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Description
"So, it should be this way..."

Alix walked down the stairs and turned right, entering the convention school's basement. Printed out arrows, hanged on the wall with scotch tape, showed the way towards what should be the local photo studio. She passed the entrance to the games room, a couple of sleeproom-converted changing rooms, and finally arrived at her destination. To her surprise, the door was closed and there was no queue made of other cosplayers waiting for their turn in sight. Surely not what she'd expect to see in front of any photo studio.

She double checked the nearest few signs, but there was no mistake - they all pointed towards the room she was about to enter. Just in case, she quickly went through the programme booklet for the nth time - but nothing changed from the first attempt; it did not contain anything resembling a map of the event's premises. With a larger convention that'd be an outrage - but many smaller, cameral events - like this particular one - had such deficits. Inexperienced crew, organizational mishaps... if she asked the orgs, the list would probably go on and on.

"Oh damn, what the hell" she sighed, correcting her outfit for one last time. White straight jacket-like attire emphasized her curves, a long, green wig rested firmly on her head, hiding naturally tomboyish brown hair... She pulled out a small mirror from a cleverly hidden pocket and took a glance at her face. Golden contact lenses looked as they should... Excellent. The time to immortalize the best C.C. cosplay that walked the Earth (or at least, this year's conventions) has come!

The door opened with a silent creak and Alix proceeded inside... into an empty room. That is, all the equipment was in place, lights were plugged in and turned on, even the camera was resting firmly on the tripod, aimed and seemingly fully operational... But there was absolutely no one in sight.

"Hello...?" Alix walked across the room, peeking behind the background, only to discover a small pile of bags, most likely used to transport all the equipment. Well, if the photographer took a break that would explain the lack of other people... But at least he could have locked the door or something! What if somebody decided to take advantage of so many things left unattended?!

She pursed her lips and took a look outside. The corridor was filled with regular convention noises - people talking, music booming from one of the sleeprooms, sound of dices rolled in the gamesroom... A nearby empty changing room was apparently turned into an ad-hoc tabletop RPG room, with the gamemaster narrating some pretty epic battle against a horde of goblins. Everything was as usual as nerd-infested places tend to be.

"Well, I can as well wait..." she sighed, making one more round around the room, pausing by the photographer's laptop resting on a table in the corner. She moved the mouse, hoping that maybe she could take a peek at the photos he (or she) has already taken - but sadly, a login screen with a scantly clad Kancolle girl greeted her instead of the desktop. She smirked; anime was surely a strange world to behold - but people fapping to fanservice-turned world war two boats was something special, even by those standards...

Not that she didn't have a half-finished Haruna cosplay back at her place, not at all.

A few minutes passed with no one returning, during which she managed to re-inspect the room thrice, discovering absolutely nothing new. She finally ended up in front of the camera, deciding she'll just slowly count to ten and leave if the photographer does not come by then. Letting out another disappointed sigh, she turned round, facing the camera... and finally noticed something new - a flashing LED on the device.

She was no expert of that stuff, but it seemed the camera had at least two addons she was completely unfamilliar with. The one with a blinking LED was a small add-on module, installed just next to the lens. She would have sworn there was no light on when she was first looking at the device... Could that be a motion sensor or something? A suprised thought came through her mind - was the photographer hiding somewhere nearby, taking candid photos as she was waiting for anybody to come in?

Just as she was to rush towards the exit, yelling for the dude to come out of hiding, the camera went to life. The flash illuminated the room, the aperture clicked... And she felt something strange concentrating around her.

The air around seemed to get denser, somehow... opaque as well. She tried to take a step forward - but her leg crossed some invisible boundary. It felt as if she was stepping into some jelly-like thing filling the air. Disgusted, she pulled the leg back, extending her hands to the sides in order to regain balance. Her glove-clad palms also plunged into that invisible jelly and what was worse - she realized that whatever was engulfing her, was getting closer and closer every second. In front of her, the air became a semi-transparent layer, the incoming thing looking more and more like a thin plastic wrapper - the kind used for packing sandwiches and other lunch stuff.

In a defensive reflex, she tried to stop whatever was coming, thrusting her hands forward - but the thing just wrapped around her palms and arms, advancing forward. It adhered to her face, muffling a late scream, but surprisingly not impeding her breathing. A similar film covered her from the back, closing her in a semi-transparent cocoon. Finally, frozen in the middle of an incomplete movement, she lost balance, falling face-forward. The impact never came, however; whatever enclosed her must have been thicker than she thought, as her body stopped just an inch above the floor, an almost inaudible thud replacing the expected crash...

* * *

"How much is that pillow?" asked a non-descriptive nerdy dude, poining at a live-sized C.C. dakimakura prepped against the wall behind the stand.

"That? It would be 25$. You're lucky, we got only one of them" the seller smiled, taking a glance at the pricelist.

"Oh goodie!" the customer grinned and pulled out his wallet. "It's looks very nice, you know. I was expecting it to be, well... more expensive" he added, handing over the money.

"Well, we make the arts ourselves" the seller took the cash, wrote down the amount and proceeded to hand over the pillow. "Our artist wants to mix realism with anime style. I have no idea how she does that, but somehow it works. Some people dislike such a change, but at least our pillows are unique this way"

"Yeah..." the buyer examined the art closely. The girl was drawn frozen mid-pose, as if she was laying on a bed, pushing against some barrier. He chuckled, imagining she was trying to push away whoever was hugging the pillow. The hair and outfit's black belts were splayed around randomly, her face expressive and emotive. He looked at the other side - C.C.'s bottom was beautifully pronounced, as expected. He felt the pleasant warmth looking at his waifu.

'Please give the artist my commendations and best wishes. This thing is great!" he beamed at the seller. "One last question though - what about the stuffing? I understand it's included in the price, but I can't see any zip to remove it before washing..."

"No worries" the seller waved his hand "our little patent - the stuffing is integral to the pillow, it can be safetly washed alltogether as a single piece. Just don't use machine washing, it might cause damage. Only hand wash in warm water."

"OK then, pretty clever! Once again thanks and see you next time!"

Deep inside the pillow - but just an inch beneath the artificial fabric - the immobile eyes gazed in utter terror, a mouth agape letting out a silent scream.

Description
"So, it should be this way..."

Alix walked down the stairs and turned right, entering the convention school's basement. Printed out arrows, hanged on the wall with scotch tape, showed the way towards what should be the local photo studio. She passed the entrance to the games room, a couple of sleeproom-converted changing rooms, and finally arrived at her destination. To her surprise, the door was closed and there was no queue made of other cosplayers waiting for their turn in sight. Surely not what she'd expect to see in front of any photo studio.

She double checked the nearest few signs, but there was no mistake - they all pointed towards the room she was about to enter. Just in case, she quickly went through the programme booklet for the nth time - but nothing changed from the first attempt; it did not contain anything resembling a map of the event's premises. With a larger convention that'd be an outrage - but many smaller, cameral events - like this particular one - had such deficits. Inexperienced crew, organizational mishaps... if she asked the orgs, the list would probably go on and on.

"Oh damn, what the hell" she sighed, correcting her outfit for one last time. White straight jacket-like attire emphasized her curves, a long, green wig rested firmly on her head, hiding naturally tomboyish brown hair... She pulled out a small mirror from a cleverly hidden pocket and took a glance at her face. Golden contact lenses looked as they should... Excellent. The time to immortalize the best C.C. cosplay that walked the Earth (or at least, this year's conventions) has come!

The door opened with a silent creak and Alix proceeded inside... into an empty room. That is, all the equipment was in place, lights were plugged in and turned on, even the camera was resting firmly on the tripod, aimed and seemingly fully operational... But there was absolutely no one in sight.

"Hello...?" Alix walked across the room, peeking behind the background, only to discover a small pile of bags, most likely used to transport all the equipment. Well, if the photographer took a break that would explain the lack of other people... But at least he could have locked the door or something! What if somebody decided to take advantage of so many things left unattended?!

She pursed her lips and took a look outside. The corridor was filled with regular convention noises - people talking, music booming from one of the sleeprooms, sound of dices rolled in the gamesroom... A nearby empty changing room was apparently turned into an ad-hoc tabletop RPG room, with the gamemaster narrating some pretty epic battle against a horde of goblins. Everything was as usual as nerd-infested places tend to be.

"Well, I can as well wait..." she sighed, making one more round around the room, pausing by the photographer's laptop resting on a table in the corner. She moved the mouse, hoping that maybe she could take a peek at the photos he (or she) has already taken - but sadly, a login screen with a scantly clad Kancolle girl greeted her instead of the desktop. She smirked; anime was surely a strange world to behold - but people fapping to fanservice-turned world war two boats was something special, even by those standards...

Not that she didn't have a half-finished Haruna cosplay back at her place, not at all.

A few minutes passed with no one returning, during which she managed to re-inspect the room thrice, discovering absolutely nothing new. She finally ended up in front of the camera, deciding she'll just slowly count to ten and leave if the photographer does not come by then. Letting out another disappointed sigh, she turned round, facing the camera... and finally noticed something new - a flashing LED on the device.

She was no expert of that stuff, but it seemed the camera had at least two addons she was completely unfamilliar with. The one with a blinking LED was a small add-on module, installed just next to the lens. She would have sworn there was no light on when she was first looking at the device... Could that be a motion sensor or something? A suprised thought came through her mind - was the photographer hiding somewhere nearby, taking candid photos as she was waiting for anybody to come in?

Just as she was to rush towards the exit, yelling for the dude to come out of hiding, the camera went to life. The flash illuminated the room, the aperture clicked... And she felt something strange concentrating around her.

The air around seemed to get denser, somehow... opaque as well. She tried to take a step forward - but her leg crossed some invisible boundary. It felt as if she was stepping into some jelly-like thing filling the air. Disgusted, she pulled the leg back, extending her hands to the sides in order to regain balance. Her glove-clad palms also plunged into that invisible jelly and what was worse - she realized that whatever was engulfing her, was getting closer and closer every second. In front of her, the air became a semi-transparent layer, the incoming thing looking more and more like a thin plastic wrapper - the kind used for packing sandwiches and other lunch stuff.

In a defensive reflex, she tried to stop whatever was coming, thrusting her hands forward - but the thing just wrapped around her palms and arms, advancing forward. It adhered to her face, muffling a late scream, but surprisingly not impeding her breathing. A similar film covered her from the back, closing her in a semi-transparent cocoon. Finally, frozen in the middle of an incomplete movement, she lost balance, falling face-forward. The impact never came, however; whatever enclosed her must have been thicker than she thought, as her body stopped just an inch above the floor, an almost inaudible thud replacing the expected crash...

* * *

"How much is that pillow?" asked a non-descriptive nerdy dude, poining at a live-sized C.C. dakimakura prepped against the wall behind the stand.

"That? It would be 25$. You're lucky, we got only one of them" the seller smiled, taking a glance at the pricelist.

"Oh goodie!" the customer grinned and pulled out his wallet. "It's looks very nice, you know. I was expecting it to be, well... more expensive" he added, handing over the money.

"Well, we make the arts ourselves" the seller took the cash, wrote down the amount and proceeded to hand over the pillow. "Our artist wants to mix realism with anime style. I have no idea how she does that, but somehow it works. Some people dislike such a change, but at least our pillows are unique this way"

"Yeah..." the buyer examined the art closely. The girl was drawn frozen mid-pose, as if she was laying on a bed, pushing against some barrier. He chuckled, imagining she was trying to push away whoever was hugging the pillow. The hair and outfit's black belts were splayed around randomly, her face expressive and emotive. He looked at the other side - C.C.'s bottom was beautifully pronounced, as expected. He felt the pleasant warmth looking at his waifu.

'Please give the artist my commendations and best wishes. This thing is great!" he beamed at the seller. "One last question though - what about the stuffing? I understand it's included in the price, but I can't see any zip to remove it before washing..."

"No worries" the seller waved his hand "our little patent - the stuffing is integral to the pillow, it can be safetly washed alltogether as a single piece. Just don't use machine washing, it might cause damage. Only hand wash in warm water."

"OK then, pretty clever! Once again thanks and see you next time!"

Deep inside the pillow - but just an inch beneath the artificial fabric - the immobile eyes gazed in utter terror, a mouth agape letting out a silent scream.