, and received little more than a symphony of squeaks for his troubles. G-Good. Perfect!
He’d have sighed in content, but… having a squeaky sheep snout doesn’t make that easy.
Oh, well.
He was so comfy, so full, so squeaky-sheepy that he felt as if he’d be able to doze off right then and there – and the thought of counting sheep made him giggle, again. Well. One, clearly.
Aura woke up just as his alarm went off at 7:00, on the dot. The sun had just risen, shining bright and cheery through the winter wonderland outside.
Wow, that was the best sleep I’ve had in years! Aura thought to himself, opening his eyes – greeted with a snowdrift. Wait, no. That’s my tummy.
His huge… balloon sheep tummy, massive squeaky black hooves faintly visible through it in the morning light.
“M-Mmph,” The squeaky sheep managed in realization. He had to still be dreaming, right? All he had to do was… was fall back asleep, right? Easy. Easy peasy, even.
The squeaky sheep shut his eyes, trying to will back the sheer comfy feeling he’d felt before, but… he was simply too full, too well rested.
He’d have to try again tonight, it seemed.
…was that hissing…?