[Puzzle (Inanimate TF)]

James looked at the sliding puzzle curiously. It was a square of wood, with smaller individual squares that could slide around inside it. Presumably, the owner could put a picture of their own choosing in the frame and cut along the squares, making a custom puzzle.

He wasn't great at puzzles, but his girlfriend avidly consumed any and all brain teasers. The back of the box the puzzle was housed in had a description written in an old English styled font.

“This puzzle preserves a memory in a unique way. Simply clap to start using the puzzle, and clap again when finished.” James looked over at the counter where the old man stood. It was a small shop, with no one else in it. “What does that mean?”

The old man chuckled, nodding. “The sliding tiles puzzle, yes. It captures the spirit of whatever is in front of the puzzle, making it truly unique when you solve it. The louder you clap, the harder it will be to solve the puzzle.”

“So it is a different puzzle every time you clap? Cayla would love it then!” James hurried through the rest of the transaction paying $20 for the puzzle and not paying heed to anything the old man was saying. Bagging up his gift, he rushed to see his girlfriend at the restaurant for her birthday dinner.

===

“Happy birthday!”

The couple hugged tight, and talked about their days. Both having come from work straight to dinner, they enjoyed their meal until the dessert came out, a slice of cake with a candle in it. James took the opportunity to show off his gift.

Cayla took the bag and reached in, pulling out the puzzle. Reading the description on the box, she furrowed her brow and contemplated what it meant as she opened the box and pulled out the wooden slide puzzle.

“So, I just clap, and it sets the puzzle?” She asked, mildly confused. She propped up the puzzle on its stand, making sure it faced toward the dessert and gave a soft clap.

The cake vanished.

The table was clear where the dish had been, and the slide puzzle now showed eight painted tiles with ninth slot empty. The pieces had the various shots of the cake, candle still lit, atop of the plate.

Cayla grinned at the detail, unable to resist translating the pieces under her finger tips to solve the image in the puzzle. She set it back down and gave another soft clap, and the cake reappeared on the table.

James was staring in shock during the whole ordeal. He watched quietly as Cayla repeated the process a few more times with various elements of the table-setting. Menus, silverware, drinks disappeared with quiet claps, the puzzle capturing them perfectly in 3x3 sets up to 5x5.

Cayla grinned, rushing around the table to hug tightly to James. “Thank you, thank you,” she repeated. “I love it.” For his part, it was a successful gift, so he hugged back, content with the outcome.

“Can I try it on you?” Cayla asked, smiling with the glee of a toddler with a new toy.

“Is...is that safe?” James replied with his own question. Minutes ago, neither of them knew magic existed, and now she wanted to turn him into a puzzle?

Cayla was fidgeting with the puzzle. “Everything came back just fine, it'll be ok!” She had no way to know that was the truth, but her love of puzzles was pushing her.

The moment James sighed and nodded his consent, Cayla clapped, the puzzle directed at him. Her clap wasn't as loud as it could be, but was still loud enough to draw the attention of the nearby tables.

She snapped up the puzzle now containing her boyfriend, his seat empty. The frame contained a picture of him, roughly from shoulder height up, scattered across nearly 50 pieces. The 7x7 puzzle containing her boyfriend felt precious in her hands. She clutched it close, whispering to it for a brief moment before paying for their meals and scurrying out of the restaurant.

===

Inside the puzzle, James's mind and soul was split into 48 fragments, one for each puzzle piece. Thoughts and sense were unintelligible; floating fragments of personality of spirit clashing and mingling.

Unknown to him, Cayla was sliding his puzzle pieces around, playing with her new toy back at their house. She was speaking to him, but he was too scattered to understand or gather what she was saying.

Slowly enough thoughts coalesced that a singular entity formed out of them. James tried grasping at memories of who he was and what was going on. But as soon as he would come in contact with a new memory, Cayla slid the pieces around, changing the entirety of emotions and memories available to him.

As she finished the puzzle, his mind collected itself, until he was there, watching his girlfriend with frozen eyes, fully aware of the situation. She was praising how well he turned out how the paint felt natural, as though actually painted on by hand, but was a one of a kind likeness of her boyfriend. She was grinning, and clearly happy, and that made James happy.

With a clap, James tumbled forward out of the puzzle. Surprised, he was caught off balance and collapsed to his knees. He knew he was home, but it was still a shock to find himself not in the restaurant any longer. After a long hug, James excused himself to the bathroom, cleaning up before a promised night of sexy birthday fun.

He stood and looked at himself in the mirror, shaken from his ordeal. It made a little more sense what the shopkeeper had said, with his spirit trapped in the puzzle. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He was ok now, wasn't he? He could still remember what it was like, his mind being shattered, pieces connecting and disconnecting seemingly at random. Some of the thoughts from being in the puzzle didn't make sense to him anymore, even though they were seemingly sensible at the time, given the pieces he was in.

He finished washing up, about to come back into the bedroom when he heard a clap. There was no way he could have missed it, the noise was louder than he could have thought possible. He panicked for a second, his hand hesitating over the doorknob. Surely Cayla had just made a puzzle of something in their room, right? His hand trembled as he thought about how he had been stuck in the puzzle moments earlier.

Hesitantly he opened the door, looking around the room. Empty, silent. He cautiously walked over to the desk, where the puzzle sat. Picking it up, his fears were confirmed: Emily had trapped herself in the puzzle. Whether it was an accident or not, there she was, split into many small shards. He counted the grid the pieces made and gasped. The largest clap yet seemed to produce a sliding puzzle of dimensions twenty by twenty. 399 pieces, with a blank spot to start solving the puzzle.

He frowned, attempting to slide pieces back to where they belonged but with how small each tile was, it was almost impossible to figure out what went where, and how to even begin solving it. He almost through the puzzle out of frustration before thinking better of it and setting it on the desk.

“Damn it, Cayla… puzzles are your thing, not mine! How the hell am I supposed to fix this?”