Kiaory Posted January 2, 2017 Posted January 2, 2017 (edited) Hi @Sneezingnonstop! I hope you like it! Sorry for posting this so late, I have a bit of a tendency to procrastinate. Some of the things you asked for aren't here because they're planned for the second part, just to let you know. My original plan was to write both up and post them at once before the deadline, but that didn't work out (see the aforementioned procrastination). On the bright side, though, this means I can take any feedback you have into account for the second installment. So there's that! To anybody else that reads this: I hope you all enjoy this too! Leave a comment if you liked the story, and if you didn't feel free to comment what you'd prefer to see next time. ----------------------------- The room was empty. Tiny golden motes of dust floated lazily in the afternoon sunlight streaming in the windows. All around them, their brethren lay in a thin but present layer over everything, giving the desks and chairs a faint gray sheen. It was the middle of summer, and Ms. Keller’s fifth grade classroom had been deserted for the year, left to sit in silence, gathering dust, until it once again was called into use. Or, at least, it should have been. “Come on Shay, hurry up!” An exited voice came from outside. A few moments later, a slender hand appeared outside the second window from the left and began to fiddle with the catch. To causal observer, the window might have looked essentially identical to the ones to left and right of it. However, the owner of the hand knew what made that particular window special: it had a broken latch. The window slid upwards with a soft click and a lanky girl clambered inside, blinking as she came in from the summer sunlight. Tilting her head, she listened. As expected, the only sounds were her breathing and her friend climbing up outside. That done, Carmen stretched hugely, grinning to herself as she slung her purple backpack into a waiting nearby chair. It had been over half a decade since she had been in this room legitimately, but ever since Carmen had realized that school was the last place someone would look for a teenager in summer it had become a frequent haunt for her and her best friend. As if on cue, Shay poked her head in the window as she began to carefully climb through. People sometimes mistook Carmen and Shay for sisters due to their mutual delicate features and slim builds, although Shay was shorter and had a face full of freckles to Carmen’s even tan. The truth was, they had met and become fast friends in third grade, quickly falling into a pattern that had held true for years and had continued to the present. Carmen was the initiator, the extrovert, and the troublemaker. It was because of her antics that their neighbors had long ago learned not to ask questions if they saw the girls walking by, for example, covered in mud and carrying a plastic crate full of puppies. Shay in turn acted as audience, accomplice, and occasional voice of reason on their adventures, keeping things from getting out of hand. Indeed, she was attempting to do so at this very moment. “Are you sure this is such a good idea, Car?” Shay asked quietly, fiddling nervously with her the hem of her skirt as she walked towards the center of the room. “I don’t know if we should do this…” It was the beginning of a conversation that the two had had had countless times before, only with the specifics of Carmen’s latest scheme changed. Usually Shay would relent after some conditions had put in place and Carmen had promised to be carful, although occasionally she would put her foot down entirely. As Shay sat down Carmen looked up from rummaging around in her back pack to grin give the traditional response: “Come on! It’ll be awesome!” Actually, it was a little odd for Shay to be invoking The Conversation now. Compared to a lot of her schemes, what Carmen had planned for today was downright trivial. It took place all in one room, involved only the two of them, and carried almost no risk of injury. And yet, for reasons she wasn’t completely sure of herself, The idea made Shay feel nervous and embarrassed. When her request was met with silence, Carmen turned around with and exaggerated pleading expression, puppy dog eyes at maximum power. “Pleeeeeease?”, She said as pathetically as she could manage. She thought she had done a pretty good job that time, her lip had wobbled and everything. It had been part of her usually tactics, but it seemed to have an unusual effect on Shay. Rather than snorting and rolling her eyes like usual, the quiet girl’s cheeks colored slightly and she looked down, mumbling assent. Carmen was surprised that her friend had given in so easily, but she didn’t stop to look a gift horse in the mouth. She lifted an old and battered library book out of her backpack and slammed it on a nearby desk, throwing up a puff of dust in the process. One the cover was written The Joye of Hypnotism in faded letters. “Great! We’re gonna have you clucking like a chicken in time!” Shay just shifted uncomfortably. She still wasn’t looking forward to this, even she had just agreed to it. “Um, what’s involved in hypnotizing me? Exactly?” Carmen just shrugged. “Dunno. I haven’t finished reading the book yet.” On a whim, she walked over to Shay’s personal space. She leaned down so that her head was level with the sitting girl’s, pushing their faces so close that their noses squished together. “I think it involves you looking deep into my eyes, like this. Do you feel any different?” Shay’s eyes went wide, flickered down for a moment, and she blushed more brightly. “I-I, uh…” She trailed off, staring into the hazel eyes a few inches from hers. For a moment Carmen wondered if she had actually gotten it right by chance. She hadn’t expected it to work, but there was something weird about Shay’s expression… Suddenly, Carmen began blinking rapidly and straightened up, rubbing her eyes. “Phoo. I think I got some dust in eyes.” Carmen complained. “ I guess I should find out what you’re actually supposed to do. A few minutes of studying later, it turned out that eye-staring wasn’t as important as she had first thought. It was mostly about talking to person you wanted to hypnotize. Carmen sat crosslegged of her friend and subject, the book open in her lap. She did her best to speak in a calm and reassuring tone, although it didn’t come easily to her. Mostly she imitated the time she had heard her cousin making an ASMR video. She half suspected that nothing would happen, but to Carmen’s mild shock Shay’s wide brown eyes soon began to glaze over. She kept going and the nervous girl’s tension started to fade, her body relaxing as her face went blank. Carmen keep going for a while just to make sure, but eventually she trailed off, staring at the unnatural stillness of her friend’s body. “C-can you hear me?” she asked hesitantly. “Yes…” Shay replied, speaking in a sleepy monotone that sounded nothing like her usual voice. Carmen relaxed a little. “And you’ll do what I say?” “I would do almost anything for you…” The hypnotized Shay responded. Carmen blinked. She must be really good at this. She caught herself nearly asking Shay if she really meant it, then realized that that would be stupid. She didn’t think hypnotized people could lie. Shrugging, she quickly hopped up and extracted a small plastic object from her backpack. It was a hand exerciser, a toy that made a loud clicking sound when you squeezed it. Carmen called it her clicker. It had been a somewhat selfishly motivated present from her family at her last birthday. Carmen, while a sweet girl in most respects, normally possessed a level of energy that for most people was achievable only through the consumption of medically dangerous quantities of caffeine. As a result, she often had a near incurable need to fidget. Her father had gotten her the toy hoping it would give her an outlet for her energy. It had worked, to some degree at least, although the sound of Carmen trying to sit still had since been uncharitably described as a woodpecker on stimulants. Regardless, Carmen had become inseparable from the thing. Right now, she intended to hypnotize Shay to do something when it was clicked. As she opened her mouth to give plant the hypnotic suggestion, though, Carmen realized that she hadn’t planned on what exactly she wanted to hypnotize Shay to do. Maybe that was why her friend had been so nervous, now that she thought about it. Screwing up her face in contemplation, Carmen tried to decide what to go with. It shouldn’t be anything too embarrassing, but it ought to still be funny to watch… Unfortunately, Carman’s pondering was cut short. All the dust the hyperactive girl had stirred up was coming back to haunt her. Carmen felt a sharp tingling start just inside her left nostril as her eyes began to water, her breath starting to hitch. She tried to fight the oncoming sneeze for a second, but soon she surrendered to the inevitable, turning to the side to direct any spray away from her friend. “heh… heh… hetchoo!!” Carmen sniffled, delicately rubbing a finger at the slight moisture still clinging to the edges of her nostrils. She hadn’t bothered to cover. It was probably a good thing her nose wasn’t more sensitive, she reflected, or she’d being sneezing her head off right now… Carmen paused as an idea occurred to her. Sneezing. She could make Shay sneeze whenever she heard the click. She smiled. It would be kinda funny, but not too mean either. If she played her cards right, Shay might not even catch on that her sneezes weren’t natural at first. It wasn’t as if there wasn’t enough dust around. She turned to Shay. “Are you still all hypnotized?” “…Yes.” The glassy-eyed girl responded. “Okay.” Carmen said, sitting down. She did her best to return to the soothing monotone she had used earlier. She squeezed the clicker once. “Shay, You’re allergic to this sound. Every time you hear it your nose is going to feel like…” Carmen trailed off. She’d never experienced allergies herself. Shay had them every year in spring, although she usually suppressed them with medication. “Well, what do you allergies usually feel like? If you don’t take your medication?” “Itchy.” Carmen frowned “Can you go into more detail?” “It… usually begins in morning, when I wake up. There’s just a little itch somewhere back in my nose that I can’t reach,” Shay explained, her voice a hesitant monotone. Her nose twitched slightly as she spoke. “But it gets bigger as the day goes on. It’s like a vine growing through the rest of my nose and into my e-eyes, and my ears, and the roof of my mouth…” Her nostrils flared as her breath caught “The-hhhh-n it changes from a scratching itch to a s-sneezing itch and… and it…” the hypnotized girl trailed off, a familiar expression forming on her face. Carmen’s eyes widened. She rushed forward, shoving a finder under Shay’s nose before her buildup could reach it’s conclusion. She wan’t sure if sneezing would break a person out of hypnosis, but she didn’t want to find out. The power of suggestion must have been enough to set her off. Unless the one click she had already given as an example counted in Shay’s mind, Carmen supposed. She frowned. Either way, she needed to hurry up and plant a post-hypnotic suggestion already. “Okay, Shay, listen to me. Every time you hear one of these clicks,”–she clicked it again for emphasis–“It’s going to feel like um, a flower of itchiness blooming inside your nose. It’ll have, you know, tickly spoors and petals and stuff. You’re gonna need to sneeze really bad, and it’s not gonna stop until you do.” Carmen felt Shay’s nostrils flare angrily against her finger as she spoke, responding to her words. Things were getting dicy. Hurriedly, she tried to rush through the rest of the speech outlined by the book. “Do you understand?” Shay nodded, dragging her nose away from Carmen’s finger. Carmen addressed the book’s final section to the shuddering, hitching girl in from of her. She hoped Shay could hold back long enough without the finger for her to properly end the hypnosis. “Ok, on the count of three I’m going to count to three and snap my fingers.” She read “When I do, you’re going to wake up with no memory of what happened while you were hypnotized. Do you understand?” “Yehhh… yes…” Shay hitched, her nostrils flaring in and out. Her eyelids were fluttering. “1… 2… 3!” Carmen snapped her fingers. The moment the glazed look faded from Shay’s eyes she frantically attacked her nose with her finger, squishing the freckled organ rapidly back and forth. Carmen watched in surprise, pretending she didn’t already know the cause of her friend’s distress. Eventually Shay looked up, the embryonic sneeze in her sinuses apparently quelled. As a trade off, the rubbing had turned her nose a light pink and caused her glasses to slip down her face. “Er, sorry. Itchy nose.” She explained awkwardly, pushing her glasses back up. “So I’m hypnotized to do something now?” “Yep!” Carmen answered cheerfully. “It was a lot easier than I expected.” Shay cringed slightly. “Um… I didn’t say anything embarrassing while I was hypnotized, did I?” Carmen blinked. Was that what Shay had been worried about the whole time? “Huh? No, you mostly just got this dazed look on your face and take like you were half asleep. You didn’t say much except to answer questions.” Shay relaxed slightly. “Oh, except for declaring you undying love for Mike Lebowitz.” “WHAT!?” Carmen giggled. “Kidding! I’m kidding! There were no love confessions!” She snorted from her laughter. “You should have seen the look on your face, though…” The face in question was still burning a bright red. Taking magnanimous pity, Carmen decided to distract her friend from her embarrassment. “So what was it like being hypnotized?” As Shay prepared to answer, she gave the hand exerciser one sharp click. It was time to figure out if the whole thing had really worked. Shay frowned, thinking. “I don’t really remember much, actually. The last thing rehhh… remember…” Shay’s nostrils seemed to flare up of their own accord as she spoke, expanding hugely and quivering halfway through her sentence. The rest of her face soon followed suit, her expression beginning to slide towards sneezyness as she tried to continue. “…feeling very sleehhhh… s-slehhhh… ehhh-! heh-GNK!!” Shay caught her nose between thumb and forefinger as her head jerked forward, executing a near perfect stifle. Unfortunately for her, the sneeze wasn’t gone. Carmen had told Shay that her nose would keep itching until she sneezed, and apparently her subconscious had decided that stifles didn’t count. Even as she straitened up Shay’s eyelids were already fluttering again, her nose wiggling back and forth to escape the itch. Her upper lip curled back and her head tilted as she gave in to the sneezy urges inside her. “hhh-hehh… ehhhh… etCHOO!!” This time she pitched forward into her cupped hands, her ponytail flying out behind her. She hesitated for a second as she straightened up, waiting for the itching to return again. When it didn’t she exhaled and began to rub carefully at her nose. “Eh, bless me.” She said, blushing. “My allergies must be acting up.” She sniffed. “Getting hypnotized was kind of a blank for me, to be honest. Sorry if that’s not interesting.” Carmen just shrugged. Inside, she was fighting to keep from grinning. It had worked! “It’s not your fault, Shay. At least I got to see it happen.” Her eyes sparkled as a new piece of mischief occurred to her. “By the way, you’ve got a little bit of sneeze on your face here.” Carmen said, pointing to a random point on her upper lip. Shay squeaked and clapped her hand over her face, trying to hide the imaginary snot. She shot up and began to hurry over to the teacher’s desk where there was a half-used box of tissues, still covering her mouth and nose. Grinning for real now, Carmen reached down and squeezed the clicker three more times. *click* *click* *click* Shay froze mid step. Her face was still hidden behind her hands, but Carmen could see her chest rising and falling inside her shirt. It seemed to be moving a lot more than it had been a second ago. “hihhh…. hhheeEEH…? HIT’CHEW!! hh-CHH! hhh-EHH-! HASHEEEW!!!” Shay doubled over as the triple burst out of her, little puffs of spray squeezing out between her fingers. The third sneeze had caused her glasses to fall nearly off her face, hanging around her chin. A look of consternation and embarrassment covered her features as she turned her watery eyes toward Carmen, finally moving her hands away to fix her errant eyewear. “I-I’m sorry Car, I think I bust be allergic to the dust or somethig. I should probably go… Huh? Why are you grinning?” Looking her friend straight in the eye, Carmen smiled, held up the clicker, and squeezed it once. She winked. *click* Shay’s eyes widened. So did her nostrils. “You hypnotized me to… t-t-t-t-to… ehh…” Shay’s delicate features seemed to crumple in on themselves as the sneeze gained momentum, distorting her expression. Her nose twitched. Her eyes closed. Her chest expanded. She sneezed. “HESHOOO!!!” This time Shay didn’t have time to cover, or perhaps didn’t think to. As her body jerked forward she sneezed into the open air, directly at Carmen. The taller girl blinked involuntarily, closing her eyes against any mist, but her smile stayed on. “Yep! I was wondering how long it’d take you to figure it out. Bless you by the way.” Shay took a tissue from the desk and wiped at her nose. “But… why sneezing?” She asked “It’s embarrassing!” “Because it’s funny,” Carmen said “And also because your sneezes are adorable!” “Bwah-? Really?” Shay was blushing again. Carmen wondered why she’d been doing the so much recently. She couldn’t find sneezing that embarrassing, could she? Regardless, she felt some positive reinforcement was necessary. Carmen stood up and ruffled her friend’s hair. “You’re adorable in general, Shay.” If Shay’s blush had been bright before, now it was incandescent.“I-I… it… the…” She was saved from having to answer by a loud buzzing noise, which began emanating from the pocket of Carmen’s jeans. Carmen pulled out her phone and looked at it. The energetic girl seemed to deflate as she read the screen, sagging slightly. “I’ve got to go, it’s my grandpa again.” She gave Shay one last hair-ruffle for the road. “I’ll come see you if I have time later.” And with that, Carmen slung her backpack over her shoulder and walked over to the open window, leaving Shay alone. TO BE CONTINUED… Edited January 30, 2017 by Kiaory
Sneezingnonstop Posted January 3, 2017 Posted January 3, 2017 This is amazing!!! Thank you so much!!! I can't wait to read what happens for part 2!!!!
Kiaory Posted January 3, 2017 Author Posted January 3, 2017 Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. Is there any part in particular you enjoyed, or any feed back you'd like to give for part 2?
Sneezingnonstop Posted January 3, 2017 Posted January 3, 2017 26 minutes ago, Kiaory said: Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. Is there any part in particular you enjoyed, or any feed back you'd like to give for part 2? Hmm…I really liked all of it, but I guess I do like in particular Carmen's mischeviousness as well as Carmen's shyness. And the sneezing…naturally. Maybe keep the personality focus on those? Not really sure overall, you're doing great either way!
Sneeze999 Posted January 3, 2017 Posted January 3, 2017 This was an awesome story!! Can't wait to see where it leads!
White Rose Posted January 4, 2017 Posted January 4, 2017 This is such a good idea! Can't wait to read more!
Kiaory Posted January 30, 2017 Author Posted January 30, 2017 (edited) And here's part 2! Hopefully it was worth the wait. ----------------------------- Shay’s cheeks still burned faintly as she peddled her bicycle home, thoughts of the afternoon’s events swirling in her mind. On the one hand, she had sneezed her head off in front of Carmen, which was humiliating. Shay still cringed at the thought of some drop of snot or spit flying out of her nose and hitting her best friend. There was a part of her that wanted to forget it ever happened. But… instead of being grossed out, Carmen had thought her sneezes were cute. Carmen had called her cute. Adorable, in fact. That was a stronger word, wasn’t it? A good thing? But it had different connotations. A cute guy was different from an adorable guy… Not that she’d ever want Carmen to look at her the way she’d look at a cute guy, of course. Shay blushed harder and shook her head as she realized what she was thinking. She did not have a crush on her best friend. This was a 100% true fact that she reminded herself of quite often. Carmen was just her best friend, nothing else. A friend who also happened to be smart and funny and brave and really, really, really pretty. And who gave Shay a strange feeling in her stomach whenever she smiled. And who Shay occasionally dreamed about. Shay had always wanted to tell Carmen how beautiful she was, but she had never figured out how she could say it without it coming out wrong and giving her the wrong impression. There were a few things like that. Whenever Carmen hugged her, Shay always wanted it to just go on forever, the two of them just holding each other. But of course Carmen always let go, and Shay let go too because other wise it would be awkward, wouldn’t it? Carmen had called her adorable, though. Shay’s mind kept coming back to that word. Maybe she could be so adorable that Carmen would just want to hug and cuddle her like a teddybear? A quiet, peaceful smile spread across Shay’s face as she imagined cuddling Carmen. She could almost feel warm arms around her… It was at this point that Shay crashed her bike. Shay had been pedaling fairly slowly when she tipped, but there was enough momentum cause her to take a spill onto the ground. For a moment Shay tumbled through space, and then she just lay there, listening to her heartbeat ponding in her ears and letting the panicked coldness of adrenaline wash over her body. Eventually it faded, and numerous aches and pains suddenly all began to call for her attention. Shay ground and rolled over, pushing herself to a sitting position in order to inspect the damage. She winced. There wasn’t any blood, thankfully, but she had acquired quite a collection of dully throbbing scrapes and what would soon be an impressive set of bruises. This was going to ache tomorrow. Out of the corner of her eye, Shay spotted what she had run into: a large rock lying in the middle of the path. She shook her head. She must have been really distracted to have missed that, she thought. Sighing, Shay levered herself to her feet and walked over to examine the condition of her bicycle. As she got close Shay inhaled nervous through her teeth. The metal guard on her rear wheel had been bent down at an awkward angle and the wheel itself looked slightly warped. She bit her lip as she hesitantly squatted down and reached out a hand to see of the wheel would still spin. She needed this bike to get home! At first, things looked reassuring. The wheel turned smoothly on it’s axis despite it’s new lopsidedness. As it came around to complete its rotation, though, a bent spoke caught on the twisted metal guard. They snapped past each other a moment later under the force of Shay’s push, but the sharp contact between the two pieces of metal produced a sharp click. A familiar click. Shay froze as a familiar cloying prickle sprang up between her eyes. What was happening? Was she still hypnotized? And wasn’t only Carmen’s clicker supposed make her sneeze? Shay briefly hoped it was just a random tickle, but she could already feel her nostrils flaring and her eyes squinting as the twinge in her sinuses began to grow into something greater. Shay’s chest began to swell as her body geared up to expel the imaginary irritants plaguing her nose. Through eyes that were drifting closed Shay frantically looked around. She was all alone, right? Surely it would be okay to… to… “Heishoo!!!” Shay sneezed, turning away at the last second to avoid spraying her bike with snot. The force rocked her back on her heels, and she sprawled softly onto her behind. Thoughts whirled through her head as she brought a finger to her nose to rub away a few lingering tickles. For starters, Shay was worried. She had been anxious at the idea of being hypnotized even before her even before she had realized she might blurt out something stupid that she completely didn’t mean. Shay had originally rationalized away those fears because she trusted Carmen not to make her do anything horrible, but now that her hypnosis had intruded into her everyday life they were all rushing back. She just had assumed that her programing would end when she left. Now that she thought about it, though, Carmen hadn’t done anything to undo it. Had she been planning to before she left abruptly? Did Carmen even know how to undo it? Did anyone? How long did it take for hypnotism to wear off!? Did it wear off?! W-was she going spend the rest of her life sneezing every time she heard something go click– Shay squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to take a deep breath through her nose, holding it for the count of five. Don’t panic, she told herself. Do. Not. Panic. She’d lived though Carmen’s schemes going wrong before. Practically every day, really. They’d figure something out. If nothing else, there had to be something about this on the internet. Sighing, Shay pulled her knees up to her chest and tried focus on the current situation. Unfortunately, the current situation didn’t look so much better than the extended one. Shay looked up and down the wide strip of wheel-rutted earth that she had somewhat charitably been thinking of as a road and felt a sinking in her stomach. She was quite a ways from home. When she’d left the school building Shay had decided to take the scenic rout home in order to think. Unfortunately, she was beginning to realize that nearly none of that thought had been about where she was going. The path the distracted girl and ended up taking might have been scenic, but it was distinctly lacking in ‘rout,' at least to anywhere she cared to go. Shay got to her feet and pushed her hair out of her eyes, sighing again. It seemed to be turning out to be a sigh kind of day. She wasn’t worried about being stranded, she wasn’t that far from home. She was a little concerned, however, that her only method of transportation would make her feel like she’d stuck her nose in a ragweed bouquet every time its wheel went round. Looking at the damage, Shay knew she wouldn’t be able to fix it. It had always been her older sister who had had the mechanical talents, not her. Out in the middle on nowhere with no replacement part or tools there was just no way. And yet, she couldn’t just leave it here. Her parents would skin her alive. But taking it with her would mean walking it next to her, wheels turning the whole way. There was no way she could carry it off the ground. And considering how long it would take her to get home… Shay shuddered as she pictured herself walking for hours, bicycle next to her, the irresistible urge to sneeze welling up every few steps. In her minds eye her nose became red and puffy, an irritated mess on par with her worst allergy attacks. Her imaginary throat was scraped raw by sneeze after vicious sneeze. There had to be another way to… Shay’s gaze lit on her bike again, laying in the dirt. A spark of fear traveled down her spine. She knew it was possible to ride a bike while sneezing. She’d done before when her allergies got bad or a random tickle entered her nasal passages at the wrong time. Could she manage to keep her balance in the middle of a full blown fit? Her nose twitched just thinking about it, her mind filling with images of loosing control and ending up at the bottom of an embankment with a broken leg. But… she was a good rider, right? She could do it. Probably. She’d ridden with her eyes closed before, and it wasn’t like they’d be closed for that long each sneeze… The hills between here and home weren’t that big… With the exaggerated care of someone trying desperately not to realize that what they’re doing is a terrible idea, Shay slowly righted her bicycle and swung one leg over. For a moment she sat there, one foot on the pedals. She took a deep breath, silently giving an apology to her nose. This was it. She pushed off. *click* *click* *click* *click* In the first few seconds Shay pedaled furiously, trying to get up enough speed to keep her balance when the sneezing started. She was so focused on her legs pumping and the rickety metal underneath her that at first she didn’t feel a single twinge from her nose. As she got up to speed she held her breath for a moment, hoping against hope that he hypnotism had worn off and her early sneeze had really been a coincidence. Then it hit her. Tears sprung up in Shay’s eyes as a burning itch blossomed inside her skull. At first it was too intense for her body to process, but already she could feel the itchy stinging beginning to metastasize into an unstoppable urge to sneeze. With each click a delicate, teasing tickle tried to unfold inside her nose and crashed into all the others, twisting and fusing into a crawling mass of prickles that swarmed through her sinuses and into her eyes and throat. She’d heard so many clicks already… Silently, Shay gave in. She knew there was no way she could hold out for long against her hypnotic urges. As her eyelids fluttered shut, the amateur bicyclist tried to focus simply on holding the handles steady while her body responded to the insidious sounds her bicycle was making. She could feel her ribcage starting to hitch and shudder with sneezy breathing. Her body was preparing to expel the irritants it had been convinced were filling her nose. Shay’s nostrils flared wide as her eyelids started to flutter. It was… coming… Shay’s eyes snapped wide open again as her entire body was jarred an enormous bump. Her oncoming sneeze pushed back by sheer weight of panicked adrenaline, they blinked tearily once, twice… and focused. The blood drained form Shay’s face as she saw the road in front of her. Instead of the smooth, well traveled dirt road she dimly recalled from the last time she had been this years ago, the track in front was strewn with loose rocks and pocked with holes. It would take her full concentration to make it through here even on her best days. She was going to fast to stop! She couldn’t sneeze now! And yet… Shay wasn’t at all sure she could stop herself. The cold grip of panic had pushed her nasal urges back slightly, but now the itching was creeping back in with a slow, dire inevitability. With every breath her malfunctioning bicycle clicked again, adding to the pressure of trapped sneezes building up inside her. She NEEDED to sneeze. NOW. Shay gritted her teeth until it hurt and held her breath as she dodged and weaved between obstacles, trying desperately resist. Then it got worse. Enraged by her defiance, the sneezes bottled up in the poor girls sinuses seemed to scratch and claw at their prison, shooting itchy spikes of urgent need into her brainstem. She was struggling to see the road in front of her now. Her eyes were brimming with sneezy tears, forcing her to blink rapidly to keep them clear. But they were squinting further and further, and she afraid that after each blink she wouldn’t be able to force them open again. Her nose was twitching and squirming like a living thing, trying to alleviate the prickling irritation tormenting it. Abruptly Shay knew that she was going to sneeze, and soon, unless she did something to stop it. Her instincts screamed at her to rub or pinch or something her nose, but she needed both hand to steer the bike! If she took one off she’d probably crash! But if she sneezed she’d absolutely crash… Shay made a snap decision, hoping that it wouldn’t end with her skull split against a rock. Her bike wobbled dangerously between a rock and a sinkhole as she pushed a finger up against her twitching nostrils as hard as she could, sealing off the itchy orifices. Desperately, she tried to imagine a brick wall going up inside nostrils, sealing off her impossible urge to sneeze. Unfortunately, it seemed that her sneezes had brought pickaxes. With every hypnotic click that entered her ears, Shay’s mind’s eye was filled with images go brick dust fountaining up, breaking down the wall, drifting deeper into her nose to brush against irritated, begging membranes… It would feel so, SO good to let out a huge sneeze right now… Almost before she realized it, Shay’s eyes had closed and she had let out a huge gasp, her head rearing back. She managed to open her eyes again just in time to swerve out of the way of a fallen branch, but the damage was done. Like a hungry snacker who had eaten exactly one potato chip, there was no way her nose was going to be able to stop there. Sneezy signals shot up and down Shay’s nervous system like wildfire as she began to shudder and huff, control steadily slipping away inch by inch. She could see the end now, only a little farther and her shortcut would merge back onto to proper even road. She only had to make a little longer! Frantically Shay tired everything she could think of, biting her lip, holding her breath, rubbing her nose, begin her respiratory system to listen to her, anything to hold her impending sneezes off a little longer. It was no good. She had resisted Carmen hypnotic command as long as she could, and her poor tortured simply couldn’t take it any more. One more click sounded from the bike’s damaged mechanism and Shay fell into darkness, her eyes slamming shut. The air pouring into her expanding lungs became her whole world as she stopped pedaling, flying forward into unmapped space. Her chest jerked as her body tired to suck more air into places it wouldn’t fit. For a moment she hug there on the precipice, at once frozen and moving at terrifying speeds, and then it happened. Shay’s sneezes, stymied, trapped, and delayed of upwards of ten minutes and more than mile and a half, finally crashed down on her. “HHHAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEHHSSSSSSSHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” Shay bent nearly double, spray misting her hands as they gripped the handlebars with white knuckles. For a moment she froze, shocked to NOT find herself tumbling painfully through space. Fighting the sneezyness still crackling through her sinuses, Shay managed to pry her eyes open and look around. Miraculously, she had made it through, her threading the needle between obstacles as she sneezed. Shay tried to give a relived sigh, only for it to turn into a strangled gulp as her body tried to hitch at the same time. She might be out of immediate danger, but her overpowering urge to sneeze was anything but satisfied. The clicks had been building up for the entire ride, and they had accumulated interest. “HATCHOO!!! ETSHEEW!!! HATCHHH!!!! ETSHEEE!!! HA… HAAA… HASHEEEWWW!!!! HEH-“ Sneeze after enormous, body-bending sneeze exploded about of Shay’s tiny frame, filling the air in front of her with mist. Her head reared back again and again, her red nostril flared into perfect circles, catching the incoming wind to fuel yet more itchy, helpless sneezes. And the clicks kept coming. She sneezed again and again and again, her bike wobbling alarmingly with each one but somehow never completely falling over. Sometimes Shay managed to get a glimpse through streaming eyes between eruptions, just enough to follow the curves of the empty road. The sound of her desperate, helpless explosions faded as Shay rode her bicycle into the distance, sneezes showing no signs of stopping. She was only a third of the way home… An hour later, Carmen was startled to find her phone buzzing with a text from Shay. It read: HOW DO U UNDO THIS!?!?!?!?!?!? Carmen frowned, quickly thumb-typing a response. undo what? Elsewhere, a girl lying in bed in a dark room with a cold pack over her nose quietly smacked herself in the face. Edited January 30, 2017 by Kiaory
Sneezingnonstop Posted January 31, 2017 Posted January 31, 2017 Wow, that was intense!! Thank you so much, I loved this story!!!!
Kiaory Posted January 31, 2017 Author Posted January 31, 2017 2 hours ago, Sneezingnonstop said: Wow, that was intense!! Thank you so much, I loved this story!!!! You're very welcome, I'm glad you liked it. (I know I asked this last time, but is there any part in particular you liked?)
Sneezingnonstop Posted January 31, 2017 Posted January 31, 2017 7 hours ago, Kiaory said: You're very welcome, I'm glad you liked it. (I know I asked this last time, but is there any part in particular you liked?) The descriptions you wrote, the constants click-sneezing/resistance to them. If i had to pick something in particular, it would be those parts, though i loved it all around
Shamaël Posted February 2, 2017 Posted February 2, 2017 (edited) I'm sorry I didn't comment on your story after the first part. I had read it and really enjoyed it, but there were so many stories to read and enjoy that I just... forgot. But I love the idea of a hypnose-induced sneezing! In the first part, I especially liked the way Shay describes her allergies, and when Carmen prevents her from sneezing (as if talking about her allergies just triggered them, which is great!) before she has finished to hypnotize her. On 02/01/2017 at 11:00 PM, Kiaory said: Carmen had told Shay that her nose would keep itching until she sneezed, and apparently her subconscious had decided that stifles didn’t count. I loved the explanation (and the mischief...). And your second part is as awsome as the first one! I like the way you used the "click" of the bike and the description of the sneezes growing up in Shay's nose, becoming unbearable and impossible to repress was absolutely amazing. I don't know what to quote because I loved the whole part. On 30/01/2017 at 6:29 AM, Kiaory said: The clicks had been building up for the entire ride, and they had accumulated interest. and ... The end was very intense... Thank you for sharing this story - and I really hope you will write some more (I know that this fic is finished, but I look forward to reading other stories from you!). Edited February 2, 2017 by Aliena H.
Kiaory Posted February 2, 2017 Author Posted February 2, 2017 (edited) 8 hours ago, Aliena H. said: I'm sorry I didn't comment on your story after the first part. I had read it and really enjoyed it, but there were so many stories to read and enjoy that I just... forgot. But I love the idea of a hypnose-induced sneezing! In the first part, I especially liked the way Shay describes her allergies, and when Carmen prevents her from sneezing (as if talking about her allergies just triggered them, which is great!) before she has finished to hypnotize her. I loved the explanation (and the mischief...). And your second part is as awsome as the first one! I like the way you used the "click" of the bike and the description of the sneezes growing up in Shay's nose, becoming unbearable and impossible to repress was absolutely amazing. I don't know what to quote because I loved the whole part. and ... The end was very intense... Thank you for sharing this story - and I really hope you will write some more (I know that this fic is finished, but I look forward to reading other stories from you!). Ok, can I just say THANY YOU SO MUCH for leaving a comment like this? Seriously, as a writer getting feedback like this is amazing. If you ever want help with a story or something, just ask. Edited February 2, 2017 by Kiaory
felicity Posted March 10, 2017 Posted March 10, 2017 I wanted to let you know how much I love your stories-especially this one! I haven't even made an introduction yet, but I have lurked around reading lots of your posts. ?
Janenotsoplain Posted April 3, 2018 Posted April 3, 2018 Just read this and wow. Great story well told and an unusual idea. Well done!
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