Dust went up her nose and made her sneeze, while the darkness enveloped her in a heavy, velvety embrace. She seemed to hit a cold, gelatinous patch of air, which made Annik suspicious. All of a sudden, her limbs relaxed completely, and Drake had to literally drag her to their destination.
“Man, I wish they didn’t use this spell. It gets tiring dragging Puppet after Puppet after they get like this,” muttered Drake to himself.
Annik straightened up at the word, “spell,” but immediately fell limp again. Her mind was spinning; any thoughts or reason too muddled up to comprehend.
“Here’s the new one,” said Drake, talking to a man with oversized glasses and salt-and-pepper hair. He seemed kindly enough, but when he smiled, it was full of hunger and iniquity. Annik tried moving away, but couldn’t. A flash of panic went through her mind. It cleared her mind long enough to realize what they did with this spell.
‘Hmph. Foolproof way to make sure the Puppets behave,’ thought Annik, and she closed her eyes as the confusion settled back down in her mind.
She opened her eyes a few minutes later, her head pounding with the after-effects. She was on a stage of some sort, facing a set of heavy, red, velvet curtains. She shook her head slowly, and felt something strange. Looking to either side of her, she saw that her arms and legs were tied separately to see-through ropes that led above her head. Looking up, she could see the strange man with the glasses holding onto the ropes. He flashed her a crooked smile and his face disappeared.
In the background, there were voices whispering, “We still have about an hour before the show starts. Let’s get some drinks before we have to actually do some work.”
‘Crap, an hour?!’ thought Annik to herself. ‘I’m going to be stuck like this for an hour?!’
She could see that he had tied the ropes to the railing of the platform the man was standing on.
Annik tugged on the ropes desperately, but there was absolutely no give or stretch. “Damn, damn, damn, damn!!” she muttered to herself.
And then, to make matters worse, she smelled smoke. Looking around, she noticed tendrils of fire creeping up the velvet curtains in front of her. ‘Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!’ thought Annik to herself. She tugged even harder on the ropes but to no avail.
‘I’m doomed,’ thought Annik simply, and passed out from the fumes.
-Kiki
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