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Marina was frightened, confused and had no idea what had happened to her. She'd just finished filming another episode of Inkopolis News, had signed a few autographs for fans outside the studio, said goodnight to Pearl and was making her way home, just like normal. What wasn't normal was when she passed through a park, thinking that she was alone, when something hit her. It felt like a burst bomb exploding against the top of her head, coating her from tentacle to toe in bright pink ink in an instant. Ink that glowed. She didn't even have time to scream as the garishly-coloured liquid engulfed her entire being, seeming to seep into her, the light glowing brighter and brighter until she was utterly consumed in a blinding, pink flash.

...And then it stopped, leaving the Octoling girl in the frightening, bewildering condition she was in now. She'd been standing on her feet, but was now laying flat on her back, staring up at trees that seemed infinitely larger than they had done just a second ago. A back that suddenly felt very flat indeed, as if all the curves of her feminine form had been somehow ironed out, leaving her feeling kind of... square. Even more disconcerting than that, though, was the fact that she could no longer feel the feet she'd just been standing on, nor the legs they were attached to. As though they'd just vanished, along with her arms, her head, all of her extremities, reducing her to nothing more than her disturbingly boxy-feeling torso. A torso that felt flat and featureless against the pavement beneath her, but oddly split and segmented on her front, as if her also-flattened chest had been split into several disparate pieces, held snugly in place against each other...

What had that glowing ink done to her!? She was a girl! An Octoling! She wasn't flat and split into pieces! ...But why did she feel like she was? Why was the world suddenly so enormous around her, much larger-looking even than when she was in octopus form? Why did she feel so... inorganic? She needed to find out what had become of her. Trying unsuccessfully to reassure herself that everything would be fine, the-girl-who-hoped-she-was-still-a-girl tried to move the arms and legs she could no longer feel, attempting to stand up and take a look at herself, but found, to her dismay, that she couldn't. Not only could she not budge the limbs she was increasingly afraid were no longer there, she couldn't shift any part of her stiff, small, flat-feeling self. She couldn't move! Giving in completely to panic now, she screamed. ...At least, she tried to scream. Not a single sound left her unmoving form as she discovered that she was as unable to speak as she was unable to move. She was inanimate and silent!

The newly-inanimate girl told herself desperately to calm down, pushing back her silent, unheard screams as she attempted to rationalise what had happened to her. She couldn't just give in to panic! She just needed to think rationally and find out what had actually happened to her. Maybe the ink was filled with some kind of stunning agent and she'd recover after a while? All these weird feelings and not-feelings may just be a side-effect. She just needed to look down at herself and confirm that her body was still normal, that's all. So, as calmly as she could manage, the unmoving-girl cast her gaze downwards as much as her newfound inability to move would allow...

She tried to scream again at what she saw. Her body was not normal. She was struggling to believe that it was her body at all. ...But it was. There was no denying that the thing she was looking at was herself. Her curves, her tentacles, her limbs, everything about her Octoling self was gone, her familiar form replaced entirely by simple plastic. Square-shaped tiles of green plastic, settled into place against each other stretched out before her vision, attached neatly into a flat, boxy, darker-coloured plastic frame, filling it out save for one empty space the size of her new tiles. That was why she felt so flat and square, why her front-side felt disparate and segmented, because she was flat, square and segmented. There was some kind of picture printed on each of her unwanted new tiles, but, from her extremely close-up vantage point, she couldn't tell it what it was supposed to be. What she could tell, though, was what she was supposed to be, what she now was. The images on her now-plastic surface were clearly fragments of a larger picture, scattered across her tiles; tiles that could presumably be slid across her new frame. She'd been transformed into a sliding puzzle!

The new puzzle screeched inside her no-longer-existant head. This couldn't be happening! She couldn't have been turned into a sliding puzzle! People turning to and from squids and ocotopi was completely normal, but girls don't just transform into plastic puzzles! ...But she had. No matter how much she wanted to deny the reality of her new form, there was no way she could. She really was a simple, sliding toy. An inanimate object, not even able to move or speak, let alone, sing, dance, DJ, host news programmes or even hang out with her friends... She needed to turn back! To return to her familiar, Octoling's body as soon as possible! ...She had no idea how she was supposed to restore herself to a non-object's life when she couldn't even speak to ask for help, but there had to be a way! She'd graduated at only nine years old, for goodness sake! She was sure that if she put her mind to it, she'd think of way to escape this inanimate situation! She just needed to stay calm and think scientifically and she'd be back to normal before she knew it...

The transformed-girl's thoughts were cut short, though, when she heard footsteps booming quickly across the ground towards her. She let out a silent screech of terror as she felt the ground trembling slightly beneath her newly-flat, plastic form, assuming for a moment that the owner of the footsteps was just some citizen of Inkopolis, running through the park without noticing the small, formerly-Octoling puzzle on the ground in front of them. An innocent Inkling that was about to step on her, snapping her stiff, brittle plastic self beneath their heel, scattering her new tiles across the pavement and leaving her a shattered, worthless heap of rubbish on the pavement. It was bad enough being transformed into a puzzle without being broken! ...She wasn't stepped on, though. Instead, the footsteps stopped just short of her unmoving new body, the former-girl finding herself looking up at the face of an Octoling girl, looming impossibly high over her now-tiny, fragile form, a metallic mask over her eyes and a grin plastered across her gigantic-looking face.

"Yes!" said the non-transformed girl. "The transformation-ink worked perfectly! The mission was a complete success!"

Transformation-ink? thought the former-girl, staring up, terrified at the member of her former-species above her. You're the one who did this to me!? What mission? Why did you turn me into a puzzle!? ...She wanted to ask all those things, but she couldn't. She was just a sliding puzzle now, after all, unable to do anything but watch as the still-Octoling girl reached down and picked her effortlessly from the floor, wishing she was still able to shudder as she felt her new tiles rattling uncomfortably against each other as she was lifted, powerless to resist, up to her captor's eye-level.

"Marina Ida," said the girl, grinning maliciously at the former-girl in her hands. "One of the Octarian army's greatest combat engineers. Until the day you chose to abandon your post, that is. How do you feel about deserting now, plastic-girl? You hardly hid yourself, beaming yourself all over the TV waves, you know? We could have got you at any point, but simple liquidation didn't seem enough for a turncoat like you. That's why you were the perfect candidate to test our new transformation-ink on! An eternity as an inert, but fully-aware jumble of plastic seems like a much more deserving fate for your treachery, doesn't it?"

An eternity!? They were planning to leave her this way forever, just because she'd left the Octarian army!? Centuries upon centuries of inanimation loomed ahead of the former-girl. Countless years spent just sitting there, unable to speak, unable to move, forced to do nothing but stare at whatever she'd been left facing, with nothing to look forward to but occassionally being picked up and having her tiles slid across what she could no longer call her face until her puzzler got bored and put her down to gather dust again... Nobody deserved that! She tried to beg, to plead to be turned back. That she was sorry, that she'd abandon her new life and return to Octarian society immediately if they'd only return her to normal. ...But her pleas went unheard as the former-girl sat there, in the Octoling-girl's distressingly clammy grip, in total silence, like the simple sliding puzzle she now was...

"Heh, you probably hate me, don't you?" said the Octoling, idly sliding a few of the formerly-Octoling puzzle's tiles around. The transformed-girl couldn't deny that she did, screeching internally as she felt her captor's thumb pressing intimately against her now-plastic pieces, the feeling of parts of herself sliding over and against others, fragments of her body being pulled away and placed somewhere else, rearranging her very being with every push, her mind struggling to wrap itself around the changes in her physical form, made her want to weep in confusion, horror and discomfort. But she couldn't weep. She was just a puzzle now, after all.

"But don't think we're total monsters," continued the non-transformed girl. "There's a failsafe that can turn you back. One way to reverse your transformation."

The girl-turned-sliding-puzzle no longer had a heart, and with how her tiles had been shuffled, she had no idea where it would have been if she did have one, but it would have leapt at what she heard. There was hope! Maybe she wouldn't have to spend a lifetime having her tiles shuffled by sweaty fingers and thumbs, after all!

"Yep, all that needs to happen is for someone to solve you," said the girl. "As soon as that picture of what you used to look like is arranged properly, you'll change right back into the treacherous Octoling you were. Punishment complete."

So the pictures on her tile made a picture of hers- Of what used to be herself? Now that she looked carefully, the new puzzle could sort of see something that looked like one of her tentacles... Why was she thinking about that!? She'd just been told how she can turn back! She'd have to endure being inanimate and being played with like the sliding puzzle she'd become for a while, but she'd surely be solved eventually, right? She would turn back! She'd get her life back and her time as an unmoving collection of plastic tiles would just be a strange incident in her past that she could look back on and shudder about. Maybe this girl would even solve her? Maybe that was her plan all along? To terrify her by pretending that she was stuck like this, then turn her back? If she was going to solve her, then she wished she would just get on with it. She wanted to give this girl a piece of her mind for transforming her in the first place...

"Well, not that I expect that'll be relevant," said the Octoling, with a smirk. "I'm certainly not going to solve you, and I don't expect your owner will either. But hey, you can always hope, right? Hah! Oh, the thought of you clinging onto that hope for years and years is just too funny! Okay, let's never meet again, tile-girl!"

So many questions flew through the no-longer-Octoling girl's mind. What owner? Why wouldn't they solve her? Had they really just made sure there was a way to turn her back, just to taunt her with the fact that it would never be used? She desperately wished she could ask these questions, but they all evaporated from her mind when she was dropped, replaced by a silent, internal scream as she tumbled through the air. She was smashing her against the floor! Was that why she was so sure her now-puzzle self would never be solved? If her frame shattered and her tiles scattered, she'd never be solved and turned back!

...She didn't smash into the ground, though, instead, the transformed-girl landed in some kind of soft pouch, her hard, plastic self settling snugly against what felt like cushions of air. She looked around in bewilderment, seeing enormous plastic bubbles crowding her on all sides and, above her, a slit of daylight which was soon snuffed out when a paper flap was folded over it, sealing her in total darkness, the bubble wrap pressing tighter into her flat, tiled new body from every angle. She was in an envelope! The girl had transformed her and now she was going to post her! This couldn't be happening! She could be stuck in the postal system for weeks! She'd go insane if she was trapped in this padded darkness for long! Desperately she tried to struggle, to scream for help, but nothing had changed. She was still just an inanimate sliding puzzle and could do nothing but sink into despair as she felt her new tiles rattling slightly as she was carried away inside her envelope, the movement eventually stopping with a soft thud. She must have been in a postbox. Nothing more than the contents of another parcel, no more a person than any letter or object that she may have been laying amongst, a piece of post waiting to be delivered in pitch blackness, hoping against hope that she'd be freed from her envelope soon, that wherever she ended up, whoever's hands she ended up in, they'd solve her and she could put this harrowing experience as a brainteasing toy behind her...

The girl-turned-puzzle had no idea how long she was in the envelope. All she knew was that it felt like an eternity, stuck in pitch darkness, not even able to sleep, trapped in mind-numbing boredom as hours upon hours of blind, unmoving nothingness trickled by. The interminable tedium broken only by an occasional rattling of her tiles as the parcel she was in was presumably moved between postal workers. Somehow, she didn't go mad, her mind remaining fully lucid throughout her entire monotonous ordeal, long after she might have expected to have been broken down by despair and boredom. Maybe, now she was lacking a physical brain, she couldn't go insane? The girl who'd transformed her did threaten an eternity of being fully-aware as a plastic object, after all... These thoughts consumed the former-girl's dark, cramped, bubble wrapped world until, finally, light flooded her unwanted, inanimate form once more and she found herself being plucked from her paper coccoon, facing the enormous-looking visage of a very familiar face. A face that made her realise why the Octoling girl had been sure she'd never be solved, a face that she would normally have been happy to see, but, as the person who held her fate in her hands, her only hope of escaping her inanimate nightmare, made her no-longer-present heart sink.

"Hmm?" said Pearl, staring down at the former-girl in her hands, completely unable to hear its silent, desperate attempts to tell her who it was. "Who sent me a sliding puzzle?"

I'm not just a sliding puzzle! implored the transformed-girl in the Inkling's grasp, internally. It's me, Marina! An Octarian turned me into this and posted me to you! Please, you have to concentrate and solve me so I can turn back! ...But, no matter how much she tried to think otherwise, she was just a sliding puzzle now. A flimsy plastic plaything in her non-transformed friend's hands, unable to do anything but watch as the now giant-looking short girl peered at her in confusion, hoping against hope that she'd start sliding her tiles soon, even if she wasn't looking forward to the strange and distressing feeling of being shuffled like that...

"Huh," said Pearl, eventually. "That jumbled up picture on it, is it of Marina? Is this some kind of new Off the Hook merchandise? That's pretty fresh! I'll solve this puzzle and show it to Marina when I next see her to prove how smart I am! ...Whenever that is. She hasn't shown up in, like, a week. That lazy girl could at least message me to let me know she's going to sleep in for days!"

The new puzzle despaired at what she heard. She'd been transformed for about a week already and Pearl just thought she was lazing around home all that time? Why hadn't she tried to find her? How long would she have to be stuck like this before the Inkling started to worry about her whereabouts? ...Well, hopefully, it wouldn't have to come to that, because she found herself being carried across the room, every step that her friend-turned-owner made making the girl-turned-object panic a little about being dropped from her loose grip. She wasn't dropped, though. Instead, Pearl threw herself into a sofa with such force that one of her transformed-friend's tiles slid downwards from the jolt and glared at the puzzle-she-had-no-idea-was-Marina in her hands, a look of determination etched on her face.

The formerly-octoling puzzle braced herself as best she could but still wanted to yelp from discomfort when she felt Pearl's index finger pressing into one of her tiles with what seemed to be far too much force, sliding it sideways into the open slot so that it felt bizarrely as if her feet were now attached to the side of her head even though she knew she now had neither of those things. The peculiarity of the feeling couldn't be dwelled on, though, because another tile was shoved downwards to fill the gap where what must have been her feet-tile had been, the transformed-girl trying to ignore the impossible feeling of Pearl's digit pressing into her non-existant crotch as she moved it, leaving the tiniest trace of sticky sugar left clinging to her plastic surface when she lifted her finger away, presumably the remnant of some sweets she'd just been eating. How much the new puzzle wanted to eat food again after days of being a stomachless item...

She couldn't dwell on her insatiable craving for long, though, because another tile was slid into a new position, then another and another, Pearl soon forcing pieces of her transformed-friend across her own framework at a rate the former-girl couldn't follow. She tried to look at herself, to see if she was anywhere near being solved, but couldn't make any sense of her own, shifting image, especially with the constant distraction of having her body scrambled and ocassionally having her vision completely blocked when Pearl placed a finger on the tile the girl-turned-object assumed must have had her eyes printed on. All she could really do was try to watch her puzzler whenever she could see, from her slightly-shifting viewpoint, to try and read her expression and determine if there was any hope of her salvation being soon at hand. It wasn't an expression that filled the formerly-Octoling puzzle with hope, though. It was one that changed quickly from determination, to desperation, to frustration and, ultimately, anger.

"Ugh, this is dumb!" said Pearl, at last, throwing her arms up into the air and making the former-girl she held scream silently with the terror of being thrown across the room. "Who can even solve these puzzles anyway? I'll just watch some TV instead."

With a shrug, the Inkling girl tossed her friend-turned-puzzle over her shoulder, the former-Octoling screaming in a panic as she spun helplessly through the air, before landing on the sofa, bouncing with a clatter of her tiles from its soft surface and settling silently in the groove between the two cushions, futilely attempting to beg Pearl to carry on fiddling with her. That if she was persistent enough, all her tiles would lock in the right place eventually through dumb luck alone. But her non-transformed friend ignored her, not able to hear her pleas, instead getting off the chair in search of the TV remote, the movement of the cushions causing the new puzzle to sink slightly into the gap between them. The former-girl could only watch her retreating form in despair, knowing that this scenario had played out exactly as the girl who'd transformed her had wanted. Pearl had played with her for a little while, giving her a lot of discomfort by pushing on her tiles with sticky fingers, and then got bored, tossing her aside like the simple plaything she now was and moving on to her next source of entertainment. There was no way Pearl would ever be able to concentrate long enough to solve her! She'd probably already forgot all about the sliding puzzle she just got in the post... The now-puzzle girl could only watch in despair as the non-inanimate girl walked back towards her, remote in hand without even a glance in her direction. She was just an irritatingly difficult little puzzle to Pearl now and nothing more. All she could hope for was that next time she picked her up she'd be incredibly lucky and find her solution in a matter of moments, or better yet, that she'd hand her over to someone else who has more patience for puzzles...

For now, though, she could only sit there, slightly wedged between the sofa's cushions, waiting for the moment that Pearl bothered to pick her up again. Watching despondently as the girl who she was horrified to admit was her only hope, who she couldn't even speak to, approached her and leapt into the air, slamming into the chair beside her, her fall so vigourous that it bunched up the cushion she landed on, creating just enough of a gap for the small, formerly-Octoling puzzle to slip fully into the depths of the sofa. The former-girl realising with horror what was happening as she tumbled helplessly onto the thin sheet of fabric that stretched over the springs, settling beside a rusty spoon, a mouldy piece of what was once some kind of food, a lone lid for a pen and a scrap of paper. The sliding puzzle-which-had-been-Marina screamed silently, helplessly inside her no-longer-present head, desperate for her former-friend to notice her and pluck her from being lost down the back of her sofa, not wanting to became another long-forgotten item crushed beneath the cushions. But Pearl hadn't even noticed that she'd slipped down there, the transformed-girl powerless to do anything as the cushion dropped back on top of her, flattening her rigid, plastic, unsolved form against the springs, covering her in total darkness in a place where she will never be remembered, never be solved. She had to admit it now. She was stuck like this. Forever. The former-girl stared into the inky blackness smothering her and wished more than ever that her current form, the one which she was surely trapped in for the rest of her days, was able to cry...

Commissioned by . Hope you like it!

Description

Marina was frightened, confused and had no idea what had happened to her. She'd just finished filming another episode of Inkopolis News, had signed a few autographs for fans outside the studio, said goodnight to Pearl and was making her way home, just like normal. What wasn't normal was when she passed through a park, thinking that she was alone, when something hit her. It felt like a burst bomb exploding against the top of her head, coating her from tentacle to toe in bright pink ink in an instant. Ink that glowed. She didn't even have time to scream as the garishly-coloured liquid engulfed her entire being, seeming to seep into her, the light glowing brighter and brighter until she was utterly consumed in a blinding, pink flash.

...And then it stopped, leaving the Octoling girl in the frightening, bewildering condition she was in now. She'd been standing on her feet, but was now laying flat on her back, staring up at trees that seemed infinitely larger than they had done just a second ago. A back that suddenly felt very flat indeed, as if all the curves of her feminine form had been somehow ironed out, leaving her feeling kind of... square. Even more disconcerting than that, though, was the fact that she could no longer feel the feet she'd just been standing on, nor the legs they were attached to. As though they'd just vanished, along with her arms, her head, all of her extremities, reducing her to nothing more than her disturbingly boxy-feeling torso. A torso that felt flat and featureless against the pavement beneath her, but oddly split and segmented on her front, as if her also-flattened chest had been split into several disparate pieces, held snugly in place against each other...

What had that glowing ink done to her!? She was a girl! An Octoling! She wasn't flat and split into pieces! ...But why did she feel like she was? Why was the world suddenly so enormous around her, much larger-looking even than when she was in octopus form? Why did she feel so... inorganic? She needed to find out what had become of her. Trying unsuccessfully to reassure herself that everything would be fine, the-girl-who-hoped-she-was-still-a-girl tried to move the arms and legs she could no longer feel, attempting to stand up and take a look at herself, but found, to her dismay, that she couldn't. Not only could she not budge the limbs she was increasingly afraid were no longer there, she couldn't shift any part of her stiff, small, flat-feeling self. She couldn't move! Giving in completely to panic now, she screamed. ...At least, she tried to scream. Not a single sound left her unmoving form as she discovered that she was as unable to speak as she was unable to move. She was inanimate and silent!

The newly-inanimate girl told herself desperately to calm down, pushing back her silent, unheard screams as she attempted to rationalise what had happened to her. She couldn't just give in to panic! She just needed to think rationally and find out what had actually happened to her. Maybe the ink was filled with some kind of stunning agent and she'd recover after a while? All these weird feelings and not-feelings may just be a side-effect. She just needed to look down at herself and confirm that her body was still normal, that's all. So, as calmly as she could manage, the unmoving-girl cast her gaze downwards as much as her newfound inability to move would allow...

She tried to scream again at what she saw. Her body was not normal. She was struggling to believe that it was her body at all. ...But it was. There was no denying that the thing she was looking at was herself. Her curves, her tentacles, her limbs, everything about her Octoling self was gone, her familiar form replaced entirely by simple plastic. Square-shaped tiles of green plastic, settled into place against each other stretched out before her vision, attached neatly into a flat, boxy, darker-coloured plastic frame, filling it out save for one empty space the size of her new tiles. That was why she felt so flat and square, why her front-side felt disparate and segmented, because she was flat, square and segmented. There was some kind of picture printed on each of her unwanted new tiles, but, from her extremely close-up vantage point, she couldn't tell it what it was supposed to be. What she could tell, though, was what she was supposed to be, what she now was. The images on her now-plastic surface were clearly fragments of a larger picture, scattered across her tiles; tiles that could presumably be slid across her new frame. She'd been transformed into a sliding puzzle!

The new puzzle screeched inside her no-longer-existant head. This couldn't be happening! She couldn't have been turned into a sliding puzzle! People turning to and from squids and ocotopi was completely normal, but girls don't just transform into plastic puzzles! ...But she had. No matter how much she wanted to deny the reality of her new form, there was no way she could. She really was a simple, sliding toy. An inanimate object, not even able to move or speak, let alone, sing, dance, DJ, host news programmes or even hang out with her friends... She needed to turn back! To return to her familiar, Octoling's body as soon as possible! ...She had no idea how she was supposed to restore herself to a non-object's life when she couldn't even speak to ask for help, but there had to be a way! She'd graduated at only nine years old, for goodness sake! She was sure that if she put her mind to it, she'd think of way to escape this inanimate situation! She just needed to stay calm and think scientifically and she'd be back to normal before she knew it...

The transformed-girl's thoughts were cut short, though, when she heard footsteps booming quickly across the ground towards her. She let out a silent screech of terror as she felt the ground trembling slightly beneath her newly-flat, plastic form, assuming for a moment that the owner of the footsteps was just some citizen of Inkopolis, running through the park without noticing the small, formerly-Octoling puzzle on the ground in front of them. An innocent Inkling that was about to step on her, snapping her stiff, brittle plastic self beneath their heel, scattering her new tiles across the pavement and leaving her a shattered, worthless heap of rubbish on the pavement. It was bad enough being transformed into a puzzle without being broken! ...She wasn't stepped on, though. Instead, the footsteps stopped just short of her unmoving new body, the former-girl finding herself looking up at the face of an Octoling girl, looming impossibly high over her now-tiny, fragile form, a metallic mask over her eyes and a grin plastered across her gigantic-looking face.

"Yes!" said the non-transformed girl. "The transformation-ink worked perfectly! The mission was a complete success!"

Transformation-ink? thought the former-girl, staring up, terrified at the member of her former-species above her. You're the one who did this to me!? What mission? Why did you turn me into a puzzle!? ...She wanted to ask all those things, but she couldn't. She was just a sliding puzzle now, after all, unable to do anything but watch as the still-Octoling girl reached down and picked her effortlessly from the floor, wishing she was still able to shudder as she felt her new tiles rattling uncomfortably against each other as she was lifted, powerless to resist, up to her captor's eye-level.

"Marina Ida," said the girl, grinning maliciously at the former-girl in her hands. "One of the Octarian army's greatest combat engineers. Until the day you chose to abandon your post, that is. How do you feel about deserting now, plastic-girl? You hardly hid yourself, beaming yourself all over the TV waves, you know? We could have got you at any point, but simple liquidation didn't seem enough for a turncoat like you. That's why you were the perfect candidate to test our new transformation-ink on! An eternity as an inert, but fully-aware jumble of plastic seems like a much more deserving fate for your treachery, doesn't it?"

An eternity!? They were planning to leave her this way forever, just because she'd left the Octarian army!? Centuries upon centuries of inanimation loomed ahead of the former-girl. Countless years spent just sitting there, unable to speak, unable to move, forced to do nothing but stare at whatever she'd been left facing, with nothing to look forward to but occassionally being picked up and having her tiles slid across what she could no longer call her face until her puzzler got bored and put her down to gather dust again... Nobody deserved that! She tried to beg, to plead to be turned back. That she was sorry, that she'd abandon her new life and return to Octarian society immediately if they'd only return her to normal. ...But her pleas went unheard as the former-girl sat there, in the Octoling-girl's distressingly clammy grip, in total silence, like the simple sliding puzzle she now was...

"Heh, you probably hate me, don't you?" said the Octoling, idly sliding a few of the formerly-Octoling puzzle's tiles around. The transformed-girl couldn't deny that she did, screeching internally as she felt her captor's thumb pressing intimately against her now-plastic pieces, the feeling of parts of herself sliding over and against others, fragments of her body being pulled away and placed somewhere else, rearranging her very being with every push, her mind struggling to wrap itself around the changes in her physical form, made her want to weep in confusion, horror and discomfort. But she couldn't weep. She was just a puzzle now, after all.

"But don't think we're total monsters," continued the non-transformed girl. "There's a failsafe that can turn you back. One way to reverse your transformation."

The girl-turned-sliding-puzzle no longer had a heart, and with how her tiles had been shuffled, she had no idea where it would have been if she did have one, but it would have leapt at what she heard. There was hope! Maybe she wouldn't have to spend a lifetime having her tiles shuffled by sweaty fingers and thumbs, after all!

"Yep, all that needs to happen is for someone to solve you," said the girl. "As soon as that picture of what you used to look like is arranged properly, you'll change right back into the treacherous Octoling you were. Punishment complete."

So the pictures on her tile made a picture of hers- Of what used to be herself? Now that she looked carefully, the new puzzle could sort of see something that looked like one of her tentacles... Why was she thinking about that!? She'd just been told how she can turn back! She'd have to endure being inanimate and being played with like the sliding puzzle she'd become for a while, but she'd surely be solved eventually, right? She would turn back! She'd get her life back and her time as an unmoving collection of plastic tiles would just be a strange incident in her past that she could look back on and shudder about. Maybe this girl would even solve her? Maybe that was her plan all along? To terrify her by pretending that she was stuck like this, then turn her back? If she was going to solve her, then she wished she would just get on with it. She wanted to give this girl a piece of her mind for transforming her in the first place...

"Well, not that I expect that'll be relevant," said the Octoling, with a smirk. "I'm certainly not going to solve you, and I don't expect your owner will either. But hey, you can always hope, right? Hah! Oh, the thought of you clinging onto that hope for years and years is just too funny! Okay, let's never meet again, tile-girl!"

So many questions flew through the no-longer-Octoling girl's mind. What owner? Why wouldn't they solve her? Had they really just made sure there was a way to turn her back, just to taunt her with the fact that it would never be used? She desperately wished she could ask these questions, but they all evaporated from her mind when she was dropped, replaced by a silent, internal scream as she tumbled through the air. She was smashing her against the floor! Was that why she was so sure her now-puzzle self would never be solved? If her frame shattered and her tiles scattered, she'd never be solved and turned back!

...She didn't smash into the ground, though, instead, the transformed-girl landed in some kind of soft pouch, her hard, plastic self settling snugly against what felt like cushions of air. She looked around in bewilderment, seeing enormous plastic bubbles crowding her on all sides and, above her, a slit of daylight which was soon snuffed out when a paper flap was folded over it, sealing her in total darkness, the bubble wrap pressing tighter into her flat, tiled new body from every angle. She was in an envelope! The girl had transformed her and now she was going to post her! This couldn't be happening! She could be stuck in the postal system for weeks! She'd go insane if she was trapped in this padded darkness for long! Desperately she tried to struggle, to scream for help, but nothing had changed. She was still just an inanimate sliding puzzle and could do nothing but sink into despair as she felt her new tiles rattling slightly as she was carried away inside her envelope, the movement eventually stopping with a soft thud. She must have been in a postbox. Nothing more than the contents of another parcel, no more a person than any letter or object that she may have been laying amongst, a piece of post waiting to be delivered in pitch blackness, hoping against hope that she'd be freed from her envelope soon, that wherever she ended up, whoever's hands she ended up in, they'd solve her and she could put this harrowing experience as a brainteasing toy behind her...

The girl-turned-puzzle had no idea how long she was in the envelope. All she knew was that it felt like an eternity, stuck in pitch darkness, not even able to sleep, trapped in mind-numbing boredom as hours upon hours of blind, unmoving nothingness trickled by. The interminable tedium broken only by an occasional rattling of her tiles as the parcel she was in was presumably moved between postal workers. Somehow, she didn't go mad, her mind remaining fully lucid throughout her entire monotonous ordeal, long after she might have expected to have been broken down by despair and boredom. Maybe, now she was lacking a physical brain, she couldn't go insane? The girl who'd transformed her did threaten an eternity of being fully-aware as a plastic object, after all... These thoughts consumed the former-girl's dark, cramped, bubble wrapped world until, finally, light flooded her unwanted, inanimate form once more and she found herself being plucked from her paper coccoon, facing the enormous-looking visage of a very familiar face. A face that made her realise why the Octoling girl had been sure she'd never be solved, a face that she would normally have been happy to see, but, as the person who held her fate in her hands, her only hope of escaping her inanimate nightmare, made her no-longer-present heart sink.

"Hmm?" said Pearl, staring down at the former-girl in her hands, completely unable to hear its silent, desperate attempts to tell her who it was. "Who sent me a sliding puzzle?"

I'm not just a sliding puzzle! implored the transformed-girl in the Inkling's grasp, internally. It's me, Marina! An Octarian turned me into this and posted me to you! Please, you have to concentrate and solve me so I can turn back! ...But, no matter how much she tried to think otherwise, she was just a sliding puzzle now. A flimsy plastic plaything in her non-transformed friend's hands, unable to do anything but watch as the now giant-looking short girl peered at her in confusion, hoping against hope that she'd start sliding her tiles soon, even if she wasn't looking forward to the strange and distressing feeling of being shuffled like that...

"Huh," said Pearl, eventually. "That jumbled up picture on it, is it of Marina? Is this some kind of new Off the Hook merchandise? That's pretty fresh! I'll solve this puzzle and show it to Marina when I next see her to prove how smart I am! ...Whenever that is. She hasn't shown up in, like, a week. That lazy girl could at least message me to let me know she's going to sleep in for days!"

The new puzzle despaired at what she heard. She'd been transformed for about a week already and Pearl just thought she was lazing around home all that time? Why hadn't she tried to find her? How long would she have to be stuck like this before the Inkling started to worry about her whereabouts? ...Well, hopefully, it wouldn't have to come to that, because she found herself being carried across the room, every step that her friend-turned-owner made making the girl-turned-object panic a little about being dropped from her loose grip. She wasn't dropped, though. Instead, Pearl threw herself into a sofa with such force that one of her transformed-friend's tiles slid downwards from the jolt and glared at the puzzle-she-had-no-idea-was-Marina in her hands, a look of determination etched on her face.

The formerly-octoling puzzle braced herself as best she could but still wanted to yelp from discomfort when she felt Pearl's index finger pressing into one of her tiles with what seemed to be far too much force, sliding it sideways into the open slot so that it felt bizarrely as if her feet were now attached to the side of her head even though she knew she now had neither of those things. The peculiarity of the feeling couldn't be dwelled on, though, because another tile was shoved downwards to fill the gap where what must have been her feet-tile had been, the transformed-girl trying to ignore the impossible feeling of Pearl's digit pressing into her non-existant crotch as she moved it, leaving the tiniest trace of sticky sugar left clinging to her plastic surface when she lifted her finger away, presumably the remnant of some sweets she'd just been eating. How much the new puzzle wanted to eat food again after days of being a stomachless item...

She couldn't dwell on her insatiable craving for long, though, because another tile was slid into a new position, then another and another, Pearl soon forcing pieces of her transformed-friend across her own framework at a rate the former-girl couldn't follow. She tried to look at herself, to see if she was anywhere near being solved, but couldn't make any sense of her own, shifting image, especially with the constant distraction of having her body scrambled and ocassionally having her vision completely blocked when Pearl placed a finger on the tile the girl-turned-object assumed must have had her eyes printed on. All she could really do was try to watch her puzzler whenever she could see, from her slightly-shifting viewpoint, to try and read her expression and determine if there was any hope of her salvation being soon at hand. It wasn't an expression that filled the formerly-Octoling puzzle with hope, though. It was one that changed quickly from determination, to desperation, to frustration and, ultimately, anger.

"Ugh, this is dumb!" said Pearl, at last, throwing her arms up into the air and making the former-girl she held scream silently with the terror of being thrown across the room. "Who can even solve these puzzles anyway? I'll just watch some TV instead."

With a shrug, the Inkling girl tossed her friend-turned-puzzle over her shoulder, the former-Octoling screaming in a panic as she spun helplessly through the air, before landing on the sofa, bouncing with a clatter of her tiles from its soft surface and settling silently in the groove between the two cushions, futilely attempting to beg Pearl to carry on fiddling with her. That if she was persistent enough, all her tiles would lock in the right place eventually through dumb luck alone. But her non-transformed friend ignored her, not able to hear her pleas, instead getting off the chair in search of the TV remote, the movement of the cushions causing the new puzzle to sink slightly into the gap between them. The former-girl could only watch her retreating form in despair, knowing that this scenario had played out exactly as the girl who'd transformed her had wanted. Pearl had played with her for a little while, giving her a lot of discomfort by pushing on her tiles with sticky fingers, and then got bored, tossing her aside like the simple plaything she now was and moving on to her next source of entertainment. There was no way Pearl would ever be able to concentrate long enough to solve her! She'd probably already forgot all about the sliding puzzle she just got in the post... The now-puzzle girl could only watch in despair as the non-inanimate girl walked back towards her, remote in hand without even a glance in her direction. She was just an irritatingly difficult little puzzle to Pearl now and nothing more. All she could hope for was that next time she picked her up she'd be incredibly lucky and find her solution in a matter of moments, or better yet, that she'd hand her over to someone else who has more patience for puzzles...

For now, though, she could only sit there, slightly wedged between the sofa's cushions, waiting for the moment that Pearl bothered to pick her up again. Watching despondently as the girl who she was horrified to admit was her only hope, who she couldn't even speak to, approached her and leapt into the air, slamming into the chair beside her, her fall so vigourous that it bunched up the cushion she landed on, creating just enough of a gap for the small, formerly-Octoling puzzle to slip fully into the depths of the sofa. The former-girl realising with horror what was happening as she tumbled helplessly onto the thin sheet of fabric that stretched over the springs, settling beside a rusty spoon, a mouldy piece of what was once some kind of food, a lone lid for a pen and a scrap of paper. The sliding puzzle-which-had-been-Marina screamed silently, helplessly inside her no-longer-present head, desperate for her former-friend to notice her and pluck her from being lost down the back of her sofa, not wanting to became another long-forgotten item crushed beneath the cushions. But Pearl hadn't even noticed that she'd slipped down there, the transformed-girl powerless to do anything as the cushion dropped back on top of her, flattening her rigid, plastic, unsolved form against the springs, covering her in total darkness in a place where she will never be remembered, never be solved. She had to admit it now. She was stuck like this. Forever. The former-girl stared into the inky blackness smothering her and wished more than ever that her current form, the one which she was surely trapped in for the rest of her days, was able to cry...

Commissioned by . Hope you like it!