"What time is it? And what day?"



Once in a while, I had a moment of clarity. Suddenly, my mind would awake and become active, questioning my world. Each time, waves of emotions would submerge me one by one. At first, I was confused as if I had suddenly loss all memory of my recent adventures. I tried to look around and stretch my arms, as if I had just woke up, but neither happened.



A sense of dredge grew in me. I tensed and shook my body, or at least I tried to, but nothing happened. No movement, no sounds, no change. I fell tears forming in my eyes and my throat tightened painfully. My thought were hysterical, lost in a deep panic. I couldn't figured out what was ^^happening, why couldn't I move, talk or do anything at all? Where was I? I looked around. I was in an office, a quiet luxury one in fact. But I couldn't recognize it. This was nothing but more confusing information.



Each time this happened, it seemed to me that my brain took way to long to sort things out. After the exhausting moment of panic, I calmed down, realizing I knew exactly where I was and what happened. I knew, because nothing had changed since last time I had a moment of awakening. Same place, same fate.



I was in Miss Clara's office. Facing the same part of it. I had been here for... At least a day? Probably more, I had lost an sense of time. Time seems a whole lot more abstract when literally nothing ever change, it doesn't take long until reality itself seems to be something foreign and uncertain.



A prank my colleague pulled on me, or a bet to be more precise, had lead me in this situation. The predicament I was in was somehow the consequence of my own choice and desire. "Be carful what you wish for they say"  Obviously I had lost the bets. And now I couldn't move. Only my eyes a little, but my vision was so impaired it wasn't really helpful shift my eyes around.



I hadn't planned to be there today, whatever day it is. I hadn't planned to be like that at all to be honest, even though at one point the idea had teased my curiosity and also seeded a dark desire somewhere deep in my subconscious. At first, being barely more than a decoration was scary. I mean who wouldn't be unsettled, or even broken at the thought of going from being a human to being an object. I had lost all control over my life recently. Thankfully, I thought it was temporary.

Lina was late for work, not more than usual, and even if it was almost an habit she still felt the same pressure as she hurried from the bus stop to the warehouse. When she entered by the main door, she stopped on her track.



The warehouse was empty, and silent. That was unusual at this time of the day. Lina walked toward her workstation. As she approached, she noticed that she couldn't hear the usual hissing sound that usually filled the space around this side of the building and after she turned around the corner, her belief was confirmed. The gigantic wrapping machine she has learnt to operate was at a complete stop. The command console was turned on, but none of her colleagues were around.



She heard some laughter coming from behind the device. She walked around and realized they came from the corridor where the breakroom was located. She quickened her pace and as she reached the door, she was panting softly. She opened the door and discovered her team was there, she felt relieved. All three of her co-workers were playing cards.



"Heyo, Lina! Were you so eager to work you had to sprint all the way there ?" Anna teased Lina playfully. "Come grab a seat, we were about to start."



"What? Why? How?" Lina was looking in the direction of the workshop and then to her colleagues, visibly confused. "Hi!"



"Hey, calm down." It was Jen that answer her. "I believe it's the first interruption of service you see. It happens once every few month. So... no work today!" Jen was the newcomer of the team until Lina joined, since Lina had joined the team, she had take upon herself to help and guide her.



"We usually play cards when there is a downtime." Angie answered in her usually flat and apathic tone. "Traditionally, we place some wager on these game. Winner decide of the fate of the loser, usually the punishment are wrapups."

Lina knew what so called wrapups are, but only in theory as she had never witnessed one. Of course, wrapups involved the Wrapper, the huge industrial machine Lina had started to learn to operated as part of her new jobs was what Anna called "a marvel of technologies, almost magical". The idea was simple, using this machine, they could wrap someone as any other packages, they called it a wrapup.



Lina knew the basic functionalities of the Wrapper and she had been impressed at how precise and efficient it could be, but it's only when some of her co-workers operated it that the true potential of the device was unleashed. The Wrapper was able to wrap packages of object of any shape and size in a matter of seconds, even more, it the wrap being used could become as hard as a steel shell. Lina had witnessed object with complex and fragile shape being tightly packed in envelope which size and shape should not be able to contain them without damages. Once, Angie had asked here to come with her, to have a look at the procedure used to lock the unwrapping of a package behind a password. Since they were only doing the wrapping part, and not the unwrapping, Lina could never verify that indeed, it was not possible to release the object without knowing the password, but Angie wasn't the kind of person who would prank newbies with faked functionalities so she trusted her. In short, the possibilities the Wrapper offered seems endless, at the cost of a very technical procedures to operate it.



One day during a break, the notion of wrapups popped up in a conversation. When Lina had raised an eyebrow, Jen immediately told her. "The Wrapper is certified to be used on humans. Sometime, rarely though, we get to wrap someone for a client. Anna also like to wrap co-workers for fun, we're not supposed to use the Wrapper for fun though, but it happens."



The idea of seeing an other person being packaged efficiently by the Wrapper, or even of being the person under the plastic wrap had triggered Lina's curiosity and after this first conversation, she had tried to ask more information to her co-workers about these wrapups, but none gave her more information. Even Jen repeated more or less what she had told her the first time.



Lina's heartbeat increased when she heard that there would be some wrapups involved in their game. She hoped she didn't flush when she agreed to play. She took a seat and tried her best not to lose the first game.

At the beginning of the game, Lina thought she could win. She had a pretty good opening hand and she was quickly in a good position. But at one point, her luck seemed to vanish. It felt as if Angie and Anna, without a word or a sign, had decided to ally against her and in just two turns all her hopes of winning the game had vanished. Anna won the game and was last.



"Hey newbie, seems like you lost." Anna said with a broad smile. "Are you ready to get your new formation at the Wrapper?"



Lina felt overwhelmed by the situation. On one hand, she had wondered about being handled and wrapped by the device many time, on the other hand, she wasn't sure if she was ready, things had gone so fast. While she was in her head, she followed Anna's instructions.



After they arrived in front of the Wrapper, Anna told Lina to remove her pant. "I could have the Wrapper doing it for you, but as you're a neophyte, I guess you'll prefer to do it yourself." She explained. "Don't worry, it's your first time I'm not going to be too harsh with you." Her smile seemed sincere, but Lina also felt a little bit of mischief in her elder co-worker's tone. Coming from Anna, some trouble were always to be expected.



Unsure, but too advanced to step away, Lina walked slowly in the middle of the platform were she had dropped miscellaneous object and packages in the past months. for the first time, she was empty handed. She turned back to her three co-workers that were standing behind the command console. Lina felt out of place, as if she was in the middle of weird dream. She was standing pantless, facing her co-workers from the middle of the platform of the wrapping machine, that felt off. Meanwhile, Anna was busy setting up the device. Then after a minute, she raised her head and without a warning, she activated the Wrapper.

The wrapping device hummed deeply. Multiple hoops carrying different tools emerged from the platform and started to spin around Lina. The rings were spinning slowly, intertwining in an hypnotic dance that reminded Lina of an astronomical device she had when she was a kid. Then the movement started to get faster and faster. As it was getting closer to it's working speed, the hoops were wiping the air so hard the whole device started to make a high pitch sound Lina has became accustomed to hear all day long. Once the Wrapper was up to speed, it was almost impossible to see the metal ring rotating all around Lina, it simply looked as if the girl was imprisoned in a light grey bubble.



The wrapping process went incredibly fast. Lina felt herself being lifted in the air, her feet were swept from below her body and she felt her whole legs being gripped by some sticky plastic film. The Wrapper was using the plastic sheets simultaneously to force Lina's leg into position and to wrap them tightly. Almost as fast as her feet had left the ground, the Lina was dropped back on the platform. Without any delay, the Wrapper started to slow down and the hoops disappeared back into the platform one after the other.



The wrapping process was so fast Lina couldn't realize immediately what had happened. However, as soon as she landed back, she felt that something was wrong. She first raised her head realizing that now she had to look at her co-workers from below, all three of them were looking down at her with an eager curiosity. Then she look back down, here eyes opened wide.



The Wrapper had folded her legs, pressing her calf against the back of her thigh and her foot on her butt. Then, it had wrapped many layers of clear plastic around her lower body, up to her waist. She had landed siting on her ankle, with both her knee pointing forward. With her hand, Lina brushed against the front of her thigh. The multiple layer of plastic were so tight they seemed to form just one smooth surface and the machine had layered so many of them it gave Lina's leg a deep blue hue. She tried to slide a finger below the plastic border just above her hips, but failed to raise it from her skin.



"Holy shit!" she exclaimed. She looked back up at her co-workers. "That feels pretty comfortable actually. I was a bit stressed after I lost, but it's really worth trying."



"Oh, so our newbie like to be wrapped." Anna answered. "We'll see if you still like it in a few hours."



"HOURS!" Lina's eyes widened. "What do you mean hours?"



"Well, maybe not hours, but we'll see. Now that you're wrapped, you have to win back your freedom."



"Wait What, you never told me this." Lina impulsively tried to move toward Anna, but she only managed to tilt, barely saving her balance with her hands.



"Don't worry." Jen added. "Worst case scenario, we'll free you once the service is restored. This kind of pauses usually don't last long."



Lina nodded in acceptance. "Can you carry me back to the break room then. I'll slam you at the next game and you'll have to free me."



Anna laughed. "You can get back there by yourself newbie. We'll be waiting for you before starting next game."

Lina's co-worker had left. Only Jen had look back making a sign to encourage her. Lina waited until her co-workers disappeared behind a bend in the corridor. Then she was alone, she started to experimented a bit more. She couldn't stop herself from caressing her plastic covered legs, the layer of plastic made the feeling very strange and she found it rather exciting.



While exploring, Lina concluded that there was no way for her to escape by herself. She knew very well that the plastic used by the wrapping machine wasn't a normal plastic and even very good scissors couldn't cut through it. As an alternative to cut away her bindings, she had tried to find the end of the plastic film, to try to unwrap it by herself but unsurprisingly, she couldn't even guess where the plastic wrap stopped and even if she knew where the limit was, she would more likely be unable to peel it. she had known the conclusion for quiet a long time now, she was at the mercy of her co-workers, she had to fight back for her freedom by winning one round at the card.



Now that she knew what her plan was, Lina decided it was time to move on. That mean that she would have to find a way to crawl back to the break room. Using the support of the stand on which the control panel was mounted, Lina hoisted herself up in order to climb on her knee. Still holding firmly, she looked again at her biding, now she could see her back. The wrap was so tight she couldn't spot the shape of her feet and her calf that were pressed against her upper legs. Effectively, she looked like she had been amputated below the knee. "My butt also looks more shapely" She thought. "It's probably my feet that gives it more volume." She gave herself a slap.



Moving around proved easier than she expected. Even though her leg were contorted, Lina didn't feel any kind of discomfort and standing on her knee wasn't painful at all. It felt as if the plastic was forming some sort of padding to ease the contact between her stump and the ground. She took a few step on the platform, while still holding the control panel. And soon, feeling confident, she let go of her hand and walker around the Wrapper only supported by her two shortened legs. To climb down from the platform, she had to get some help from her hands, but once on the ground she could move freely, and she directly and confidently started to walk back to the break room.

End of part 1