Necklace Nightmare

    She had to find the necklace, before the necklace found her. It had been twelve years of seek and destroy. Once the pact had been formed, Sherry was given a week head start. The necklace was hidden, and she had to find it. After her one-week head start, the Sentience Spell would be completed, and the necklace would come for her.

    Initially Sherry thought the task would be easy. One week to find a hidden necklace in an abandoned warehouse, how hard could it be? But the necklace's keepers were cunning, and managed to hide it well enough that Sherry couldn't manage to find it before the Sentience Spell was completed. And so here she found herself, twelve years later, with a sentient necklace searching for her.

    How much longer could she keep this up? She was exhausted. Well, as she had learned time and time again, sitting around sulking never helped, so she took a drink from her canteen, stood up, and resumed her hunt.

    Before Sherry finished slinging her pack over her shoulder, though, she found herself unable to breath, neck constricting, and vision fading. She reached behind her head trying to stop the cursed thing, but the clasps were too erratic; she couldn't catch them as they writhed about. She sank to her knees, everything was going dark. Memories swam in her head as she gasped for air. Wrinkly dresses, stiff shoes, tight undergarments, sun beating down. The discomfort! The humidity! Every single special event she could remember rose to her consciousness. She hated dressing up for special occasions.

    "What a darling!" Sherry heard her mother say in her head. She loathed those comments. All she wanted to do growing up was run around and play, not sit and look nice and be polite.

    She could see nothing. She could feel nothing. Her lungs burned for air, and just before her body gave up, the constricting loosened. She breathed fresh air; her vision slowly returned. She felt around her neck. The clasps had found each other and connected. The necklace draped around her neck, no longer tight, and seemingly no longer sentient.

    Her surroundings blurred as a large mirror appeared in front of her. The person staring back at her wore a poofy green dress, black and white saddle shoes, and a beautiful silver necklace. Her worst nightmare: she was adorable. "NOOOO!" Sherry screamed, falling to her knees.

    Later that day, she found herself with her cousins at one of the tables under the dining tent. The ordeal from the morning was mostly forgotten as they all laughed and ate. Several tables away she heard her mother talking with her aunts ". . . chasing her for TWELVE minutes trying to put her necklace on! I don't know why she doesn't like dressing up when we go out, she is so beautiful."

    Sherry finished her chicken nugget, stepped out of her seat and started running back out to the field they were playing in earlier, tagging Ronny - her next oldest cousin - on the way, saying "you're it!" Ronny and the rest of the cousins scrambled up and resumed their game of tag, laughing and screaming as the parents watched, conversing.