People ran for the exits as alarms sounded. The air was becoming smoky. Some panicked employees of the fitness center ran toward the source of the commotion. They found the receptionist backing away with a horrified look on her face.
"What the hell is happening?!" One of the other employees shouted at the receptionist. She could just point toward the entrance.
The reception desk was engulfed in flames. A foul-smelling cloud of smoke was emerging from it.
"What started this?" The receptionist was asked again.
"I-I don't know!" She stammered. "I just felt some heat coming from one of the cabinets, and the next thing I know-"
Before she could finish, the building's sprinkler system activated. Just like that they were all soaked. The fire hadn't spread away from the reception area yet. It was quickly suppressed by the pouring water. The smoke got thicker as the flames were doused. Through the smoke, the receptionist saw something roll out of the burning desk.
It was a few minutes before the fire was completely extinguished. Everything was soaked by the water from the sprinklers. A smoky haze lingered in the air. Firefighters quickly made their way in to survey the damage and investigate the cause. The desk was charred and ruined. A short distance away, one of the firefighters spotted movement. He quickly realized it was a person. They had thought everyone had gotten out of the building. The group quickly converged on the person they had discovered. It was a woman who appeared to be in her early twenties.
The firefighters were quick to check on her to see if she needed any help. She had a few minor burns, but otherwise didn't seem to be injured. Yet, she didn't seem to be okay mentally. She didn't answer any questions they asked. It didn't seem like she could even form words with her voice. Movement also seemed difficult for her. She needed assistance just to sit up. It was as if she didn't know how to move her body. All they could do was call in the paramedics to take her to the hospital.
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Celine wasn't sure if everything happening around her was real. It had been so long since she had seen light. How long, she couldn't tell. She just knew it had been a very long time in that box. She had been a swimsuit that had been tossed into a lost-and-found box and forgotten. Other items were piled on top of her until she was completely buried in there. It appeared she was no longer a swimsuit. Even if it felt strange she could tell she had arms and legs again. She could even feel herself breathing and moving, though her control and coordination of her newly regained limbs was almost nonexistent. It seems her latest effort to escape had finally been the one to free her.
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While trapped as a swimsuit in a box, she had tried to perform various forms of magic to try and escape her predicament. If the swimsuit she had been transformed into was damaged enough, the
transformation would be undone. However, she was a swimsuit with no ability to move on her own, so she had no way to cause that damage without magic. If only it were that easy. While trapped a swimsuit, using magic seemed as impossible as moving or speaking. With all the time she had to herself she tried various spells that didn't require words. She was just hoping to be able to do something that might damage her swimsuit form enough for her to change back. Her efforts proved futile, though. She could feel her magic trying to work, but it was as if something was blocking it or draining it away. Nothing she attempted to do had any effect.
Nonetheless, she kept trying no matter how many spells didn't work. She had to. She couldn't stay in that box forever. There was one thing that kept her mind intact in that dark monotony. She had to get out of there if she was going to have any chance of finding Lily. Celine didn't know how long it had been since her friend, who had also been transformed into a swimsuit, had been taken out of the box and taken away to be worn by that random woman. All Celine knew was that Lily had never been brought back. An assortment of other items had slowly piled on top of Celine over time until she was buried and could no longer see anything, even when the box was opened. None of the items added to the box ended up being the white swimsuit Lily had become. Apparently, the woman had decided to keep Lily.
Looking back, Celine shouldn't have been surprised that the woman had decided to keep Lily. Celine had worn Lily as a swimsuit in the past. Lily ended up making the most comfortable swimsuit she had ever worn. Lily had thought the same thing when she had worn Celine as a swimsuit. That was why the two of them ended up taking turns wearing each other. There was just something about that spell. Whatever reservations that woman had about wearing a swimsuit from the lost-and-found box probably disappeared as soon as she felt what it was like to wear Lily.
Since then, Celine could only wonder what has happened to Lily. Surely, Lily would have come here looking for Celine if she had changed back at some point. Unless of course, Lilt was angry with Celine for forgetting whose turn it was to be the swimsuit, thus getting them stuck in the lost-and-found box in the first place. No, Lily was Celine's best friend. There's no way she would leave Celine here if she could help it. Celine could only conclude that Lily was still a swimsuit in possession of that woman who had taken her away that day.
That left Celine wondering if the woman had worn Lily any more since then, and how often. She couldn't help but feel a little jealous of Lily, getting to be worn while she was left alone and forgotten in that box. Remembering how good it felt to be worn, Celine at least hoped it was making their predicament more bearable for Lily.
Celine and Lily were the only ones who knew what happened to each other, and that gave Celine focus no matter how long it had been. She would have to find a way out of this to have any hope of finding Lily. So, she kept trying any spell that came to her mind. Unfortunately, all of them ran into that same unexplainable block. Despite her motivation to find Lily, Celine was starting to lose hope as each failed spell demonstrated how powerless she was in her current form.
Then finally, she had a breakthrough. She tried a spell for starting fires. At first it seemed this one also would accomplish nothing. She tried it a few times. On the fourth attempt, she was just barely able to break through whatever was suppressing her ability to do magic. A small ember appeared. It wasn't the roaring flame the spell was supposed to produce, but it was enough to ignite the fabric of one of the forgotten pieces of clothing that surrounded Celine. The flame slowly grew. It wasn't long before the whole box was on fire. In that inferno, Celine's swimsuit form was burned away. In a puff of smoke, Celine burst out of the box and out of the cabinet it was being stored in. The force of her expanding back to human size scattered the flames for a second, and she reflexively rolled away from the fire before she could suffer any serious burns. Once she was on the floor, her movements became much more uncoordinated, but it slowly dawned on her that she was moving.
She had done it! She had miraculously managed to get herself changed back into a human! The cabinet she had just emerged from was still engulfed in flames. Celine knew she had to move away before they spread. However, try as she might, she couldn't stand up or even crawl. Celine didn't know how long she had been trapped in that box, but it must have been a very long time. Her human body felt completely unfamiliar to her. The movement she was capable of was random and clumsy. Luckily, the building's sprinkler system triggered. The flames couldn't spread to the wet surroundings and were soon doused.
Celine laid there on the floor until some firefighters emerged through the lingering smoke. Before Celine knew it, she was being loaded up into an ambulance. It all seemed like a dream to her. Just the act of breathing seemed strangely new to her. The sights and sounds of her surroundings were overwhelming after so long in that dark, quiet box. She soon found herself tired despite not moving for so long and fell asleep.
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When Celine woke up, she was lying in a hospital bed. Her family surrounded her. Celine just laid there, listening to their conversations. Her whole family was in the know about magic. When no hospital staff were present, they talked about what they thought had happened to Celine. They were aware that Celine had been transformed into something inside the lost-and-found box at the fitness center. However, they seemed to be under the impression that another magic user had attacked Celine and that is how they thought she had ended up in that state. Most startling of all, their conversation revealed that it had been four years since she had gone missing. Upon hearing that, there was so much Celine wanted to ask. Unfortunately, she found herself unable to speak coherently after four years of not using her voice. She ultimately accepted that she would have to rest and recover.
From there, Celine spent the next few weeks slowly getting reacquainted with how to use her body. Physically, she was the same as she was when she was transformed that day. Mentally, she needed time to get used to moving and talking again. She made progress though. Within a month, she was able to have conversations with her family members. She had gotten to the point where she could walk normally, even if she wasn't quite ready for more intense exercise.
Once Celine had regained her ability to speak, she ended up with some less welcome visitors. The authorities governing magic use had learned of her situation. They had sent two members of the council to question Celine about what had happened to her the day she reappeared. Celine hadn't been up to talking at that point. They paid her another visit once Celine had recovered enough.
Like Celine's family, the council was under the impression that Celine had not been transformed willingly. They had pressed Celine for anything she could remember about the person who had transformed her. Celine didn't know how to tell anyone that she had transformed herself. She didn't know how anyone would react to the fact that the transformation was something that she did for fun with her friend. There was also the fact that Lily wasn't supposed to know about the existence of magic. What would happen if they found out Celine had told Lily her secret? Ultimately, Celine just told them she didn't see who had done it and the next thing she knew she was in the box.
She did tell them that Lily was with her, though. The main thing occupying Celine's mind was finding Lily. Celine asked everyone if they had seen Lily, but Celine had been the only one to reappear. The fact that Lily was still missing almost certainly meant that she was still a swimsuit somewhere. Celine didn't have to give them all the details. She just hoped the council would have some way of tracking her down.
They weren't as helpful as Celine had hoped. One of the council representatives just said something vague about looking into it. They seemed to be more worried about finding Celine's alleged attacker than finding Lily. Celine considered telling them the truth to shift their focus, but ultimately decided against it. She couldn't bring herself to let everyone know that she had been missing for six years because she and Lily had been transforming each other for fun. It would be up to Celine to find Lily somehow.
That would be exactly what Celine would devote her time to once she was fully back to normal. She read through her family's books on magic. She just wanted to find something that would let her track a person affected by magic. She found nothing of the sort after reading through several books, though. She did have a vivid memory of the face of the woman who had taken Lily away to wear. Celine thought perhaps that she could find Lily by finding that woman. However, all Celine knew about that woman was that she exercised at the fitness center. Had she continued to exercise there during the intervening years? Celine didn't know at what point Lily was taken away during her four year imprisonment in that box. Had that woman worn Lily since? It was possible that Lily had been back there many times.
Celine thought she could hang out at the fitness center to see if that woman would show up. That idea quickly proved to be a dud, though. That fitness center had been closed since Celine had changed back in order to repair the damage from the fire. With that, all Celine could do was continue to read her family's tomes, hoping to find something that could help her.
It had gotten to the point that Celine hadn't left her family's library for three days. She remained fixed on the books until one morning, a voice suddenly spoke to her.
"Are you going to spend another day in here? I would think that after all the time you spent in that box, you'd want to get out and do something fun."
Celine looked up to see her sister standing in the doorway with a concerned look on her face.
"There's just something I have to find." Celine replied, not quite making eye contact.
"Is this about Lily?" Celine's sister asked, giving Celine a knowing look. "Come on. She went missing at the same time as you. I know there's something you're not telling us."
Celine was taken aback by being called out like that. Still, she considered what her sister was saying. Nothing she had done on her own had gotten her any closer to figuring out how to track down a person turned into a swimsuit. Maybe she would need help if she was ever going to find Lily.
"Alright Sophie, I could use your help, but you have to keep what I'm about to tell you between us." Celine said.