The key for her shoes is nearby.

Jen managed to collect herself and analyze the information she had as she was recovering from the initial shock.

"It came from the keyholes, am I right?"

*SNAP*

"I am indeed right. What if this is a Hot and Cold game?"

The girl stood up and walked through the room. Her feet muscles were already hurting considerably from the steeply arched position inside the otherwise excellent and comfortable pair of shoes, so she was eager to find a proof that she indeed was close to being free from their grasp.

The snaps accelerated greatly when she passed the center of the room, but by its end were pretty slow again. Jen went back to the benches and stepped on one of them. The snaps did not change their pace, so she approached the lockers instead.

The snapping at her ankles then became so intense that it became hard just to stand, so Jen opened the closest one and started going through it. Throwing out a pair of blue latex jeans, a black velvet leotard and knee braces with a spreader bar, she saw a fair amount of keys piled at the corner. Some of them were pretty ordinary, but some of them were labeled "Keyhole Sealer".

Suddenly, the snaps stopped completely, and the girl drew out a humble brown key that she touched at that exact moment. She slowly stepped away to sit on the bench and tried sliding it into the keyhole on her right shoe. It was a fit, and Jen tried turning it. Amazed, she watched the inseparable straps separate easily with an obedient crisping sound.

{If Insanity > 19}"But we were just starting to enjoy them! This is a sin!"

"No. This is a release."{endif}

Freeing her other foot, the girl breathed out deeply and started massaging both of them. It was a great relief, but after a few minutes Jen looked at her body still trapped inside the unyielding steel swimsuit, reminding herself that she still had work to do.

But not right now. She spent a lot of energy and just had to replenish it. The girl stood onto the floor, unaccustomed to being flat-footed again, walked towards the two tubes at one of the walls and grabbed the "WATER" one. There were no additional buttons, so she just put her dried lips around it, and as soon as she did, a stream of cool water flowed into her mouth. And it was so tasty for the dehydrated girl.

Jen tried the other one, and it pumped a semi-liquid mix of grains into her. The taste was unpleasant, but too familiar to put a disgusted grimace over.

"I must have been a frequent guest to the gym and gym diet... before."

Now that her stomach was full under the steel, the only thing that the girl wanted was to close her eyes and sail away for a few hours.

"Let's hope I'm not **** somewhere else while I'm sleeping..." — she mumbled before putting her back over several adjacent benches.

***

"I don't think we can throw these fucking cops off."

"You gotta get out of the city and find a spacey place. We need to get rid of them before there's reinforcement."

"Yah, we didn't want any ****, they asked for it, am I right?"

"Fucking shit... We have to impovise, and then there's a chance we slip away."

"Bah... Maybe use the girl?"

***

The nightmare ended abruptly with her sleep, but Jen still felt very refreshed. She opened her eyes and looked at the locker room around her, slowly remembering the events of her previous adventures in this mysterious mall. The swimsuit was still stuck on her body, and it was time to go forward.