Been a while since I posted anything here. This is a very short story I decided to write to get back into the swing of writing. This was an experiment of sorts in that I was pushing boundaries far beyond the slightly more realistic side of things I normally go for. Houdini is a story idea I came up with for a potential series, but as you'll see by the story above, it's a piece that would work far better as something visual than a text story.
Still, I thought I'd share it with all of you. I may post more, but I have other stories at the top of my priority list.
This story is about a boy named Huey who ticks off a magic rabbit and winds up being forced to participate in a surprisingly real magic show.
FA Link:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14418366/I've also attached a version in my usual format.
HoudiniStory By: Airafox
"Laaaaaaaame!"
Huey had been like that all night. It was bad enough that he had been forced to spend his birthday with his aunt and unlce instead of his family. The boy's father had been called to an important business meeting up north, and his mother insisted on going with his for the week-long trip. As miffed as he was about that, it was his aunt and uncle that really got to him. The two of them still treated him like he was baby, and now they had dragged him off to some lame stage magic show. Huey knew all the tricks, and it was made even worse by the fact that this magician wasn't even good enough to hide the fakeness behind it all.
"And for my next trick, I'll need a volunteer," the magician, a tall man in a purple cape, black suit and pants, and a top hat one would expect a magician to wear, announced as he stepped forward. He offered a hand to Huey's aunt, producing a small bouquet of roses from seemingly nowhere. "A beautiful woman, perhaps?"
"It's on a wire," Huey scoffed, a single wire actually poking free from beneath the sleeve. The man hadn't even taken the liberty to properly hide it, which annoyed the boy even more. "Do that 'trick' in short sleeve and then I'll be impressed."
"Huey!" his aunt exclaimed, causing his uncle to lightly thwack the back of his head. It was obvious his comment hurt the man, who had been dealing with the boy's heckling all night. Even through the main blond beard and mustache, his lips could be seen forming a frown. The brown of his eyes met with the green of Huey's own, his very expression telling the story of how the man knew just how bad his act was.
"Hey! It's not my fault he sucks!" Huey snapped back at his relatives. His outbursts were starting to draw the ire of the other tables watching the show. They all knew it was fake, even that the man wasn't very good, but this was a show meant for little children, and nobody appreciated that one spoiled brat who ruined the magic for the littler kids who would be fascinated by the simplest thumb removal trick. "I'm no magician, but even I've read a couple 'How To Do Magic' books when I was young. I could put on a better show than him!"
Before the couple could say anything, the man had finally reached his breaking point. He slammed his hands on the table so hard that Huey thought he was gonna at lunge and strangle him. "Listen, kid! I know that I'm not the most impressive magician out there, but you don't see me walking into your school plays and telling you how much you suck at acting! You think you know magic better than I? Fine! Let's make a deal! If I can impress you with my trick, then you will shut your word hole for the rest of the performance, no matter what kind of trick it is! Do I make myself clear?!"
Huey was put off by the man's heavy breathing, sensing the seething rage hiding behind it. Huey didn't have much of a choice, and with the fear of other parents chewing his head off for destroying the magic for their children, he realized he owed the man a chance to at least try and pull off something spectacular.
"Fine..." he sighed. "You have a deal."
The man grinned from across the table, confidence now brimming inside of him. Though he planned on saving this trick for the end, Huey needed to be put in his place. The man returned to the stage, pulling his hat down and in front of him. As he did, a small, golden-furred rabbit poked its head free. It had one floppy ear that covered its right eye, while the left ear remained perked up. There was a resounding "D'awww" that echoed throughout the crowd, children pointing out how cute the bunny rabbit was. It wiggled its nose just beyond the hat's edge.
A rabbit? Tch... thought the boy.
"All right, Houdini! Do your stuff!" shouted the magician at the top of his lungs, pulling the hat from from underneath the rabbit. The rabbit's face scrunched in confusion as it began to tumble toward the ground in a series of front flips. The rabbit managed to thankfully land on its feet, but it wasn't quite as much of a coincidence as it led the crowd to believe. As its feet touched the ground, the rabbit hopped high into the air, higher than the height of the magician. It kept climbing, higher and higher. The magician produced a single hula hoop and threw it toward the rabbit. The rabbit caught the hoop between its paws, holding it high into the air.
"Now, Houdini! 1... 2... 3!" As the magician's count hit the number three, the hoop burst into flames, exploding outward like a single lit firecracker. The color of the flames causes awe and wonder to erupt from the audience, a round of applause praising the magician's act. The rabbit from his had had completely disappeared.
Huey may have been sitting down already, but he felt like he had fallen into his chair. It was amazing! He was at a loss for words. For such a clumsy magician to pull off such a feat, there had to be a trick. There had to be something obvious that he had missed. No matter how many times he recalled the trick, he couldn't figure out what it was. The worst thought of all, however, was that the magician had humiliated him in from of a crowd. Huey could've sworn he had had overheard people from across the room mocking him, saying that maybe he won't be such a disrespectful brat anymore. Huey wouldn't take this lying down. He'd figure out the trick, and expose it to everyone!
The magician continued with his stage show, returning to the same basic tricks as before. The audience let him proceed, always hoping and waiting for something as amazing as what they had witness with the rabbit and the hoop. With the magician distracted by the attention of the audience, Huey excused himself from the table to use the restroom.
Huey did head for the restroom at first, but he didn't go in. Huey walked right past it without even glancing, tiptoeing his way toward the magician's dressing room. Unsurprisingly, the door was locked, but Huey had procured the paper clip that was used to hold the receipts together when his relatives received the bill.
"Stupid magician! This is a real trick!" he smirked to himself, picking at the lock and opening the door. Successful in his endeavor, he shut and locked the door behind him, turning on the light. All in all, the room was tidy and clean, barely a single object out of place. "For such a clumsy dope, he sure keeps a clean room." Huey kicked at the ground and he approached the drawers and cabinets, opening them all to try and find some kind of instructions for the trick. There was a small clang behind him that caught his attention. Sitting in front of the mirror was a small steel cage with the magician's rabbit inside of it.
"He was here all along? When did that fool manage to bring him back? Was it an assistant?" Huey shrugged his shoulder and decided it wasn't worth questioning. He approached the rabbit, leaning over the cage. "You were part of the act, little guy. I bet you could tell me how that trick was done." He reached down to pick up the cage, when a strange laughter began to fill his ears. He looked around, fearing somebody else was in the room, when a sudden thought popped into his mind. He turned back to the rabbit's cage, remembering that the cage wasn't there when he first entered the room. He would've noticed it! "Wait a minute... How the hell did you get in here anyway? You weren't in here when I walked in!"
"You mean when you snuck in?" corrected the rabbit. This time Huey really did fall backward onto his butt, looking up at the cage on top of the dresser. A stunned look overcame his face, gasps escaping from his mouth when the words refused to come out. The rabbit smiled and laughed; it was the same laughter that he heard but a minute earlier. "That never gets old~"
"You can talk?!" Huey finally managed get out, stammering as he tried to get back to his feet.
"The answer to all these questions is the same:" replied the rabbit, waving a single finger in front of him. Wait! Finger? Rabbit didn't have fingers; Huey knew that much. As he finally managed to stand up straight, the rabbit reached out and grabbed the latch to the cage, opening it and stepping outside of it. He hopped down from the top of the dresser, but what landed on the floor was not the same small rabbit that Huey had been talking to. The rabbit had suddenly grown in size, at least 6 feet in height. He stood on two legs like a human, and had longer, slightly more beefy arms equivalent to that of the average human. Though he walked upright, his feet were still distinctly rabbit. Other than an increase in size, nothing else changed other than his posture. "Magic!"
"M-Magic?" the boy stuttered. This couldn't be real! It had to be a trick!
"I am Houdini, a weaver of the magic arts," the rabbit introduced himself, bowing over a single arm in front of him akin to a butler or a gentleman. "What was it that woman called you out there? Huey, was it?"
Houdini raised his head, a single red eye piercing into his very soul. Frightened and confused were the words that described his current state. Huey had already tried pinching himself, but no matter how hard he did, he wouldn't wake up from this nightmare. It was real, but it had to be a trick.
"Th-This is all just a trick... An illusion!" Huey exclaimed. "Yeah, that's it! That magician is just messing with me!" He let out a terrified, slow laugh. "Y-You got me, sir! You impressed me! I'm sorry for what I said earlier! You're really good!"
"I assure you that this is no trick," informed Houdini, striding toward the boy. "That magician really is a clumsy idiot. However, that clumsy idiot is one of my nearest and dearest friends, so you've probably already surmised that I am not pleased with the way you treated him out there."
"I... I'm sorry?"
"You're not sorry," Houdini sighed, shaking his head. "Or if you are, you're sorry because you got in trouble, not because what you said." The rabbit snapped his fingers, a single bolt of static electricity jumping between his finger and thumb. "That man has fallen on hard times. Due to corporate restructuring, he lost his job. He was saving up his funds to ask the woman of his dreams out, but he's had to put that dream on hold." Huey felt his heart leap into his throat, swallowing it back down as the rabbit stood over him. Houdini pointed his finger at the boy. "You can imagine that put a damper on his spirits."
The static electricity that had previously gathered in the rabbit's finger shot forth, zapping Huey. Huey closed his eyes, fearing a harsh pain, but there was not even a tingle that resulted from it. Like the display outside, he figured it had to have been an illusion of some sort.
"As an act of friendship, I agreed to help him out until he could get back on his feet," continued Houdini. It was strange. Every time Huey blinked, the rabbit seemed to grow in size. "But real magic isn't something you can flaunt to just everybody. Humans would either be unable to comprehend it, or it'd lose its luster." Huey rubbed his eyes. The rabbit continued his monologuing, but Huey was hardly paying attention to that. At first he thought the rabbit was using some kind of magic trick to make himself look taller, but when his shirt felt looser around his upper body, the horror of reality settle upon his mind. "If you put on such an obvious farce that even a kid could figure it out, the smallest sprinkle of REAL magic will have them on the edge of their seats."
Houdini grinned to the shrinking boy, a dark smirk that hinted at malicious activity. Huey trembled, pulling his hands in front of him. His shirt felt so loose over his arms. While short, the sleeves of a tan-colored, brand logo-covered T-shirt still covered over half of his arms now. And his hands... they weren't hands anymore. A couple digits were starting to fuse together, resembling the seams of some kind of stuffed animal, but not exactly that. It grew bigger and bigger, smoother and smoother, until the two fingers merged entirely into one single digit. Part of him wanted to scream out in horror, but there was no pain to cause him to do so. He was terrified, but it wasn't like something that jumped out and scared you.
"Wh-What have you done to me...? What's going on?!" he cried out as loud as he could, a single tear falling from each eye. Houdini didn't answer immediately, his eye trying to tell him to recall the answer given to his previous questions. Huey screamed out, hoping somebody would hear him. "HELP!!! Somebody help! Please! SOMEBODY! ANYBODY!!! HELP!" He cried until he was hoarse, unaware that with each outburst, his face grew outward, centimeter by centimeter. Bits of facial hair began to grow, coating a forming muzzle with a thin layer of cream-colored fur, though a few strands grew out further than that into short whiskers. The brown hair that adorned the top of his skull grew lighter in color to match the enveloping fur, though the distinctive tuft of hair that made him at least somewhat of an individual retained its shape. The shorts he wore felt super baggy on him now, and his feet barely fit into his shoes. His drooped halfway around his feet.
Houdini had waited patiently for the boy to exhaust himself in all his crying, a more sinister side of him taking delight in the boys pleas for help. "The walls in here are nearly soundproof, so that the stars can relax without having to hear the yelling of kids. Judging by the applause my friend is receiving is out there, I doubt anybody's going to hear you."
Huey took a panicked step backward, tripping over his own clothes that were now far too big for him. It was only now that he got a good look at his lower body, spotting two large rabbit like feet. "Wh-Whuh...? I'm a... I'mma bunny?!"
"Weeeeeeeeell... almost!" Houdini corrected, a finger and thumb beneath his chin as he looked the boy over. He noticed the former human child was still missing two key features of a proper rabbit. He snapped his fingers. "Un! Deux! Trois!"
Huey winced as his ears receded into his head. The feeling was similar to ears popping at higher altitudes, though instead of the body increasing in height, it was his ears. His ears emerged from the top of his head with a poing, leaving him looking much more like a rabbit. All that was missing was final piece that some might argue was one of the most distinguishable features of a rabbit. He didn't have to wait long, as a sudden weight at his backside kept him glued to the floor. Huey stumbled to his feet, struggling to keep his balance a fluffy, white cotton tail popped just above his rump. He wiggled it once.
"This can't be real... This can't be real..." he told himself over and over again, wanting to wake up from this nightmare. Houdini could almost hear his brain collapsing under the strain of the sudden events. Houdini grabbed Huey by his now, elongated ears. The tight squeeze he felt of them being pinched so close together was enough pain to tell him that this was very, very real.
"I believe I've answered another one of your questions," cackled the rabbit.
"Wh-What are you going to do with me...?" Huey sniffled in response. He was a helpless little bunny rabbit, and Houdini now towered over him even more than he had towered over the rabbit earlier.
"You said earlier that you could put on a better show than my buddy out there, did you not?" grinned the rabbit, raising his hand into the air. "I'm going to help you do just that! Ichi! Ni! San!" As the rabbit hit the third counter, the walls of the room fell around them. The two of them now stood in the center of a large circular stage, stands filled to the brim with guests surrounding them. What Huey bore witness to was not a crowd of humans although there were some humans among the audience members but a crowd of animals that walked and sat up straight like humans.
Houdini threw Huey high up into the air, forcing him into a series of somersaults that nearly caused him to lose the lunch he had eaten before the show. Houdini held out a purple top hat, catching him inside of it. Houdini turned the hat about and Huey landed upon a table, though now bound in a set of ropes that held his arms firmly against hit side. Huey hadn't even realized the ropes wrapping around in him inside of the hat, though his mind was such a chaotic mess trying to comprehend everything that was happening that it wouldn't surprise anybody if he didn't notice something happening to him.
Houdini now could now be seen wearing a purple vest and long purple pants, but there was a hole made just for his tail. A roar of applause filled the stadium as Houdini addressed them all. Though he didn't have a microphone on him, he spoke loud and clear as if he did.
"Greetings, ladies and gentlemen! I am Houdini, and I'll be your master of ceremonies for tonight! You may have noticed my fuzzy little friend here with me tonight. I'd like you all to give a wonderful round of applause for my assistant: Huedini!"
The crowd did as the rabbit instructed, clapping for Huey's appearance. Huey, on the other hand, was distracted by the name the rabbit had called him by: Huedini.
"Huedini?" he whined.
"It seemed far more fitting than Huey," Houdini spoke, plucking the smaller bunny up the ropes this time. At the same time, he grabbed the black covering from the table and pulled it aside, revealing a large metal cage. A lone alligator was inside the cage, its eyes only half open. It seemed tired, or at the very least calm and placated. Houdini addressed the crowd.
"For my first trick, ladies and gentlemen, my little assistant here is going to be fed to this alligator!"
"WHAT?!" exclaimed Huey, cheeks still damp from his tears. He thrashed about in the ropes, trying to get himself free. "You can't do that! If you kill me, my aunt and uncle will look for me! You'll be found out!"
"Aah aah aah, my dear bunny comrade, I'm afraid if you were to die, nobody would give it but a passing thought." A dark smile crossed the rabbit's lips, his single exposed eye practically glowing with the dark magic the rabbit possessed. "For you see, Huedini, I've already taken care of that little matter. Your relatives, family, and even friends are all going to ingest a special potion today and tonight. This potion is special in that it will be all for you~" He poked the smaller rabbit in the nose, having captured his full attention. "This potion is fast-acting and attacks the brain. By the time they've finished their next drink, everybody will have completely forgotten that YOU exist!"
Huey's eyes widened, his eyelids stretching to heights that threatened to rip free. "Y-You...! You can't! You... wouldn't! It's not possible!"
"Tsk, tsk, my assistant, have you not been paying attention to anything I've said and done all night? It's magic! And if you don't want to wind up stewing away like alligator chum, you'd best do as I say."
"You ba" Huey cursed, only for the rabbit to silence him by shoving a vial full of a glowing red liquid inside of his mouth. Huey immediately recalled what Houdini had just said about potions and tried to spit it out, but Houdini gagged him with the vial and forced him to swallow if he didn't want to risk drowning. As soon as the entire vial had been emptied, Houdini removed it. Huey gasped for air and squirmed in his bindings, his mind racing with possible outcomes for whatever the potion would do and worrying about it more than the alligator below.
"All right, everyone, you know the drill!" Houdini announced to the crowd of anthropomorphic animals. "Say it with me! Eins! Zwei! Drei! It's showtime!"
Huey's mind snapped back to his current situation, just in time to see a gaping wide alligator mouth below him. The line of sharp teeth and powerful snapping jaws terrified him to no end. "No! Stop! Please! I'm sorry! I'm going to die! I don't want to die!" His cries fell on deaf ears as the larger rabbit gently set Huey upon the tongue of the awaiting reptile. Huey kicked and screamed, but it did him little good. Rather than greedily snapping at the food, the alligator patiently kept it mouth open, letting gravity all the work and sending Huey toward his doom.
The alligator's stomach was already full of digestive enzymes, so much so that there were no pockets of air for him to breathe. He stopped screaming and kept his eyes and mouth closed, sobbing. He was going to die! He was really going to die! These were the thoughts that plagued him, and he couldn't see any possible way to escape.
I don't want to die! I don't wanna die! Somebody... Anybody... Please help me! I... I'm sorry for what I said! I'm really sorry! Though he begged for help, none came. He was going to die, and if what Houdini said was true, nobody would even know or care about it. This wasn't right. It was way too severe a punishment for some heckling. Even if he did survive by some miracle, his life would be ruined. He a small, helpless rabbit. If he got away, there was no way he'd survive on his own like this.
You stupid bunny! This isn't fair! You can't do this! It's... not right! You can't... You can't just ruin people's lives like this! The watery enzymes around him began to heat and boil, his body starting to radiate warmth. No, it wasn't just giving off heat; Huey's entire body was starting to glow a fiery red, an aura encasing his entire body. The heat continued to warm up the digestive acids, hotter and hotter to the point it was now boiling around him. Such a heat should have boiled Huey alive, but he wasn't noticing anything. He just continued to curse the rabbit in his mind for ruining his life, telling himself that he wanted to live.
Outside, the alligator looked mighty pleased with itself, rubbing its bunny-filled belly contently. There was a loud rumbling grumble eating away at his insides, expanding outward. His stomach began to inflate as the heated enzymes produced a steaming gas. Silence held the stadium as the crowd watched intently. Not just the alligator's stomach, but its entire body was starting to inflate like a balloon. It puffed out to the limit the body could reach, bursting with a pop reminiscent of overfilling a balloon. As the steam cleared, Huey stood there, now completely free of the ropes, though its remains were charred into a circle around him. All that remained off the alligator was its skin. Not the rough and leathery skin that one would expect to find, but what littered the cage's interior was a rubbery vinyl akin to what balloons for made of.
Praise and amazement came in the form of clapping as the entire audience cheered for both Houdini and huey. Huey was confused, while Houdini just smiled to his assistant. "Do you realize now what you were trying to do?" the rabbit asked.
Huey's eyes lit up as he understood what had happened. He accused Houdini of ruining his life, but he was trying to do the same thing to a man who was already suffering from being fired from his previous job.
"Will you chance me back?"
Houdini frowned sadly at the smaller bunny, shaking his head. Huey had learned his lesson, but the rabbit wasn't about to let him go just yet. "I can erase memories, but I can't restore that which was lost. Magic can't fix everything."
So it was true. Houdini really had made his family and friends forget about him. If Houdini did turn him back, he'd have nowhere to go, especially if nobody knew who he was. Perhaps there was something he could do, but he was too young to know what, and Houdini had made it clear he wasn't about to tell him.
Deciding that Huey had suffered enough for one night, Houdini picked him up and placed him gently onto another table, letting him sit back and watch as the rabbit continued to amaze the crowd with feats of magic Huey thought impossible. It was a show Huey felt honored to witness, but his thought were still heavily weighing upon his current situation. His life was still ruined.
"I just wanted to spend my birthday someplace cool with my parents... I didn't want to spend my birthday with my stupid relatives..." he mumbled under his breath, trying not to disturb the show.
Eventually the show came to an end, as all shows do, and Houdini returned for Huey. After holding the small bunny up for one final applause, Houdini threw a smoke bomb at the ground and disappeared behind the curtain of smoke. Huey just allowed the rabbit to carry him, having no reason to fight back and try to escape. To his surprise, Houdini brought him to rather lavish trailer, one that looked more like a condo. The rabbit had some nice living arrangements, and didn't live inside a cage, burrow, or hat like he might have thought. Huey was placed onto a high chair in front of a table that connected tot he wall.
"Een, twee, dre!" said the larger lapine, snapping his finger. There was a small burst of smoke that displaced quickly, leaving behind a small vanilla cake with a single candle, a box with wrapping paper.
"What is this now?" Huey asked in a somber, defeated tone, unsure why the rabbit was suddenly trying to be nice to him.
Houdini pulled out a chair and sat down across the table from Huey, keeping a single leg stretched over another. "It's a birthday cake, silly. I can't bring back the memories I took, but I can still wish you a happy birthday."
"What's the point?" Huey scoffed. "You think I'm grateful for this? That I should be happy? You've already ruined my life."
"And you have nowhere to go," the rabbit reminded him. Huey didn't want to be reminded of that; he refused to make eye contact with Houdini. Houdini sighed. "I admit, I didn't think you'd learn your lesson. You were such a stubborn brat I thought for sure you wouldn't make it."
"You were really going to kill me for that?"
"Not necessarily kill you... I wouldn't have let you be eaten like that it's bad for business but if you hadn't learned your lesson, I would've erased your memory of the events that transpired and kept you as assistant for my show. The question is: What do I do with you now?"
"Why should I care anymore? Why not just turn me back into a human? I guess I can try to find a job or something that a kid can do."
"How about instead you open the present I got for you?"
Houdini motioned to the wrapped package. Huey had nothing left to lose at this point, so he figured he might as well see what the rabbit had decided to give him. It wasn't wrapped very tightly, so even with his paws he could get it open. Inside of the package was a small box, one that could be opened with a simple removal of the lid. Huey opened it. Inside of the box was a small plastic card; there was some writing on it.
"This license hereby grants Huedini the right to serve as an apprentice under Houdini Fusilli and" His words trailed off, his eye falling upon the first part of the text once more. "Apprentice?"
"Not a bad deal, is it?" Houdini smiled. "I'll act as your legal guardian as recompense for what I did and teach you magic."
"Teach me magic?" repeated Huey.
Houdini nodded. "And when you can turn yourself back into a human on your own, I'll consider that as your graduation ceremony."
From that moment on, whether he wanted to or not, Huey would become both an apprentice and assistant to the magical rabbit known as Houdini. What Huey didn't know is just how much of this had been preplanned. There was a great destiny that awaited Huey at the end of this long and dangerous road, and Houdini was going to make it happen. It was no coincidence that Huey's parents left on their trip when they did, and that Huey was forced to attend the magic show that got him into this mess.
All of this was going exactly as Houdini planned.
