HOME | DD

Description
7:00 PM was approaching fast, and Tayla had finally managed to squeeze her way through the giant crowd and get inside the hall. The atmosphere was amazing, there were nearly 500 people squeezed into the hall, all eagerly pushing and shoving each other to reach their seats. Tayla quickly pulled her ticket from her pocket and checked her seat. '17A' it read. There were signs dictating which row was which, but she knew A was obviously at the front. She couldn't believe Grace had managed to get such good spots!

She made her way to the front row, directly below the stage. She could see Grace ahead, waving her arms trying to grab her attention. Grace looked gorgeous, sporting a stunning short strapless black dress and heels to match. She made Tayla feel a little underdressed in her green tank top, blue jeans and boots. "Hey, I'm so glad you could make it!" Grace threw her arms around Tayla and hugged her. A voice over the speaker cut their greeting short. "Attention Ladies and Gentlemen, the show is about to begin! So take your seats, relax and prepare to experience the performance of a lifetime!" The lights began to dim, and the girls hurried into their seats.

It only took a few minutes for the show to get underway. Two tall, blonde girls in light pink leotards emerged from the curtains and took the microphone. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for! Introducing Orval the Extraordinary!" The hall echoed with applause as the curtains rolled back, revealing a tall man in a grey suit, top hat and glittery red tie. Music filled the hall as smoke machines activated and the spotlight whizzed across the stage. This was shaping up to be fantastic!

Unfortunately, things didn't quite turn out as the girls expected. You see, Orval was just your average, run of the mill kind of magician. The pick a card trick got old after the first three times he did it, and the rabbit out of the hat trick was the most cliché of them all. The original applause had shrunk down to a few claps out of pity, and a few people began to file out of the building. Orval needed something big to bring back the audience, and luckily for him he had something big waiting in the wings.

"And now everybody, are you ready for the most amazing feat you will ever witness?" The crowd remained deathly quiet. "I will now saw a member of the audience in half!" The crowd was a lot more responsive to this idea. "For this I will need a volunteer, and that lucky person is... seat 18A! Come up on stage!" Grace's face lit up like a firework; that was her seat. Tayla patted Grace on the back as she leapt out of her seat and raced up onto the stage.

The crowd clapped as Grace approached Orval. "Hello young lady, how about you tell the audience your name?" Grace leaned into the microphone and softly uttered her name. Orval's two assistants wheeled out a black box. It looked a bit like a coffin, only shorter and had a hole for the volunteers head. "Now Grace my lovely, can I ask that you take off your shoes, as we can't have any interference with the magic. Grace stepped out of her heels and handed them to one of the assistants, who quickly whisked them off stage. One of the girls took hold of Grace's hands and pulled them behind her back, while the other secured them together with a pair of handcuffs. "As I said Grace, we can't have any interferences or something might go wrong". She nodded, but before she could answer she was scooped up from behind by one of the girls and placed into the box, only her head still visible. Grace's mind was buzzing with questions about what was about to happen and what she had to do, but before she could ask any of those things Orval forced a large red ball gag into her mouth and began to strap it into place. She was shocked and tried muttering a few pointless sentences, but all that came out was drool and muffled nonsense. The gag made her face look a tad distorted, and Tayla couldn't keep a straight face, laughing at her friend's facial expression. A few of the boys at the back of the hall whistled with enthusiasm, which only made Tayla laugh harder.

"The subject must be deprived of ALL senses, in order to prevent possible interference so that I can channel all of my focus into the act. This includes sight." One of the assistants approached the box and forcefully shoved a black latex mask over Grace's face. Grace wiggled more, apparent that she was beginning to become uncomfortable with the performance she agreed to. The assistant showed no reaction to Grace's struggle and began the trick, spinning the box around 3 times. Orval snapped his fingers and a pair of large metal blades descended from the ceiling into his hand. The crowd was growing ecstatic. Orval approached the box and positioned one of the blades into the slot. The hall went silent as he began to focus. Suddenly, the blade dropped quickly and loudly into the box. The crowd gasped. BANG! The second blade jammed into position almost immediately after. The tension was building. Was she ok? Orval snicked as he began tapping the box." Shazam!" he shouted as her pulled away the mask and the sides of the box fell open, to reveal the box to be empty. The crowd exploded with applause, Orval had just saved his show. He and his assistants bowed as the curtains drew and the show concluded.