A Box of Tricks

"What on earth..?" muttered the astonished father, turning to watch the girls pass by as beside him his wife scowled up at him when she caught him staring.

"Sorry!" Alesha breathlessly called out over her shoulder as she and Zoe disappeared up the stairwell. With their journey nearly at an end they rushed into their corridor and found six of their flatmates lounging on the floor, all still dressed in their graduation gowns as they drank one final beer together before they headed off home. Their friends all turned to stare in disbelief at the naked pair as they ran towards them and vaulted over their outstretched legs.

"Zoe? Alesha? What the hell are you guys doing?" they demanded.

Zoe turned around and jogged backwards down the corridor with her arms flung out wide as she indulged in one triumphant final flash. "We're graduating naked obviously!" she giggled as she shamelessly flaunted her body. "Why, what does it look like?"

"What? Hey guys wait up!" their flatmates cried, but although the girls could have stopped to mess with their friends some more they'd both had their fair share of exposure by now, and so they kept on running down the hall.

Alesha had wisely left their door on the latch so the girls were able to burst straight into their room, bolt the lock behind them, and then collapse onto Zoe's bed as they began to cackle hysterically at the absurdity of what they'd just done.

"Oh my God Alesha, I can't believe we just did that!" Zoe cried out, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"I know, I know... fucking hell, we just streaked the entire university!" Alesha kicked her legs in the air in delight, rolling around on her back as next to her Zoe slapped her thigh and struggled for breath.

"That was insane, so any people saw us!" she laughed, wondering how many hundreds of strangers had seen them run past in the nude.

"And not just strangers but our friends and families too! I saw your brother's face as we ran past him," Alesha teased, "and his jaw was practically lying on the floor!"

Zoe cringed as she imagined Chester watching her run past him in the nude, but despite the intense embarrassment she still found herself giggling hysterically at the sheer absurdity of it all.

"Eww, gross! Well I made eye contact with your dad and he was no better, it looked like he was about to have a heart attack when he saw you go past!"

"No Zoe stop, I don't want to think about that!" Alesha shook her head as she tried to forget about what her poor parents would have made of her extraordinary behaviour, although she too was still clutching her stomach as she continued to crack up. The girls' hysterics were then interrupted by a banging at the door, as outside their flatmates assembled to demand answers.

"Zoe? Alesha? Guys, what the hell was that?"

"Hey come on, we know you're in there!"

"You two ran here naked all the way from the main hall?"

"Are you both out of your minds?"

Alesha, who in that moment suddenly began to feel very naked indeed, self-consciously pulled a blanket up and held it against her chest as her eyes flickered nervously between her friend and the door.

"Ok, come on Zoe," she said, "this has gone on for long enough. Let's wipe everyone's memories now, I can't deal with this embarrassment anymore!"

Zoe was more relaxed than her roommate as she got up and nonchalantly strutted over to the Forgotten Cage, stretching her arms above her head as she enjoyed her last few moments of unconfined nudity. "Yeah, you're right," she sighed, "streaking was fun, but now it's time to go back to reality..."

With more than a hint of reluctance Zoe retrieved the box from its customary place on her shelf, then frowned. The Emerald, which normally glittered and sparkled even in the dimmest light, today looked strangely dull and lifeless, almost as if it had lost some of its shine. Nevertheless Zoe pressed down on the Jewel but to her confusion it didn't move an inch.

Across the room Alesha, still holding the duvet up to her body, grimaced as the knocking and calls from outside their door continued unabated. "Did you do it?" she asked Zoe.

"Umm, hold on... it's like it's stuck," her friend replied.

"What?"

"I said hold on." Zoe tried to ignore her friend's concern and began to fiddle with the box as an increasingly sharp, panicked feeling started to grow in her chest.

First she tried feeling along the side of the Emerald to see if there was something stuck underneath it, then she used her nails to try and wiggle it loose, and when that didn't work either she attempted to ram it in with brute force. It was useless though - no matter what she tried the Jewel simply wouldn't budge,.

"Zoe!" Alesha cried out in frustration, not finding the situation at all funny anymore.

Zoe dropped the box down onto her bare lap. "I... ok I don't know. It's not working."

"What do you mean it's not working?" Alesha had finally grown tired of being naked so she let her blanket drop to the floor, tugged on an oversized t-shirt, and then sat down next to Zoe. "What's wrong with it?" she demanded.

"The button won't go in Alesha," Zoe snapped, her voice betraying just how worried she was feeling. "I can't press it anymore, I think it's jammed."

Alesha shook her head, unwilling to even entertain the idea that they might not be able to get the Forgotten Cage to work. "Give it here." Alesha grabbed the box and tried the same tricks that Zoe had used, but again to no avail. She too was now starting to feel a little breathless and she wasn't sure if it was down to of the heat, or to all of the running they'd been doing or if because deep down she sensed that something had just gone very, very wrong. "Then what the hell do we do now? We need to get it to work!" she hissed.

Zoe was at a complete loss too, so for the first time in a few days she decided to call for back up. "Err hold on, give it back... ok. Umm, Jinn, Jinn, Jinn!" she chanted.

Thankfully the summoning call still worked and in an instant Jinn had appeared, this time dressed in a blood red graduation gown and matching mortarboard hat. Zoe was so flustered that she didn't even question the Spirit's cheeky choice of outfit, and instead she puffed out her cheeks in relief that they were here to help.

"Oh Jinn thank God, help us please, the box isn't working. The Jewel is stuck, but we really need to wipe everyone's memories, and quick. Can you fix it?" Zoe asked.

Jinn looked down at the sun-kissed naked student with an amused smile, then raised a quizzical eyebrow. "That's an interesting outfit you've got there Zoe, especially on your graduation day," they teased. "So what have you two been up to, why do you need to use the Forgotten Cage so urgently?"

Zoe realised that this was the first time that out of her and the Spirit it was she who was severely underdressed, and so she awkwardly crossed her arms over her chest and scowled. "We decided to strip naked and then streak our ceremony, ok? Just for fun, as a memorable way of ending our time at university. But now we need to make everyone forget that they saw us, but the box is broken. So please, can you fix it for us?"

Jinn nodded slowly as they listened to Zoe and Alesha's sorry tale, then bit their lip thoughtfully and pondered. "I... think not."

Zoe and Alesha both involuntarily blurted out in synchronised outrage. "You what?" they exclaimed, staring up disbelievingly at the Spirit.

Jinn drew themselves up tall and smiled fiendishly down at the aghast friends, and their eyes, which were normally cold and lifeless, began to burn with an amber glow. "Well obviously I could fix it, yes. But will I fix it? No."

Zoe nervously pulled her knees up and hugged them tightly as she began to feel very, very naked. "But why, why the hell not?"

The Spirit simply chuckled. "I'm terribly sorry Zoe, but I think that I may have mislead you when we first met. I told you that these days the name Jinn best translates to Genie, but if I'm being honest a more accurate description would probably be... Demon."

As Jinn hovered over Zoe and Alesha's heads their body, which up until then had always been formed of delicate rays of rich golden light, now darkened and turned to a deep crimson, and from their head two thin, curved horns slowly emerged to pierce through their cap.

Zoe's bare skin was turned bright scarlet as Jinn's form began to pulse and throb with an intense energy, and soon the entire room was lit up red as if it were on fire. Alesha cowered on the bed, terrified by the ungodly scene that was playing out before her, while beside her Zoe felt herself burning from inside with an intense anger.

"So you tricked us?" she raged. "You waited until this exact moment to betray us?"

Jinn threw their head back and cackled, which was the first time that Zoe had heard them make such an unnervingly gleeful sound. "But of course! I'm an Evil Spirit you see... deceiving and humiliating unwitting humans is what we do. Admittedly I didn't think that you two would ever do anything quite as monumentally stupid as this, but I did know that given the power to wipe anyone's memory you'd eventually end up doing something insanely reckless which you'd be desperate for people to forget. And so yes Zoe, just four days after we first met you two closet exhibitionists already managed to provide me with the perfect opportunity to make your precious 'box' suddenly stop working. You two must know the old saying about the Devil right?"

Jinn paused to let the girls answer, but they clearly had no idea what the Demon was talking about.

"They say that 'the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world they didn't exist', and looking at you two naked idiots I can see that its true," Jinn sneered, shaking their head contemptuously as they looked down and wagged a taloned finger at the two chastened friends before continuing on with their scathing attack. "I mean really, streaking your own graduation ceremony in front of all your family and friends! You know that in all my time I think you two are probably the most foolish humans I've ever met, and believe me that's saying something. Definitely ballsy, I'll give you that, but also totally moronic."

Zoe was quickly growing tired of this relentless barrage of insults, and so as Jinn paused for breath she took her opportunity to fire back at the Demon. "But that's not fair! Obviously we'd never have done it if we weren't sure that we could make everyone forget afterwards. You never told us that that you could just randomly sabotage the box whenever you felt like ruining our lives!" she argued.

Again Jinn just laughed and then did that infuriating little shrug of theirs. "Yes, well, sorry girls... but the Devil's in the detail."

Beside Zoe Alesha was gripping the hem of her shirt so tightly that her knuckles had turned white, and in a last gasp effort she looked up imploringly at Jinn and begged for mercy. "No, please... our parents, our siblings, all of our course mates... they all saw us. Everyone in our flat, they're all outside waiting for us right now... Jinn please, please let us use the box, just one more time, then we'll never do anything like this, ever again! Please, we trusted you!"

The Demon nodded slowly as they appeared to take some time to consider the desperate student's suggestion, but they were just sadistically messing with the girls at this point. Jinn had known that this would be how it ended ever since Zoe had found the Forgotten Cage lying in her grandma's attic, and they weren't about to change their mind now.

"I'm afraid not Alesha. You and Zoe have both made your beds and now you must lie in them, it's time for you to face the consequences of your truly inexplicable actions. Just go out there with your heads held high... but maybe after putting some clothes on first. Or just try and style it out, pretend you're both full time nudists now, see if anyone buys that. Either way this is goodbye girls, so best of luck to you both. God knows you're going to need it..."

"No! Jinn, wait!" But the girls' final hopeless cries were all in vain, and with that same brilliant flash of light which had heralded their first appearance in Zoe's room a few days ago the treacherous Jinn was gone.

Zoe took the box and began to slam the Emerald into her bedroom wall, ramming it in harder and harder until the plaster began to chip away. "Jinn! Jinn, Jinn, Jinn! Demon, get back here now!"

It was no use though, for no matter how much Zoe cursed and swore the Evil Spirit wasn't coming back, the Emerald would not move, and the Forgotten Cage was now just a dull, lifeless, and totally useless cold chunk of metal.

Zoe finally admitted defeat, slumped to the floor, and looked up in disbelief at Alesha, who could only stare back at her dumbly. "I... I... I can't make it work Alesha. I can't make any of them forget what they saw..." she admitted. Zoe then used up the last of her energies as threw the box away from her with such force that it ricocheted against the far wall, flew back across the carpet, and then rolled away under her bed.

Alesha was feeling so numb that she didn't even flinch as the Forgotten Cage whistled past her toes and disappeared out of sight. "What... what have we done?" she whispered as she slowly turned to look down at her naked, defeated friend.

"I...I..." Zoe began, before realising that she couldn't think of anything to say.

*****

The next morning a middle aged woman called Sandra opened Zoe and Alesha's door and pulled her hoover inside. She was a part time cleaner at the university, and now that all of the students had packed up and gone home after graduation it was her job to go through the accommodation blocks, to make sure that they had been left nice and tidy.

She had no idea who the newly disgraced Zoe or Alesha were, and she hadn't been on campus the previous day to witness their ill-fated streak, so for her this was just another empty bedroom that needed a quick going over. Well, it could also do with a lick of paint to cover up a mark on the wall to be fair, but that was outside the scope of her remit.

Instead Sandra just gave all of the surfaces a light dusting, checked that the mattresses were both in a useable state, and then began to vacuum the carpet. As she poked her hoover underneath one of the beds she felt it hit something hard, and when she got on her knees to see what the obstruction was she found herself staring at a strange little box.

"Weird..." Sandra pulled it out and rotated the unusual metal object around in her hand slowly, as she wondered what it was for and why the room's previous occupants would have left behind such a curious trinket. She also considered whether or not she should hand it into lost and found, then quickly decided that no, she wouldn't - finders keepers and all that.

Instead she decided to pocket the metal cube and take a proper look at it when she got back home. Not realising the terrible mistake she had just made Sandra then got back to her hoovering, quickly finished up with Zoe and Alesha's room, and then moved seamlessly on to the next.

Tucked away in her apron the Forgotten Cage slowly started to warm up again, its Emerald began to sparkle, and deep inside the metal core something rose from their brief sleep and breathed a sigh of relief.

This time the wait wouldn't be too long, not too long at all...

The End?

*****

Thank you for reading this far everyone, I hope that you all enjoyed this more fantastical entry. As always if you have any comments, pieces of feedback, or story ideas then they are all more than welcome, so please feel free to send them my way. Until then take care, be wary of any friendly Genies that you encounter, and I'll see you all for the next one.