But it wasn’t a dream, sadly.

I was woken up later in the night by a cacophony of voices of varying pitches and persuasions. When I first started to stir, I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but as I got more with it, I heard what the voices were chanting.

It was the name Ra. They were chanting the name over and over like an incantation to some god. Well, okay, Ra is a god, but this wasn’t Ra himself. Just a plushie that looks like him, right? I had no idea.

All I knew at that moment was that something was walking on my body up to my face. I didn’t want to look to see who or what it was. I didn’t own any pets, so there was only one guess as to who this might be. And I didn’t want to face whoever it was.

But then several hard blows to the side of my face forced me to look towards the direction of their origin. And just as I feared, it was the formerly inert plushie Ra. And this time, he had backup. Backup in the form of other plushies I have owned that were also formerly inert. Some of my favorites, too - plushie Captain America, Miss Piggy, the red bird from the Angry Birds movie (the one where they actually had limbs), Kirby, a random cat in a kimono, a cutesy blue T-Rex, I could go on. But they were all behind Ra, as Ra continued to slap me until I paid full attention to him.

“Are you awake, human?” Ra demanded to know of me.

“I’d rather not be right now,” I retorted.

“Awake or not, you’re not going anywhere,” Ra declared.

“And why is that?” I questioned.

“Well, just try to move parts of your body other than your head.”

Indeed, just as I tried to shift my body to actually sit up, I felt resistance and friction. Just turning in bed was difficult as my body struggled to actually turn itself. The problem was it was rubbing against something. But as I finally managed to turn my body to sit up, I attempted to sit up, and then the problem became clear.

I couldn’t sit up. I tilted my head up to see layers upon layers of thin rope, thread, wire, anything that could be used to tie a plushie - or in this case, a person - down, used to restrain me in my bed.

This couldn’t be happening… it has to be a dream at this point. I felt the color drain away from my skin once again, and I pushed my head back against my pillow willing myself to wake up. Turns out I was as awake as I was going to get, especially when Ra slapped me again.

“Pay attention, human!” Ra commanded.

“What...what did you do to me?” I tried to stammer out, but Ra cut me off with another slap.

“I woke up the other plushies of your house,” Ra began. “They are tired of the way you treat them. The constant rigging to force them to move in unnatural ways, the abuse of being thrown into dirt and other substances that make us unclean, and then the being tossed about in that infernal machine you have that threatens to drown them, among other offenses! They gave me a list but I have no idea what I did with it.” Ra looked away for a moment with smug satisfaction as he rattled off these so-called offenses.

“Wha—what are you talking about? You...plushies aren’t supposed to be...you know, alive! And for being inert, I treated you very well! That rigging and other stuff you’re talking about, do you have any idea what I do?”

“Aside from torture us, human?” Ra countered.

“I animate you!” I spat at Ra. “I collect all sorts of plushies like you to animate them! I am a professional animator! I have a YouTube channel where I post videos where I animate you guys! They get hundreds of thousands of views! You’re famous, you should be happy with what I do because I made you guys famous!”

Ra stared at me blankly for a moment, before he asked a question which floored me: “What’s YouTube?”

I rolled my eyes and groaned. There didn’t seem to be any point trying to convince Ra and the other plushies of the error of their ways.

Then Ra turned towards the other plushies and barked a command.

“Bring in the blunt instrument!”

That didn’t sound good at all. The other plushies grunted as they somehow hoisted a heavy object onto the foot of my bed, which I recognized as one of the full laundry detergent containers I tried to weigh down the laundry basket with earlier. They collectively heaved the container over themselves, and marched towards my head.

“And now, human, we command you to become unconscious!” Ra barked at me.

“Make me,” I retorted.

“Poor choice of words, human,” was the last thing Ra said as the plushies collectively thrust the detergent bottle at my forehead. I was honestly too tired of this to resist, so I blacked out easily as it thudded against my temple.