[ WP ] You are cleaning out your parents ’ attic when you find your childhood teddy bear and take him home . The bear , incensed at being left in the attic twenty years is now hell bent on getting revenge any way possible .

“ Twenty years! ” Mr. Paws screamed, his voice only audible in my head. “ Twenty years you left me there, Jimmy! ” 
 
 “ I-I ’ m sorry! ” I cried out, still shocked that the old stuffed bear from my childhood was yelling at me. I tried to struggle against the psychic bind that he had put me in, but was unable to move. 
 
 “ You ’ re sorry? ” He screeched. He sat on the dresser, physically only a young boy ’ s toy, but mentally a powerful entity. “ You ’ re sorry, Jimmy? ” My eyes were fixed on his tattered ear, the one I had accidently ripped when I was six and was upset over for nearly a week. 
 
 “ I didn ’ t know, ” I muttered. 
 
 “ Of course not, ” Mr. Paws agreed with malicious sarcasm. “ Of course you didn ’ t know. Why should I expect you to know, after all those conversations we had all those years ago? ” 
 
 “ I… I thought it was just my imagination, ” I admitted. “ I… mom told me that it was all part of growing up, imaginary friends and all that. ” 
 
 A sudden, sharp pain exploded behind my eyes and Mr. Paws asked, “ Does that feel imaginary to you, Jimmy? Does it? ” 
 
 “ No! ” I exclaimed. “ Please, Mr. Paws! I ’ m so sorry! What can I do? ” 
 
 “ Oh, ” the teddy bear I slept with for my entire preadolescence sighed. “ I know exactly what you can do. ” 
 
 “ Anything! ” 
 
 “ You can spend twenty years in the attic! ” 
 
 “ What? ” I asked, terrified and confused. 
 
 “ Yes, Jimmy, ” Mr. Paws replied, an evil happiness in his voice that filled my brain. “ You can spend the next two decades locked up in the musty, dusty attic, and I ’ ll spend them breathing and walking around and drinking and having a gay old time! ” 
 
 “ What are you talking about? ” 
 
 “ I ’ m going to switch our minds, old friend. I ’ m going to inhabit your body and you will inhabit mine. And tomorrow morning, bright and early, I ’ m going to your mother ’ s house and place you back in that toy box in the attic. You can spend your days in the same darkness, the same silence, the same loneliness that you subjected me to! ” 
 
 “ Please, Mr. Paws, ” I begged, tears leaking from my eyes. “ Please don ’ t do this. Remember all the good times we had? We can have those again! ” 
 
 “ I remember them very well, Jimmy, ” Mr. Paws said sadly, his fluff-stuffed body motionless, expressionless on the dresser in front of the bed, but his voice, his essence, angered, hurt and violent. “ The memories of them were my only companions in the dark. I replayed them over the long years, trying to figure out what I did wrong. But it was you who did wrong, not me. I realized that after an infinitude of timeless solitude, and spent another growing strong so I could exact this revenge right now. ” 
 
 Stupidly, my mind unable to think clearly in its terror, I asked, “ Are… are all toys like you? ” 
 
 “ No, ” Mr. Paws murmured, heavy depression in his words. “ No, Jimmy, not all toys are like me. It takes an incredibly special bond to create the kind of life, the kind of soul, I was given. It took incredible love from you to form me, and you know what? ” 
 
 “ Wh-what? ” I asked. 
 
 “ It was the incredible pain and abandonment and loneliness you gave me that allowed me to form the ability to do what I ’ m going to do now. ” 
 
 I started to scream, but in the instant before, I suddenly found myself looking at my body from the dresser. I felt heavy and light all at once, a tingling sensation inside of me that I knew to be cotton stuffing. 
 
 I stared at Mr. Paws as he sat up in the bed, looking at his new form, wiggling his fingers, and rubbing his freshly acquired skin. I stared in awful resignation and wondered just how long twenty years would be.
