Ticklish Magic

"come on, it'll be fun!" Jessica pleaded with Tiffany as they were changing out of their uniforms. There was a massive party planned that night on the campus square and Jessica was determined to get Tiffany to accompany her after missing out on so many other occasions. "Everyone's gonna be there!"

"That's exactly why I'm not going" Tiffany replied as she zipped up her hoodie. "I don't even know most of those people."

As Jessica slipped her cap on they made their way to the car and began driving back to campus. "Tiff, how are you gonna get to know anyone if you never take a chance?" "I mean you can't just keep to yourself for your whole li-" Jessica cut herself off as she noticed a sign and made a sudden right turn. Tiffany could only roll her eyes as Jessica pulled up to an old looking house with various items sprawled across the driveway and lawn.

"ya know you never find anything good at these"

"It's still fun to look!" Jessica enthusiastically explained as she exited the car. Tiffany stayed behind, keeping an eye on her friend from the car. Most of the items she passed by looked like junk, some of it was even broken, but that might explain why most of the price tags didn't go for more than about five dollars. She just kept scanning the yard while waiting for Jessica to return when something caught her eye. Behind everything else was an old wooden chest. Tiffany normally wouldn't think much of something like this, but she felt as if something was drawing her vision towards it. The feeling was odd, and pretty much unexplainable (at least to Jessica with her attention span). Eventually curiosity got the better of her when Tiffany exited the car and walked towards the old chest.

When she got close, she noticed an old rusted padlock keeping the chest shut. It was heavy, feeling like something was inside. It was big too, probably large enough to fit a person inside. She turned it around to see a price tag on the back reading twenty dollars. "This old box of crap is the most expensive thing here" she muttered to herself. Someone approached her from behind.

"interested?"

She suddenly sprang up and looked behind her to see an old man, presumably the one selling all these things. "I see you found the old family chest."

Tiffany stalled for a second. "y-yeah I guess so...what's inside this thing anyway?"

The man shook his head. "Well to tell ya the truth, I'm not sure myself. I lost that key years ago, but I'm sure it's nothin' important." He scratched his beard for a moment. "tell ya what though, if you buy the chest, whatever is in there's free."

Tiffany stopped to think for a minute. Compared to the rest of the crap for sale, whatever's been locked in this thing for so long could be even worse. The man himself said it's probably nothing. On the other hand, she knew there was still something about this that caught her attention. Besides, who would go through of the trouble of locking up something worthless. After a couple silent moments of deliberation, she started digging through her pockets and handed the man a twenty dollar bill before calling Jennifer to help her carry this thing to the car.

Jessica ran over. "you bought something?" Her face changed to a sly grin "and you were talking about how nothing good ever comes out of these sales."

"I know, I know, just help me lift this thing will ya? It's heavy!" With a bit of struggling the two manage to get it back to the car, laying it on its side in the backseat before driving back. Tiffany spoke quickly while trying to catch her breath. "we are NOT carrying that thing all the way to the dorm by ourselves!"

"Well what did you expect when you bought that thing? It's almost as big as you!" "Did he even remember to give you the key?"

"He lost it. Lock's so rusted I could probably just break it off though."

"Okay...well what's inside?"

"No idea."

"And yet you bought it anyway?"

"Weren't you the one telling me about leaving things to chance once in a while?"

"Well I didn't mean like this!" Once back to the campus, with the help of some of the school athletes, Tiffany and Jessica got the box back into their dorm. While Tiffany further examined the box, Jessica was too busy getting ready for the party. She turned to her friend on her way out the door. "You sure you don't wanna come?"

"You have fun, I've got work to do." She replied simply. Jessica just shook her head and shut the door, quickly heading downstairs. Apparently she wasn't the only one as the hall was unusually quiet tonight, something Tiffany found to be an improvement.

After looking the box over a few times, she brought her attention to the lock. It wouldn't snap with a simple tug, so she stood up and started kicking at it until it finally broke off. With a fit of excitement she slowly opened the box. What she found inside had surprised her. A set of large metal rings, some playing cards, a saw, and tons of other things. Digging to the bottom she found a very flamboyant suit folded up along with what looked like a cape. "A magician's act." she repeated to herself. Excited by the find she continued to rummage through the items. Most of this stuff actually brought back early memories for her. When she was a young girl she was practically obsessed over magic and even wanted to become a magician. When Jessica lived next door to her, they would even play games where they would take turns as the magician and assistant, usually just pretending with whatever they could find around the house by imitating tricks she saw on television. However, one day their parents put a stop to the game when they found Tiffany about to saw Jessica in half with a real saw she had found in the garage. Of course both of them were too young to really know any better, but from that day on magic began to die out as an interest for Tiffany. Seeing all of this brought these memories soaring back to her. Once she uncovered everything she could inside, she immediately decided she was going to show this to Jessica the second she got back and began packing the items back up for now, as she could barely walk through the room with the way they were currently scattered across the floor.

Once everything was back in the box, she moved over to the bed and laid down with her laptop. She realized that she never asked just how long this party would be going on, but knowing Jessica, she probably wouldn't see her until the next morning. The excitement from her find left her unable to sleep for a while, but she eventually dozed off while watching a series of youtube videos, forgetting to even change clothes. The screen on the laptop went black not long after, leaving the room in complete darkness.

Sometime later in the night, as she slept, something began to happen. The box sprung open on its own. Tiffany was still in a deep sleep, unable to notice anything unusual. One by one, the contents of the box slowly floated out on their own and apart from a select few, collected in a corner of the room until it was empty. After this was done a few more minutes of silence passed before the box itself began to rise up. The saw floated over and began cutting holes into each side. Once all was ready, Tiffany herself was lifted out of bed by an unseen force, towards the box. Once it finally slammed shut on her, only then did she wake up to find herself enclosed in the box with only her head and feet sticking out of freshly cut holes on the end.

For a moment, Tiffany was too shocked to say anything. "Wh-what's happening?! What the hell is going on?!" She tried to escape, but something had sealing the box shut around her. She started panicking, quickly banging on the lid trying to get it to open and calling for help. Unfortunately, everyone who could have helped her was partying downstairs. She didn't know what to think, arguing back and forth to herself about what could be happening. However, she was shocked to see what was likely the answer floating towards her. She only realized then that the box itself was also one of the magician's props as the saw came closer and started cutting into it again. Tiffany screamed as the saw came lower and lower. As it neared her waistline, she shut her eyes and whimpered, yet to her shock, felt nothing. The saw passed right through her and out the bottom of the box as if nothing was there.

Tiffany went dead silent, not sure what to think at all. Was this some sort of elaborate prank or a twisted dream? The latter maybe. These thoughts were suddenly cut short as she started feeling as if there was a breeze. To her horror, she soon found out why as she watched the lower half of the box with her kicking feet sticking out on the end being gently lowered onto the bed. The other half floated over and rested next to it a second later, leaving her facing her own feet a few inches from her face. She tried moving them and they complied perfectly. "I'm...in half...I've been sawn in half." she repeated to herself, still in utter shock. While terrified, the situation also left her curious. She wondered for a brief moment what she would look like...out of the box like this. She almost hadn't noticed when whatever force was doing this had shown that it wasn't finished. She felt as if something grabbed her feet, as the laces on her sneakers slowly began to untie themselves.

"H-hey! Stop that!" she yelled to no avail as the laces came undone and her sneakers were slowly being removed. Her thoughts were conflicting with each other. Something was clearly not right here, supernatural even and she felt like she should be shouting her lungs out. Yet, something about the ordeal was fascinating. It was like an out of body experience for Tiffany. She felt an unusual excitement watching her disembodied lower half. As this feeling hit, she actually wanted to get a better look at her feet from such a unique angle and started kicking them to help slip out of the sneakers. As the shoes came off one by one hitting the floor, revealing her socks, she started wiggling her toes, watching in a strange sense of amazement at such accurate movement and feeling on something clearly detached from her. "This is real". Her feelings went from pure terror to not wanting this to stop. In a way, her wish was granted as she felt a similar force gently tugging on the end of her socks a mere few seconds later. By this point she wanted to see them as much as whatever was doing this and just watched as the socks came sliding off as she relished and even slightly giggled at the feeling. They joined the sneakers on the ground, unveiling her bare feet. She had practically fallen in love with such a surreal feeling. She wiggled and waved around her toes in a hypnotizing fashion. In a way, this was a childhood dream, to be part of a magic act. Even if she would rather be the performer than the assistant, she was too lost in sheer amazement to care. So engulfed in the experience in fact, that she barely noticed something else rise from the discarded props.

From the pile dumped out by the chest, rose a pair of white polyester gloves. They simply hovered in front of Jessica until she finally pulled away her gaze for a split moment and saw them, letting out a small squeak as they caught her off guard. As she saw them. She didn't remember seeing these anywhere in the box. They suddenly puffed up and filled as if someone had put them on, yet no one was there. She stared for a moment before speaking. "So then...are...you...the magician?" She wasn't really expecting any sort of response but kept talking anyway. "This trick was...impressive. I loved it!" She was giving a slow clap which was barely audible inside the box. As impressed as she was, this was bringing the sense of fear back. She curled her toes as she asked a final question. "So...will you be putting me back together now?" The fingers on the gloves slightly twitched as she asked this. If that was some sort of response, she couldn't tell what it was to save her life. Things were dead silent for a moment. Tiffany was too afraid to speak. Who knows what could happen to her if she tried making demands. The hands then began moving again, towards her feet. "what are you doing?" She spoke quick and frantically. One extended it's index finger and dragged it down her left sole from her upper arches to her heel. Tiffany's eyes widened as she held in a minor laugh. It then occurred to her that the trick wasn't finished yet, remembering several performances where the magician proved to a crowd that the feet on the other end were real by tickling them. This was something Jessica always took advantage of in their games and continued to tease her about.

The hand dragged this solitary finger up and down her sole. The sensation was a light one but it was still becoming more difficult to hide the snickering as time went on. Eventually a small giggle slipped out and the hand stopped, as if triggered. Tiffany froze up and watched as all five fingers extended and the other hand got closer to her right foot. "no, no no, please...please do-" Her speaking was cut short by a loud burst of laughter as both hands pounced on her feet and wriggled their fingers madly across her soles. Tiffany was filling to the brim with laughter, watching in horror as her defenseless feet were tickled to no end right in front of her, knowing she was unable to do anything. Whoever or whatever these hands belonged to, she was at their mercy, and it didn't look like they would be giving her any. She couldn't help but blush as her face started turning red. One hand began to work specifically on her toes, which were an extreme weak spot of hers, increasing the laughter to insane volumes. While there was no way to hide the laughter anymore, she was content to hide something else about the situation. She was actually starting to enjoy it. Jessica had playfully tickled her feet before, usually in an attempt to cheer her up from something, but Tiffany always pretended to hate it. As insane as this was, she found herself not wanting it to end. She stopped any sort of resistance and let the hands do their work. She couldn't recall another time in her life where she had so much fun. Tiffany howled with laughter throughout the night for what seemed like hours, working her lungs to overtime. It was only getting more intense with each stroke of a finger and she felt as if she couldn't last much longer. With one last fit of giggling, Tiffany blacked out with a smile on her face.

Tiffany woke up hours later, completely confused. She looked out the window to see the morning sunrise. A sense of shock rose up as she immediately threw off the blanket to make sure she was still in one piece, and she was. "Was all that...real?" She immediately drew her attention to the box. She still didn't know what to make of the situation. Being sawn in half in some crazy box, and then there was the whole tickling thing. For a moment she began thinking that she might have even liked it! The box was exactly where she had left it, shut, and whole. Still thinking about it, she got up, but realized something when her feet touched the ground. She was barefoot. Rushing to the box, her suspicions were all but confirmed when she found the holes still in the sides. Opening the box up, she found her shoes and socks resting on top of the pile. As she collected them and shut it again she heard the door open behind her.

"Hey Tiffy! Oh my god, I had such a great night!" Jessica walked in and moved to her bed on the other side of the room and immediately laid down, removing her shoes and cap. "I'm so exhausted!" She looked back to her friend as she relaxed. She noticed the broken padlock next to the box. "Oh yeah, whatever was in that thing anyway?"

Tiffany just smiled and looked back at her. "Jessica...remember that game we used to play as kids?"