Plushie Overload (Solo)

Ilda prided herself in being a strong, independent and reliable woman. In a sense, though, she also had a viewpoint of being a bit of a macho sort- meaning normally, she tried to hide things like embarrassment and her childlike love of cute things. This day, however, the desperate plea of someone in need of help overtook her desire to hold that hardcore appearance. Today, the inner child was going to get a shot at ruling her world.

A major toy manufacturer needed a tester, and seemed quite adamant to have Ilda take the job. Apparently, every single tester for their stuffed animals was taking a sick day and one happened to be someone Ilda had helped with an unrelated task before. Seemingly, that person asked to have Ilda take their place... Without asking Ilda about it first.

Grumbling, Ilda entered the toy testing room of the factory, filled to the brim with colorful and wildly shaped plush toys. A chill went down her spine- trying to contain her excitement from all the cute stuffed animals was far more difficult than she'd first expected. Also, there were more than a hundred toys in the room- meaning she'd be busy for quite a while. "This is going to take all day... No wonder they're paying so well. Dang."

The door was closed behind her, leaving the woman alone to finally let loose her pent up stress. She decided to go based on order of cuteness and size, starting by squishing a tinier toy shaped like a designer's reject narwhal. It was fluffier than expected, even in the horn. She used the horn as a stress toy for her hand, poking it to see how deep she could make the point invert- which was pretty far, before it stayed put... and stayed put longer...

"Did... Did I break it? It's not popping back!" Panic took over the coos Ilda wanted to expel just moments before. She was a supposed to be a tester, not a destroyer! With a deep breath, she ran to the door and found it was stuck. "I'll have to remember to tell them about it later..."

Returning to the tiny plush toy pile, she found another stress ball sort of toy: a very round kitten. Or, she thought it was a kitten. It was round enough to look like a bread roll with legs, but had ear shaped protrusions near where the face was sewn on delicately, whiskers actually sewn in so they could be moved around like the horn of the narwhal. "It's a weird shape, but it's pretty well made... And it's cute..." Too cute, in fact. Immediately, she held it close to her chest, squishing it to about half its size with a bright smile. "No fair being so cute! You're gonna get it!"

She wrote down somewhere that the round cat passed, then moved onto a new victim- a slightly bigger, everyday teddy bear. Well, it wasn't completely every day- it had a wig on for some reason, and wore a denim dress made of real denim. "Seriously, what's with these designs..?" Shrugging it off, Ilda proceeded to hug the bear, flinching. "It's hard, and the denim is really rough... What are they intending? Is this not a hug toy?" Surely this one was a failure.

"Okay, whose next?" Another bear, this time normal in dress with just a unique, tie dye coloration full of pastel colors. "You seem normal enough." Sure enough, though, this one too was too firm. It almost felt like hugging onto a brick, or so she wrote. It was light though, which just made her confused. "Is this place going to get even weirder? I hope there's another pass after this... I get the feeling I'm gonna need to buy one of these after this just to relieve the stress from it all."

The next plush toy to reach Ilda's tight embrace was a squirrel nibbling an acorn, top and all. The cuteness was finally of a normal breed, and the tail felt like real fur- which partially unnerved her, but mostly felt nice to the touch. Still, where did they get such real feeling fur? And the tail was so squishy. The entire squirrel was squishy, like gelatin. "Must be a new type of filling. This actually feels nice... Like one of those high end pillows sorta."

Next stop, a wolf with its pup! For some reason the pup was almost sitting on its mother's head, but the design was somehow endearing even if unlikely, so Ilda trashed complaining about it and focused on her job: the cuddle factor. Pulling it close to her chest, she found it perfectly soft- no, it might have been too soft, actually. It squeezed to the point of being malformed, and the way the face squished caused her to shudder. She wrote a question mark next to the name 'wolf mom/pup' on her notepad, questioning if that was a real concern or not. She knew some kids wouldn't mind, but others... Yeah, some would have a panic attack seeing the eyes inverting.

Her eyes scanned the room- there were a lot of plushies left, but she found that hugging all of them not only took time- it kind of made her sleepy! Finding a large flat plushie shaped like a cow splayed on the floor, much like a dairy style carpet, Ilda collapsed atop the jelly-like toy with a deep breath and smile. "This is more like a bed than a toy." She chimed, reaching for another squirrel toy that was near her, slightly different in pose than the first.

"And this one's more like a normal toy, I take it. Maybe I'll hug this and give it a nap test..." A yawn escaped her, making her glad no one else could see her in this position. Curling up into a fetal-like position, Ilda slowly dozed off, praying for sweet dreams as she took a nap in the middle of her shift. Surely no one would mind this test, would they?

An hour passed, followed by another. It was before the third circle of the minute hand- about a half an hour prior- that Ilda was woken from a chilling nightmare. She woke to the feeling of blood on her hands, unaware she was not still in the dark dream. Looking down, she found her arms covered in thick gel from the stuffed toy she'd hugged to destruction in her sleep. The critter now lay a pile of excess gelatinous fluid and fabric atop the bed-like cow plush.

"It's a good thing I brought a change of clothes, because this is just gross. Seriously, what is this stuff?" Instinctively, she pulled her arm close to give it a tentative lick. Immediately after, she spit in the opposite direction, gagging. "Gross! It may feel like jelly but it tastes like shit!" A chill went down her spine. She'd rather not remember that flavor from a time she clumsily tripped face-first into a cow pie....

She changed her shirt quickly after wiping herself off with it to feel clean and refreshed. Though rudely awakened, she was thankful to some extent, because it reminded her to get back to the job she had in front of her. And so, she picked another plush animal to cuddle.

This time, she chose a dragon shaped toy with an open mouth and fabric fire coming from its esophagus. It was a brilliant royal blue with the flames a baby blue of their own, making it clear this was a fairly hot flame to Ilda's imagination. Squishing the flame design, she admired the quality of the down she could recognize being the likely filler, followed by squishing its wings with the same index finger and thumb movement. Finally, she hugged it close to her chest, twisting her torso back and forth as she held it as tight as she could.

"Unlike the one filled with mucusy dung, this is actually a really nice toy. It's soft and imaginative... I kinda wanna buy it later." There were a few she might like to buy, however. She'd have to write that down in a separate note, while making sure to notify them of the gel's failure over extensive time.

A number more hours passed by with the ticking of the clock as a metronome. Ilda went through likely hundreds of stuffed toys before reaching the final plushie in need of testing: a humongous teddy bear of a size no one had likely ever seen before. It was a standard brown teddy aside from its size, but at a collosal ten feet tall, it easily made Ilda feel like a child. No, she felt like a baby in comparison. How was she even supposed to snuggle onto something of this size?

First, she tried hugging around the belly like a normal toy. "Nope, that's not working. My hands barely reach around the sides." Considering she had an arm-span closer to six feet than five, that was a pretty big waist. "Maybe it has thinner arms or legs?"

The legs and arms were both a bit pudgy, but they were squeezable in comparison to the body itself. As she tugged an arm close to her chest, however, the downfall was quite literally a fall. The toy fell and, though not overly heavy, covered her like a blanket. She awkwardly crawled out from under it, a bit pale in the face. "It has a weird smell and it's way too big... Thank god I'm done."

Standing it up the best she could against a wall, she sped to the exit and banged on it to open up. She was gratefully released, and given a fair reward for her troubles. She decided she might wait on buying a plush toy after this event, just until the horrors she'd faced drifted from her mind for good.