“I can’t believe it,” you mumble one Friday afternoon. You were at your job, working at a One Direction merchandise store in Brooklyn, New York. Your friend, Ethan, looks up from his spot behind the register. The store was pretty empty, since the usual customers were in school. It was just you, Ethan, Abby, and some various strangers that stopped by.

    “Can’t believe what?” he asks. You show him the newspaper you were reading, which has the headline “Sold Out” in big bold letters.

    “They’re sold out of Iphone 6’s,” you explain.

    “Oh, I thought you were talking about the ad,” Ethan says, and smirks. You take a closer look at the paper, and spot a full color ad on the bottom of the page about a strippers club downtown. You look up to see Ethan snickering, and grin.

    “Shut the hell up, Ethan. You’re such an ignoramus,” you say. Abby shakes her head, and puts in her headphones, blocking out your conversation. “Are you gonna do a double shift?”

    “Yep,” he says, as if there was no discussing it.

    “Well, I’m gonna go home after this shift. My birthday’s tomorrow, you know.”

    “What are you gonna do?” he asks. “Go clubbing?” He wiggles his eyebrows and glances at the newspaper. You playfully throw the paper at his face, and he ducks. The paper hits the wall, and slides to the floor.

    “Nah, I’m gonna be at home chillin’. They like to celebrate my birthday a day early. I think I’m gonna get an Iphone 6 this time. I mean, I've given plenty of clues.” You think back to last Thursday.

"Hey," you say, pointing to the newspaper. "Look at that! Now wouldn't that be a nice thing to have?" Mom nods as she studies the paper. You don’t notice her staring at the ad for a yoga book.

“Good luck with that, ‘cause we ain’t gettin’ paid nine-hundred dollars anytime soon.” Ethan replies.

You finish your shift, and head home, taking a cab. You normally take buses, but it was for a special occasion. You check your watch. It’s three forty-nine. You get home fifteen minutes early, so you stay outside for a couple a minutes, and smoke a cigarette. You want to quit, but cigs and coffee are an ideal stress reliever. They also take off eight minutes of your life span per loosey, but you live by yolo (You Only Live Once) and don't trust the internet.

You grab the door knob, turn it, and you’re nearly blown out of the house by the “Surprise! Happy birthday [Insert Your Name]!” your 4-year-old sister gives you when you open the door. It’s actually really cute, since her R’s sound like W’s. She hands you a card, scribbled on with crayon, and grins, as if it were a masterpiece.

    “Thanks, Nutmeg,” you say, and she smiles. Her real name is Megan, but your family calls her Nutmeg. Her twin, Cindy, who your family calls Cinnamon, sits up from her napping place on the sofa and starts crying. “Woah, woah, Cinnamon,” you say, as you comfort her. Nutmeg was the loud, brave twin. Cinnamon was the quiet crybaby.

    The rest of your family (your mom, your dad, your brother-- and your great grandmother, who always comes for birthdays) comes in.

        “Happy 17th birthday, sweetheart,” Mom says, as she hugs you and kisses you on the cheek. Grandma repeats the actions. Your 13-year-old brother Johnny, an emo, hangs by the doorway, not bothering to say anything. Your dad gives you an awkward high five-- or he tries to, but you exchange it for a fist bump.

        Everybody sings happy birthday, excluding Johnny. Then they settle down to enjoy the nasty, store bought chocolate cake that always tastes like cardboard and socks (also excluding Johnny, who sticks his ear buds in his ears and ignores everybody, much like Lisa did earlier). When you put the first bite in your mouth and wince, Mom snaps a photo.

        “That’s going in the photo album!” she says excitedly. You wipe the cake off your face, clearly annoyed, and hope she doesn’t post that photo to Facebook. But you can’t stay annoyed, since you’re about to get an IPhone 6 for your birthday.

Captain, your German Shepherd, begs below the table. You don't give him any scraps, since dogs can't eat chocolate, but through your peripheral vision you believe you see Cindy sneakily give Cap some even though she knows better.

"Here you go, sweetie," your Mom says, and you forget about Cindy and Captain. Your Mom hands you a small package wrapped in brown paper. "It's from me and your father. Oh, and your brother." You grin excitedly, as you weigh the package in your hands. It certainly was about the same weight. The box was slightly too big, but you know the "put in a bigger box" trick. You can't contain your glee as you peel the paper to uncover a...book. A book!?!  You mentally scream. It’s not even in a box! It’s just a frickin’ book! I don’t even do yoga!

    "Oh my god, Yoga For Dummies! You guys shouldn't have!" You exclaim, grinning. They really shouldn't have. You hug your parents, and fistbump the reluctant Johnny, who made it clear that he had nothing to do with it.

    Invisibly disappointed, you help wipe cake smudges off of the twins' fingers and face, while Grandma digs in her bags to get something. IPhone 6. IPhone 6. IPhone 6. You cross your fingers and silently pray that Grandma got some sense and finally got you something fun.

    "Happy birthday, [Insert Your Nickname]!" Grandma says, and holds out a box wrapped in cluster of various papers and plastics. Whatever was in that box had a five star safety rating. It had to be an IPhone 6. What else needed so much protection? "I wanted to get you something that would unlock the creative juices inside of you," Grandma continues. Wait, how was the IPhone 6 creative? Maybe it was an IPhone 5C, or a Samsung Galaxy Note 4? Too curious, you peel the paper. And tear the plastic. And peel more paper. And tear more plastic. And burst bubble wrap. And peel paper to uncover a box.

    The front of the box is plastic, and it let's you view the contents of the box from the outside. Without hesitation, you smile, hug and thank your Grandma, and take your presents up to your room. You shut the door, throw the gifts on the bed, and jump onto the bed with them.

    After about a half hour of screaming into your pillow, you take a better look at your gifts.

    After skimming through the first couple of pages, you stuff the yoga book on your bookshelf. You place Nutmeg’s masterpiece next to it. Then you pick up Grandma's present: a limited edition, never been opened Barbie Doll, and take one look at her plastic face, which seems to be laughing at you. You frown, and throw the box across the room. It flies into the closet, and lands in your dirty clothes hamper.

You return to your pillow and have another good scream, not bothering to go downstairs and say bye to Grandma.

The next morning, aka your birthday, you get up at late. Glancing at the clock, you realize that you slept until four o’clock in the afternoon, which was a new record.

You crawl out of bed, and go to the bathroom. You twist the knob, but the door won’t budge. There’s a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, indicating that Johnny was inside. You bang on the door.

“Hurry up, Johnny!” You call. No answer, but you hear water running and something bumping in the background, so you know he’s alive.

    It’s two hours before Johnny finally comes outside and the bathroom. Or at least it feels like it. You check the hall clock, and see that it’s only been one hour. Johnny comes out fully dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, a studded belt, and studded wristband, with his hair dyed black and swept to the side. His left arm has a towel draped over it. The smell of hair gel wafts to your nose. He quickly passes you, and you go in the bathroom without another thought.

You come out several minutes later, dressed, and slide down the banister. You land on your feet, and walk into the kitchen. You make yourself a bowl of Mom's Kellogg's All-Bran, the only cereal that was left in the kitchen since the twins ate all of the Lucky Charms.

You see a note on the refrigerator, saying that Mom was gonna order a pizza for dinner.

After eating your cereal (which tasted like dirt) and filling up Captain's dish, you leave the house, deciding that you weren't gonna spend the entire day at home.

While riding the bus to nowhere, you get a text from Ethan on your cheap phone: Did u get ur IPhone 6? You hesitate when typing back: No. He responds: Oh. Thats 2 bad. U wrkin today? As you're considering his question, another message pops up: Or r u going dwntwn? You're confused by his response until you realize he's referencing to yesterday's conversation. You respond: Enough w/ the club joke, dude. Seconds later, he replies: Ok, whatever. R u working or not? Me and Abby r gonna cm in today. You seriously think about this. What else was there to do, especially when you didn't have any spending money? Sure, I'll come. You say finally.

You show up to work, and you're surprised by the enormous swarm of people at the door. Apparently, there was a new set of One Direction dolls just in (ironic, right?), and everyone wanted one. You can just make out Ethan and Abby inside the store through the crowd. Ethan frantically barricades the door, while Abby grabs the bat from under the counter. A girl in a 1D hoodie shouts “Niall forever!” and throws a Converse All-Star at the window. This launches a whole wave of shoes thrown at the store window. Inside, Ethan grabs a reluctant Abby, and they run to safety. The window breaks, and the crowd rushes in. You follow behind, and watch as every doll that was restocked is gone in seconds. Several little girls are crying, and broken glass is everywhere.

You, Ethan, and Abby spend the day cleaning up the mess, and explaining to your manager how the window broke. Your manager orders a second stock of dolls, which should arrive tomorrow.

“No warning?” you mumble to Ethan when your manager leaves.

“No, dude, you got it all wrong. Why are you always assumin' stuff? They came out of nowhere, you can ask Abby. Hey, Abby!”--he calls to Abby, who is making sure everyone paid for their dolls-- “Tell [Insert Your Name] that we didn’t know that was gonna happen.” He repeats. Abby nods, and the cash register dings.

After your shift is done, you collect your pay, and leave the store. You deposit your money into your bank account and hop on the bus. As you remember that you didn't get an Iphone for your birthday, your shoulders slump, and your positive attitude deteriorates. You don’t care when a little girl steps on your foot. You don’t care when a guy with a wheelchair gets on the bus, and the bus driver makes you get out of the seat for people with disabilities. You don’t even care when the bus driver slams the door in your face as you're trying to get out. You just don’t care.

You walk the short block to your house. You don’t notice that someone mowed the lawn. You don’t notice the grass and smoke smell drifting through the air. You don’t notice that Captain isn’t at the door to greet you like he usually does. You don’t notice that the door is ajar. You do notice that there isn’t a package with an Iphone 6 inside at the door.

You go inside the house, and accidentally trip over a book that’s lying in the doorway. You pick it up, mumble under your breath, and freeze when you notice the title. You flip it open to see if the Spice Twins drew inside of your present. There are no crayon marks in it. Instead, you find that several pages are ripped out. As you close the book, you notice paper scraps spread out across the floor. On closer inspection, you see that all of them were torn from your book. You shout a quick, “Mom, I’m home!” through the house, but get no answer. You guess that your family stepped out. You follow the trail of paper, through the living room, up the creaky stairs, and all the way to your bed room. The trail of paper ends at your bed.

On your bed, a single word is spelled out in torn paper. When your read it, for some reason, it sends shivers up your spine. The word reads, “UNGRATEFUL”.

Now, the Spice twins can’t spell. Heck, they don’t even know their alphabet, because instead of “L-M-N-O-P”, they think it’s “ELEMENO-P”, so you know that they couldn’t have made this. Unless one of them suddenly had a stroke of genius, which wasn't likely. And Johnny, he never sets foot in your room. Your parents bought the book, so why would they rip up the pages? Captain wouldn’t dare do it, since he went to obedience school. And didn't know what an alphabet was.

Puzzled, you study the word. Ungrateful. What does that have to do with anything?

Then it hits you. Ungrateful. Unnappreciative. Unthankful. Ungracious. Churlish. Did Mom, Dad, and Grandma figure out that you hate their gifts, and decide to punish you you through guilt?

The light above your head flickers, sprays sparks, and spontaneously cuts off. Your room becomes pitch black. You would be blind, if there wasn’t a faint orange glow of the hallway light coming from under your door.

You shake your head to remove all thoughts from your brain. You decide that you need a shower, and turn to your closet to get something clean to wear. As you dig through your closet, you can just make out Grandma’s gift in your dirty clothes basket.

You glance at the package and back to your clothes. You couldn’t decide between casual clothes or je--

You do a double-take.

The Barbie doll is missing from the box.

You grab the box out of the basket, and squint at it. You see that the plastic part of the box has a giant slit. The clothes that were twist-tied to the back of the box are still there, but one pink, plastic stiletto is missing. You turn the box around, trying to figure out how your sisters got the Barbie out of the package, and almost drop the box when you see the back.

In Sharpie marker, written in crude scrawl, you see one word: "BURN".

Sweat starts to stream down your face, and your heart rate increases. You suddenly feel very hot, even though your blood just ran cold.

You're confused and frustrated now. This punishment has gone too far. Burn? Like, burn burn, or violated burn? These thoughts consume you as you open your room door...

...And nearly lose your face to the roaring flames on the other side.

You let out a cry of pain, too busy holding your face to remember to "stop, drop, and roll". Instead, you choose to follow "scream, panic, and cower behind your bed”. After your brain kicks in, you run to the window, and try to open it.

It doesn’t open. You check the lock, and it isn’t locked. You yank on the window, pulling as hard as you can. The window refuses to open. The flames lick the paper pieces and clothes that are scattered on your floor, and suddenly, your whole room is aflame.

Quickly thinking, you grab your backpack from its place thrown against the wall, which was pretty much the only thing besides your dresser that wasn’t burning. You take a strap, swing the bag through the air, where it comes in contact with your window. The glass cracks. The flames touch your dresser, and you find it harder to breath in every second that passes. You take one more good swing at the window, and it shatters. You claw at the glass, injuring your hand.

When the window is empty of glass, you pull yourself out of the window, and onto the roof of the house. The height is dizzying, and you try not to look down.

Your Converses slide slowly over the red tiles of your roof. At one point, your shirt gets snagged on a nail, and you pull it. The force of your pull is strong, and it tears your shirt and sends you flying over the side of the roof. You bellow a cry as you rocket towards the ground, the air whistling past your ears.

SPLAT! was the sound made by your body when it hit the hard concrete and was turned into a mancake.

...Or it would have made that sound, if you didn’t land on something soft and squishy. The sharp smell of decay and pizza fills the air, and it makes you curious about exactly what you landed on.

You climb off of the pile, remembering that you and your father had just cleaned the yard last month, so it should have been empty. You launch into a coughing fit, triggered by the smoke in the air coming from the house, which is now fully aflame. You blink several times, and then try to focus on the pile in front of you.

The pile isn't just any old pile. It's a pile of chopped, mutilated bodies. And a large pepperoni pizza, but that's besides the point. Strangely, you're not afraid. (Your heart is still running a marathon after that incident when you fell off the roof, and your body is filled with adrenaline.) You make out five faces: Mom's. Dad's. Cindy's. Megan's. And a complete stranger's. You find the stranger's body, which is dressed in a Papa John's employee outfit and has the name tag "Peter". Your brother's body is nowhere in sight. You're not sure if that's a good that's a good thing or a bad thing, though. All of the bodies are chopped up in a strange way.

That's when it hits you. Your family is dead. All of your inner relatives (with the possible exception of Johnny) are dead. Your knees hit the ground, followed by your forehead. Before you know it, tears are clouding your eyes. "No....no. No no no no no no no no no no no NO!" You scream, pounding the ground with your fist.

You're still mourning when you hear a mechanical sound. Then a creaking sound. You whirl around, just in time to see the doors to your shed open. Nobody or thing is there, except the riding lawnmower.

Which is running, has blood on it, and is coming straight at you.

You figure that now is a great time to run for your life, and you do just that. You trip over your feet a couple of times trying to get out of the yard. Your legs feel dislocated from that fall off the roof, so you can't really burst into speed. Your lungs are being tortured, which was probably an effect of the cigarettes you’ve been smoking for the last two years. Too late to change that decision. The lawnmower grunts behind you. You grab your bike, feeling that now would be a bad time to be waiting at the bus stop when someone was trying to kill you.

Wait, who was trying to kill you?

You glance behind you to the seat of the riding lawnmower. Nobody appears to be in the seat.

Great. So either some genius had tweaked the mower to annihilate people on sight, or your mower was a Decepticon. Either way, you were probably not gonna make it.

You pedal down the street as fast as your legs let you. You were heading towards the police station. They'd help you. Hopefully.

You ride your bike past Joe (a crazy guy who lives in front of a corner store nicknamed by you and your brother), who is sitting against a wall, looking behind you. He rubs his eyes, and blinks several times. Then he gets up.

“The world is ending!” he shouts. “Barbies are after us all!” He runs into an alley and hops into a dumpster.

Spoken proof that he has no idea what he’s talking about, you think. Wait a minute…

You flashback to before your face was licked by fire. The missing doll… The hole in the box… The missing pink shoe… The sharpie scrawl… The--

Your bike flips over the curb, leaving you sprawled out on the sidewalk in front of the NYPD Police Department. You scramble up and run straight inside. Inside, walls form several offices. You swing into one office. Computers line the walls and desks. Men and women type and click, tabs fly closed and open. Nobody’s dressed in navy blue police outfits. Instead, the people wear black, white and gray. No guns in holsters. Instead, headphones with mics are plugged into everyone’s computers. No one notices you, standing in the doorway, drenched in sweat and obviously panicked.

Not wanting to die because of ignorance, you march up to the nearest person- which happens to be a tall, dark young woman in  a gray pants suit -and yank their headphones off. In a flash, the woman has a gun out pointed at your face, and a knife at your neck.

“You better have a good explanation for doing that, kid.” she says.

“I do,” you gasp. “My parents and sisters...and a pizza guy...were murdered by-- I’m being chased by--” You start to panic, unsure if you should listen to what your conscience is telling you. "I'm being chased by a limited edition Barbie doll!" You blurt finally. She is silent for a second as that sinks in.

"Yeah, sure," The woman mumbles. "Hey, MK! We need a straitjacket over here!" Your eyes widen as you realize that she believed you were crazy. The other people in the room finally start to notice you. A woman, who you assume to be MK, leaves the room and returns with a white shirt with really long sleeves and buckles. Whatever was gonna happen, you couldn't let them put you in that. You'd never get away from Barbie with that thing on.

"I'm serious! The Barbie is coming after me on a riding lawnmower!" You insist. Area

The woman bursts out laughing, lowering her weapons. "And I thought Carlos was hilarious. You hear this,  MK? Barbie's after us, and she's riding a lawnmower!"

MK's chuckling fills the room.

"You're all in danger!" You try again.

"What? Is Barbie gonna run us over with her lawnmower?" The woman asks sarcastically.

"Yes, if we don't do something first." You warn. The woman eyes you carefully.

Ten minutes later...

They put you in a strait jacket. Then tossed you in a room with nothing in it, not even windows. Just a bunch of peeling paint, and the door you came through. But you've watched enough CSI shows to know that there was a one sided window on the other side. You walk to the wall and stare directly at the center. They were gonna be sorry.

No. You were all gonna be sorry if you didn't find a way to escape soon. You think for a second. Then you walk to the doorknob and wrap your straps around it. You pull, pull as hard as you can. Suddenly, your straps snap, and you fly forward. You avoid hitting the floor and wiggle out of the shirt. You fix your hoodie, and proceed to bust the door down. You count to ten in your head, preparing your shoulder to ram the door.

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9-- BOOM! You're blown across the room, hitting your head against the wall. Your sight goes black at the edges, and your ears are ringing. Your legs, which were just starting to stop hurting, hit you with their best shot.

"Augh!" You cry out in anguish. What just happened!? The door was also blown down from the impact, so you can see, though distorted, some of the cops sprawled across the floor. The ones that aren’t dead get up, obviously taken off guard, and take out their guns, unsure of their targets.

And in the background, you see something else.

Something way too familiar.

Multiple way too familiar somethings.

In the background, a Harry Styles doll, flocked by a Niall Horan doll and a Louis Tomlinson doll, attacks a female police officer. They climb her, and despite her kicking efforts, they make it to her face and  bite-- who knew Barbie dolls had teeth!-- off her nose. The next scene is so graphic you stop reading this story you squeeze your eyes shut until the screaming is over. But no, the screaming isn’t over. More cries follow it.

You have got to get out of here before a Niall Barbie doll bites your skull open.

That’s your last thought before you wake up, sweat streaming down your face and your heart racing. It was all just a dream. Your family wasn’t murdered by a Barbie doll. A Niall doll wasn’t about to chew your face off. You were at home…

...In your cardboard box on the streets of Manhattan. You had no family, no job, no friends. Just the way it should be. At least now you knew to always be grateful for what you have: absolutely nothing.

THE END