She was glad her parents weren't here to see her like this.

Once upon a time, there was a cheeky 12-year-old boy named Roger. One sunny afternoon, he decided to go shopping with his Mom, Angie. After filling their cart with groceries, they wandered towards the shoe section. Here, they encountered two teenage girls, aged 15 and 17, shopping with their mother. The younger girl was preoccupied with a pair of vibrant, pink flip flops. When she and her older sister got distracted, Roger, seizing the opportunity, quickly swiped the sandals without them noticing. Playfully, he ran a few aisles over, discarded his shoes, and slipped the pink flip flops onto his feet. He began to stomp around, pretending he was one of the girls. As he was play-acting, though, he failed to notice his feet beginning to change—they were growing to fit the sandals. His stomping soon blended into the regular rhythm of walking, and the flip flops he wore did not move an inch, despite his attempts to remove them. After a moment, an uncanny transformation began to occur. His height began increasing, edging closer to the stature of an average adult woman. His clothes transformed too, morphing into short shorts and a glittery pink T-shirt. His hair lengthened, cascading down his shoulders, and turned a fiery red hue. He no longer looked like Roger, the 12-year-old boy running errands with his mom, Angie, but more like the mother of the two girls, with whom they were shopping earlier. Panicked, Roger rushed towards his forgotten shoes, quickly catching his reflection in a mirror. He peered at his new image, his thoughts shifting in mid-sentence. "My mom is Ang, my mom is-- My mom isn't Angie! MOM! Where did you go! I've been looking everywhere for you! You gonna just abandon your daughter in the store! I thought you loved me!" he exclaimed dramatically. Watching his tirade from a distance, the 15-year-old girl who initially possessed the pink flip flops spotted the 'gross' shoes. But she had no recollection of them, giving the footwear a side-eye of disgust. She then wandered over to the mirror and took out her phone to capture a selfie for her Instagram. Even as she posed, she felt a subtle displacement in her self-identity, almost as though she was stepping into a new personality. She brushed it off, not realizing the magnitude of her transformation, that she was, in fact, undergoing a metamorphosis as profound as Roger's.