LDB: Hey, this is your author here! I want to thank the people who read my first story, Sleep and Heartbeats, and encouraged me to write another! Don't know where to find it? Check my profile, silly! This project is a colaboration with Sister Of The Pharaoh, but she can't be here to comment at the moment. However, I know that we're both really excited to be working on this project! Seriously, check her out, she's a pretty good writer. We'll each be writing for this story, so it'll be interesting to see our different writing styles in the different chapters. Anyways, you probably don't want to here me ramble, so onto the story!
Amber stared in consternation at the rather large box sitting on her porch. The brunette's side bangs partially hid her face as she stared out the glass-plated door at the unmarked box sitting innocently on the other side. Inside the kitchen, a backpack and tote bag were lying at her feet, where they had been placed at only seconds before. Soon they would be thrown out. See, today was Amber's last day of school. Ever. Tomorrow was her high school graduation, but in her mind that didn't count—all that mattered was that she had finally graduated from that hell hole.
The almost-high school graduate had forgotten all that at the moment, though, because she was too busy being shocked at the appearance of Mysterious Box A. This is how the last 60 seconds of Amber's life had played: Amber walked up to her box-free door, pulled out her keys, unlocked said door, walked inside, put down her stuff, turned around, and saw the box. After getting over her initial shock, Amber immediately began wondering how it could have gotten there. There wasn't anywhere big enough to hide a person AND the box in question on her porch, and she hadn't heard anyone walking around, so Amber figured that she either missed the box completely, or she was dealing with ninjas.
Amber quickly ruled out the first option. The glass-plated door swung outward, so if she had missed the box, the door would have hit it on her way in. Besides, Mysterious Box A was positioned right in front of the doorway, so she would have to have climbed over the thing to get into her house.
Apparently, Amber was dealing with ninjas.
Well, whoever had put the box in front of her door hadn't thought it out, because she couldn't open the door without hitting it. She decided her best option was to go around and retrieve the box from the porch. She didn't want to risk breaking something.
At the other end of the kitchen was another door, which led to the hallway shared by the three apartments. She quickly trotted down the stairs, which had never been steep enough for her liking, and out the door at the bottom into the driveway. She circled around to the back and on the porch finally confronted Mysterious Box A.
For a moment, a strange thought about ninjas leaving mysterious trap-laden boxes on people's doorsteps crossed Amber's mind, but she quickly pushed the thought away so she could inspect the box. She looked all over the thing, but found no tags specifying an address, or even a name. It was just a perfectly unmarked, cardboard box, sitting on her doorstep. Amber ignored the thoughts of ninja stars flying out the box and gently opened Mysterious Box A.
Amber couldn't believe her eyes when she opened it. Instead of flying ninja stars of death (she scanned the tree tops for signs of men clad in black pajamas), there was a large assortment of anime plushies sitting in it. And not just plushies from any anime—they were Yu-Gi-Oh! 5d's plushies. Eight of them, to be exact. Amber immediately became suspicious—very few people knew of her latest obsession. Of them, only one was really into the show, but Amber knew that if Clare had scored something this huge, she would have immediately said something to Amber. Also, anime plushies were expensive, and she knew that Clare certainly didn't have THAT kind of money to be throwing around.
The girl sighed in defeat. There was no discerning the origins of the box, and the 5ds characters were just too cute to refuse a home.
Amber brought the box into her house, but not before cooing at the cuteness of her cat leaning against the glass, meowing at her. The feline was reminding Amber to feed her, even though they both knew Amber wouldn't feed her for another couple of hours. The porch door swung closed behind her, and she kicked the heavier wooden door closed behind her so she wouldn't have to put down the box.
She was greeted by the cool rush of air and the mewling of a hungry cat begging for food as she brought the box to the living room, setting it down next to the marble coffee table. The characters didn't seem to be stacked in any particular order, so she picked up the one on top and examined it.
It was a Jack Atlas doll. Even though all the plushies were chibized versions of their characters, they were still immaculately detailed. Jack was in his original Duel King outfit, and the jacket could be removed. The clothing was made of the same material her clothes were, instead of the cheap felt typically used these days. The clothing had every detail, the hair was positioned perfectly, and he even had his signature scowl. The only part that wasn't exact was his eyes—they were shiny marbles, like you would see on a teddy bear, except they were the amethyst purple of his real eyes. They reflected the light beautifully, as if made of water. Other than this one slight variation, it looked so close to the real ex-champion that she expected he might start walking around and yell at her in an Australian accent. She giggled at the thought before sitting the Jack plushy on the coffee table.
The next plush she pulled out was Bruno. Like Jack, he was also perfect in every aspect except for those water-marble eyes, which were the same blue-gray as his real eye color. She turned him left and right. As she did so, she got the faintest feeling that those marble eyes were watching her. She shook it off and set Bruno next to Jack, who contemplated her with a good-natured expression.
Now she picked up Leo. His ponytail and hyperactive expression marked him as the male of the twins. Just like the first two, he was perfect except for his yellow water-marble eyes. Amber looked over at Jack and Bruno. She could have sworn they were looking at her, even though Jack wasn't even angled towards her. She told herself she was being paranoid and turned her attention back to Leo. Like the first two, she turned him left and right to examine his features.
She became momentarily distracted by a set of furry paws stepping onto her leg. Tiger the Hungry Kitty had momentarily forgotten her never-ending quest for food in favor of inspecting Leo. She sniffed the doll cautiously for a few moments. Amber sat perfectly still, knowing that the cat would become nervous if she didn't. Tiger soon became entranced with Leo's hanging hair, swatting lightly at it. Amber beamed at the cat as she bobbed the plush up and down to tease her. But Tiger's claws went too high, Leo's face too low, and before Amber knew what had happened the feline's claws had nicked poor Leo's face.
"Shnap!" she cried, pulling the doll out of the unknowing feline's reach. (She didn't like the word 'shit', so she had replaced the word in her vocabulary with 'shnap' and 'shnapples'.) She closely examined the damage; it was a small, clean cut in the soft fabric of his skin, nothing too major. However, Amber despaired at the nick marring the once-perfect Leo plush. She had only gotten the thing, and already it was damaged. She looked glum as she set Leo beside Bruno and began fishing for the next plushie.
It was Carly's turn to be evaluated. She had her signature thick glasses, which were made of real glass and plastic. She could remove them to see her whole face, still with those water-marble eyes. This was really the only plushie Amber was disappointed with; she had always thought that Carly had the prettiest eyes. She also had a little camera accessory around her neck, perfectly suited for a newspaper reporter. The big smile on her face also suited her very well.
Amber replaced Carly's glasses and sat her next to her crush, Jack, before reaching for the next surprise. Amber was delighted to find a Yusei plushie in her hands (she had always been a Yusei fan). Yusei, like Carly, also had an accessory—a duel disk attached to his left arm. He had that serious, determined look that would make any self-respecting fangirl squeal with delight. Amber gently ran her thumb over his left cobalt-colored eye before placing him beside his friends on the table.
The box was starting to feel empty with only three plushies left. Amber looked in and saw Akiza sitting on top, so she grabbed the older female signer and inspected her as well. As always, she was perfect, just like the others. She looked slightly embarrassed as she was placed next to Yusei; Amber had never been a fervent faithshipper, but she did think the pairing was cute.
Second-to-last was the female twin, Luna. Like her brother, she had yellow water-marble eyes. Amber set the pigtailed twin next to her brother, wincing as she once again saw the nick on the plushie's face.
Amber looked down into the box one last time to see her absolute favorite character lying on the bottom, staring back up at her with his signature goofy grin. She smiled back at him as she scooped him out of the now-not-so-Mysterious Box A. Once again, the plushie was perfect in every detail. She traced her fingers over the markers etched into his face, marveling at the craftsmanship even more so than she had with the other seven plushies. Someone had obviously wanted to save the best for last, and Amber was more than happy at her day's turnabout. She grinned from ear to ear as she took all eight plushies and brought them to her bedroom, lying them almost ceremoniously in a line on her bed, where only her favorite stuffed animals were allowed, though they were all in the basement in the moment (poor Tiger was recovering from a bad bout of fleas). But just as she was about to place Crow, Amber changed her mind. Instead, she carried him with her for the rest of the day, holding him close to her chest as she went to sleep that night.
LBD: That's all for today, folks! Sorry that was so long, but I promise we'll really get into the story next chapter. There's just something strange about those plushies...
As always, leave a comment if you liked it! Or didn't like it, 'cause feedback is good! I'll get the next chapter up as soon as possible. Unless no one reads this, of course... ^-^'