Chapter 2: The Mad Machinist (Part 1)

The girls run as quickly as they can across a sod-covered floor, anticipating what kind of antics this machinist guy had planned in this obstacle course. They only run a few feet before they make a hard left turn in to the beginning of the course, Anna in the lead, Lucy behind her, and Kristen, Heather, and Emily taking up the tail of the group.

The girls have to stop suddenly as the ground soon after the turn is gone! As Kristen and Heather round the corner, they don’t see the other girls are stopped and they bump into the backs of Lucy and Anna. Both girls are bumped down into a drop, but are caught and gently lowered by large white hands connected to long, flexible, metal arms. As they are lowered, two more hands move to grab their wrists while two grab their ankles, each. They look around and notice there is a whole sea of these hands all around them!

The hands gently pull their arms and ankles out into a spread eagle position and the rest of the hands quickly move to their ticklish sides! The hands quickly tickle all across Anna’s sides as she immediately melts into a puddle of ticklish laughter, her arms and legs held taught so that she can’t struggle against the powerful but gentle mechanical hands. The hands tickle hard, digging in to Anna’s soft sides, but are gentle enough to create such a powerful tickling sensation that Anna can’t help but struggle as hard as she can even though it comes to nothing. She has never felt tickling like this before!

The hands around Lucy also attack her sides while she is held spread eagle, causing her to roar with ticklish laughter. Lucy struggles as hard as she can, but she also can’t break the robot hands’ grip. The hands tickle deep and relentlessly, never growing even a little tired over the entire tickle torture so that every stroke of her ticklish sides is just as ticklish as the last. Lucy’s curvy body struggles to escape the tickling hands, and she squirms back and forth attempting to break their hold, but she can’t escape. Her laughter echoes up to the other girls as they watch with excitement, but also dread.

“That looks like it’s going to tickle a lot…” Heather remarks nervously.

“Those grabby hands look ruthless…” Kristen agrees.

“You’re the one who wanted to be tickled,” Emily shrugs, looking around for a way across the obstacle as her friends are mercilessly tickle tortured below. Their laughter is filling the room and Emily has no idea what to do to get them out as they begin begging the group for help. “I see it!” Emily exclaims, noticing a set of monkey bars in the ceiling just above them. It’s painted the same color as the ceiling to remain hidden from view.

Emily jumps up and grabs the monkey bars and yells, “Follow me! Maybe if we get across, Lucy and Anna will be freed!” Emily starts swinging across the monkey bars as Heather and Kristen jump up and follow her.

Suddenly, large, fluffy feathers shoot out of holes in the wall that line up with the monkey bars right where the girls’ armpits are! The feathers tickle at the girls’ armpits, lightly and delicately tickling their smooth skin as they are forced to keep their arms up to hold on to the monkey bars. They all begin giggling, but Heather loses her grip as she cries out with a giggle! She falls into the pit of mechanical hands and is slowly stretched out spread eagle as the other hands tickle her sides mercilessly. She thrashes and pulls against the hands holding her, even causing them to budge a little, but she can’t escape the tickling fingers all around her. She is held fast as the hands tickle away at her smooth, soft sides.

Emily and Kristen can’t stop for even a second as the feathers tickling them speed up, tickling even more! Their giggles are turning into laughter as they continue to climb across the monkey bars, hoping to reach the other end and free their friends who are caught and tickled by the grabby hands below.

Then, the unexpected happens.

One hand from the pit reaches all the way up and grabs Kristen’s ankle! She can’t move forward anymore and is continuously tickled by the feathers on her armpits while this hand holds her in place on the monkey bars! It begins to pull on her ankle gently, trying to capture her in the pit with her other babbling friends.

“Emilyhehehe! Hurryhahahaha!” Kristen calls out, hoping she can hold on long enough to avoid the terribly ticklish pit beneath her. But the hand just keeps tugging ever so gently while the feathers tickle away at her smooth, sensitive armpits. Emily moves as quickly as she can, hoping to avoid the same fate as Kristen and the other girls. She is the last one left to test whether they will be released when someone makes it to the other side. Hopefully, it works.

Emily sees the end and pushes through the tickling of the feathers at her armpits, laughing the whole way and trying to keep her arms up above her head on the monkey bars. She hears Kristen, Anna, Lucy, and Heather all laughing uncontrollably behind her and imagines they must be losing their minds with the tickling torture they are enduring.

She finally reaches what she assumes is the end and sees a big button and a metal door. She pushes the big button and the feathers by the monkey bars are pulled back into the wall, the grabby hands stop tickling the girls in the pit, and they gently lift the girls to the end of the obstacle where Emily is. Kristen continues her climb across the monkey bars and reaches the other girls. Anna and Lucy already have pink sides and everyone’s faces except Emily’s are bright pink from their fits of laughter.

“Finally!” Lucy exclaims. “I don’t know how much more of that I could take! Those hands tickle soooooo much!”

The other girls who were in the pit with her nod their heads in agreement as they all catch their breath.

“I’m nervous about the rest of the course,” Anna remarks, holding her sides and still slightly gasping for breath. “That tickling was still fun, but never slowed down or anything… It just kept going.”

“We should go through the door to the next part,” Emily remarks happily, unscathed by the previous obstacle. She skips through the door as the other girls follow her with pink faces and pink sides.