"I'm here! I'm here!"

Rachel hurried down the front porch. Each wooden step creaked under the weight of her heels.

"Sorry...," she paused to catch her breath. "I just... (pant) finished... (pant) dressed... wooh... (wheeze)," Rachel was wearing a Mrs. Claus knee-length dress that showed off her figure just right. Its sleeves ended mid-arm, and it was complemented by red thigh high stockings and black heels.

"You're thirty minutes late!" Michael was visibly upset. "You've kept all these people waiting, and you're not even wearing the right outfit!" he commented on her Christmas-themed look.

He had been waiting for Rachel outside the theater. The front of the theater had been transformed to look like the front of an abandoned wooden house. People had gathered on the "front yard" waiting to be escorted inside. With disregard for the theme, Michael wore a typical black and white suit.

"Oh, right... (pant) Halloween meets Christmas...," she blurted, her breathing slowly settling down.

Rachel addressed the crowd. "Sorry, guys... (pant) I'll make it up to you."

"Uh, yes, you will," Michael said in an angry tone. "Put out your wrists," he ordered. Rachel complied. He produced a length of rope and bound her wrists separately, a wrist for each end of rope. Holding the ropes close together, he led her and the crowd's attention to the lone tree in the yard.

"As punishment, you will have to demonstrate the idea I am about to discuss to these patient people." Michael made a loop with the middle of the rope and tossed it over a sturdy high branch. As he pulled the loop down along the branch, it seemed to shrink. Rachel slowly found herself with only her the tips of her toes to prevent her wrists from taking her entire weight.

"There, should be uncomfortable," said Michael, dusting off his hands. His anger seemed to have subsided.

Rachel grunted, testing her bonds. She could feel the blood beginning to drain from her arms as she wriggled for any leverage. She knew that she'd be in this position until the day ended.

"This sucks," remarked Rachel.

"It should," Michael replied. "but you should not be speaking right now." He produced a hollow black ball gag from his pocket.

"Oh, come on, it was j--" Rachel's excuse was cut off when Michael put the ball in her mouth to little resistance. He secured the strap tightly behind her head, keeping as much of her hair out of the way as possible.

"Nnnnnghh mmm nnnn!" Rachel's speech was reduced to nasal sounds. Fortunately, she could breathe around the ball.

Rachel was now hanging by her rope-bound wrists, her toes her only support, and her arms forced up, behind her head. She felt her arms slowly going numb.

"All right, folks, now that Rachel is properly set up. It is time I introduce our show for the season with a pre-show," said Michael, moving away from Rachel. The crowd gaze, though curious about what was going to happen to Rachel, followed Michael.

"We did not have a show last Halloween due to lapses in the budget. However, based on your feedback, we know that our Halloween shows are your favorite, so we decided to combine our winter-themed show and our Halloween show." The crowd cheered.

"Now, before I formally welcome you into our 'frozen house from hell', I must first demonstrate a scientific principle using Rachel here," Michael gestured to Rachel. She waved and smiled best she could given her situation.

"The physical concepts of space and time are intertwined. However, I want to focus on just space for now." He went over closer to Rachel. She could only look at Michael with fear and anticipation.

"Space is described in dimensions. The zeroth dimension is just a point." He tapped Rachel's nose with the tip of his right index finger. "It has no length," he gestured the length of her hips, "no depth," he gestured the thickness of her butt, "and no height," and he gestured her height.

"First, the first spatial dimension have only length." He made a pinching gesture at the tip of Rachel's nose. He pull his hand back and revealed a toothpick from her nose. "Movement and scale in the first dimension can only be described in two directions." He held the toothpick between two of his fingers, his palm inward. "There's backward," He folded his fingers down behind his palm. "and there's forward." He folded his four fingers up, now holding three toothpicks between them. The crowd clapped.

Michael took one of the toothpicks and carefully placed one end on Rachel's ball gag. He held the other end up with the tip of his finger. He proceeded to slowly pushed the toothpick, seemingly into the gag, until it disappeared. Rachel audibly coughed into the gag, as if trying to clear her throat.

He took another toothpick and repeated the process, this time at the center of where her left breast should be. He went over to the other breast and disappeared the last toothpick. "Mmph." Rachel visibly shook her body, as if there was an itch she couldn't quite reach.

Michael faced the crowd again. "Second, the second spatial dimension has both length and depth, but no height." He reached into the space between where Rachel's breasts should be and gripping the long edge, pulled out a card, the Queen of Hearts. "Objects in the second dimension are considered flat." He made a pinching gesture at her waist belt. "Just for now, when I say flat, I mean horizontally flat," he said as he pulled a flat Jack of Spades.

"Movement and scaling in the second dimension can now be described in four directions. Now, you can go left and right," he gestured with his hand. "and like earlier, forwards and backwards. Speaking of back..."

He took the Jack and positioned it against her waist just like how he pulled it out and with a thrust, slammed in back in.

"Mmmmm!" Rachel cried out.

He did the same with the Queen, positioning it between the breast curves in her dress. He slammed it back in as well.

"Mmmmmm!" Rachel cried out again, a bit louder this time.

"All right." Michael stepped back, turning back to the audience. The crowd cheered again.

Meanwhile, Rachel was visibly panting. She felt her arms drained of blood and lost the strength to keep her head up. She tried her best to look at Michael, her eyes looked like it was pleading for some relief. This was ignored.

"I would also go into detail about the third spatial dimension, but you are all pretty familiar with that already," he ranted. "Length, depth, width..., six directions..., blah blah blah."

"What I really want to demonstrate for all of you is the fourth spatial dimension." Rachel's expression looked like she didn't like where this was going.

"Us humans are third dimensional beings. We cannot perceive any higher spatial dimension." He paced across the yard.

"Scientists have debated on whether the fourth dimension exists. For now, however, I will demonstrate the visible signs of a fourth dimensional object." He paced back to where Rachel was hanging out.

"Think of your shadow. An object in three dimensions, when a light is cast on it, will produce a shadow in two dimensions." He pointed at Rachel's shadow on the tree.

"With that logic, a fourth dimensional object, when cast by a light, should produce a third dimensional shadow." He turned towards Rachel. "Uh oh," she thought, with a gulp.

"However, since it is just a shadow, third dimensional objects should just overlap with it." He held his hands out towards her, as if holding something in his hands. He separated his hands.

The ball of Rachel's gag began to expand, maintaining its proportion, while the strap fell away. The ball itself looked translucent, slowly growing and eventually covering all of Rachel's head, which could be seen through the ball. Rachel could also see through the ball, but everything she sees look like it has a gray filter on top of it. The ball kept getting larger.

"To keep the discussion short, a fourth dimensional object going through our third dimension would have its shadow expand from nothing then shrink back into nothing." He brought his hands back, and the shadow ball shrank. He adjusted the ball until it perfectly contained all of Rachel's head.

"That is about it I believe," said Michael as he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Wait a minute, that was it?!" Rachel asked, a little angry, lifting her head up a little bit now that she could talk. "That was the entire demo?!" She complained, "I-I-I can barely feel my arms, I have a spherical halo around my head that I can barely see through, and th-th-there are toothpicks in my breasts!"

"I did not say I was done with you," Michael clarified. He held out this hands toward Rachel and in both hands, snapped his fingers.

SNAP

CHWOOP!

"Ahhh... uuuughhhh... uhh... *cough*" Thin wooden sticks burst from within Rachel's breasts, going out the front and behind her. Blood trickled from the holes in her dress. She was in great pain, squirming in her bonds, her speech reduced to weak murmurs. She had given up on supporting herself on her toes, her wrists now fully supported her weight. She was beginning to cough up blood. Her chest felt numb.

"Muh... muhh--" snap Michael snapped his fingers again, cutting off whatever she was trying to say.

SSHKK!

"Uuuuughhh..." Like the toothpicks, the Jack of Spades burst outward from Rachel's waist, right above her belt. From the waist down, she lost all feeling. Her lower body fell on its knees, its hips resting on its calves. Blood was spilling out the top of her hips. The Jack fell off to the side, an elliptical blood mark on its center. Her intenstines hung loose. The weight of her entire torso was now supported by just her wrists, slowly getting lighter with all the blood she was losing. She could no longer lift her head.

"Wait a minute... one, two--was there not three toothpicks?" Michael asked the crowd. "Let me check."

snap

CHWOOK!

"Ugh!" A thin wooden stick burst out of the top of Rachel's head. With a giant toothpick sticking out of her head, she could barely think. She felt the other end of the thing poking down into her throat. She began to lose consciousness.

"There it is!" Michael exclaimed. He gripped the bloody exposed end of the toothpick and turn Rachel's head to face him.

He brought his mouth to her right ear. He whispered, "Great job, Rachel! See you in the morning," and gave her a peck on the cheek. As he pulled his face away, for a moment, she look at him with a twinkle in her eyes.

snap

CHKK!

The translucent intangible black hollow sphere around Rachel's head was solid once more. Her body had stopped breathing. Gripping the toothpick, Michael pulled up, showing that the resolidification had severed her head clean. As he pulled, the other end of the toothpick showed itself, apparently having cleanly inserted itself into her throat. In his hand, he held a black plastic sphere with a stick piercing through the center. The stick dripped blood.

Orienting the sphere the same way he pulled it out, he knelt down and stabbed the bottom end into Rachel's gaping hip wound. He stood up and snapped his fingers one final time.

snap

SSHKK!

The Queen of Hearts burst out of her suspended torso, dividing it and what was left of its dress vertically, perfectly down the center. The force caused the torso to swing back and forth a little. The card remained stuck.

Silently, Michael gripped the long end at the front and yanked the giant card free. Gravity took over, and each half of Rachel's torso swung independently. Whatever viscera hanging on inside of her finally fell out, drenching her lower half and the sphere below her in blood.

Picking up the Jack of Spades with his other hand, Michael turned to address the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Hallowinter is here."