A chat with the enforcers

All of a sudden, Lilybeth felt two pairs of hands on her hips, pulling backwards. To her relief, she felt herself finally sliding out of the dumpster and into the beautiful cool air outside. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she looked around expecting to see the sky, but she was surprised to just see the white roof of a tent that would look at home on an archaeological dig. She lowered her eyes to see three people in uniforms she'd never seen before. They looked like they were out of some kind of movie.

"Who ... are you?" She asked, looking for a reaction from the three stern faces ahead of her.

"First, take this," the female one said, offering a robe to her. "We're enforcers and we believe you've been wronged, and we want to find the person who did this to you."

Lilybeth was confused. "Enforcers? Of what?"

"What do you think?!" The middle one, a short man, replied. "Anything a bit unusual about being shoved head first into a dumpster?"

"Magic?!"

"Yes," he replied, frustrated that he'll have to explain everything to yet another non-magic.

Lilybeth's eyes widened. "This is so cool. So you're the magic police."

"...Reductive, but yes." The middle enforcer replied. "Anyway, we don't have long before we have to era--"

The third enforcer nudged him. "Before we have to leave."

The middle one continued, "that's right. So we have a few questions for you."

Lilybeth quickly considered her options, saying, "Okay, but first I have questions!"

The enforcers looked at each other. "Fine," the woman said. "You're wondering if magic exists: it does. Your next question: what do we do? We track down magical misuse and protect you all from it by making sure it's secret. We only really care today because your ass made the local news.."

Lilybeth remarked, "well you're clearly doing a great job," gesturing down at the gown they'd lent her. She figured that, if they're here to keep magic a secret, they probably wouldn't want to tell her all this unless she was in danger herself now. She decided to buy herself as much time as possible to plan an escape.

"So are you ready to answer our questions?" The short enforcer asked.

Lilybeth nodded.

"What do you remember happening? Can you talk me through it?" They seemed to trust her, which was promising.

"Well.." Lilybeth recounted the events of the day from the ice cream to now.

"Do you know who it was? Did they have any identifying features?"

Lilybeth started to squirm - she knew that they would do something to her once she gave them what she wanted - it was now or never. She looked out the crack of the tent at bystanders, picking one out at random. She yelled, "it was HER!"

They, as she planned, scrambled to rush at the poor bystander, and she took the cue to leave through one of the other openings in the tent. She checked behind her: she'd gotten free! She focused on running as far away as she could with her bare feet and dressing gown flapping in the wind. She made it as far as the first corner when she felt her foot trip on what felt like a stray weed. She tried to regain her balance but the weed had somehow gotten tangled around her ankles, forcing her to fall face first in the mud. It was only when she felt her wrists caught in the weed that she had the time to realise it was no ordinary weed.

The three enforcers were standing over her, one pointing a wand-like thing at her.

"Before I wipe your memories of magic, I just have to ask, why would you think you could run away from three of us with magic?!"

Lilybeth sighed and rested her head on the ground. It was a good point and a lesson she should have learned from the last time. Just a few days ago she was a naïve innocent young college freshman, and now she was laying tied up, half naked, in the mud.

They lowered the wand to her back and touched her. All she could see was white, and all she could hear was white noise.