Around the Hoop

“And here, we have our testing facilities,” the tour guide spoke to the audience following them, their voice booming as it echoed off the warehouse’s walls. “We can’t have the perfect formula without making sure it’s actually perfect, you know!” Curious, you see all different sorts of chambers around the lab, one with two pipes with bubbles occasionally coming out from both at the same time, colliding together, another automatically making and spewing all sorts of bubble solutions. “I encourage you all to explore the lab, see what really goes on around here,” the tour guide said after a few seconds of the crowd’s oohs and aahs.

The crowd dispersed around the lab, looking around at the different testing areas and the signage in front of them explaining what they were for and the process taking place in front of them. There was also a panel in front of each chamber with several buttons and some occasional levers laid across it, most sealed away in a tight case to make sure none of the tour group could interfere with testing. However, some panels had a sort of “demo” button that would trigger an event for passers-by to view the chamber at work.

A specific chamber caught your eye, one with a pool of large bubbles beneath a small ring. According to the sign attributed to it, it was built to test the more heavy-duty bubbles, seeing how well they could hold up against stress from both outside objects and inside. The large hoop at the top assisted with putting objects in bubbles, giving the lab workers a way to just drop one in a soap film and create a bubble with an object inside. You press the demonstration button on the panel in front of you and watch as an object falls from the tube high above the ring and lands in the middle of the hoop. Almost instantly, a fresh bubble forms around the object as it bumps and presses against its neighbors.

You thought about yourself being that object, falling into that bubble hoop and being trapped inside, pressing against the other bubbles around you in a squishy soapy paradise. However, a sudden “Alright, everyone ready to move on to the next area?” from the tour guide brought you out of your daydreams and back into the group. As you exit, you stare at the hoop-topped chamber, already knowing what you’d be doing that night.

It was now nine-o-clock on a windy night, and you had one thing on your mind, a bubble enclosure in a pool of other iridescent spheres. You get in your car and travel back to the factory, now vacant of any other soul, and enter without a hitch. Making your way back to the hooped chamber, an anxiety starts to grow within you. You’re trespassing on a factory’s property just to fulfill a fantasy of you in a bubble. What if it doesn’t work? What if you’re caught? What if-

You consider turning around and leaving, when another voice in your head makes itself known. “You’ve already come this far, why turn back now? This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Agreeing with that voice, you continue down the halls, eventually finding it.

The room was slightly different, the windows were open for better ventilation, just in case a stray machine decides to fill the room by the next morning. However, the lab was still in pristine condition, no sign of anything awry – well, none other than the unexpected visitor. The cases upon the control panels were unscrewed at this point, nothing stopping you from controlling this machine how you wanted to.

You press a button with the label “SL3” near the top-left of the panel. Some liquid comes out of the hoop, falling into the pool below, as a new solution fills the hoop. You press another button, just labeled “UP” this time, and the hoop slowly rises for as long as you hold the button. Getting it to a nice height, you decide to let an object down from the pipe above. You press the demonstration button from before, this time clearly labeled “GO.” Another object falls from the pipe, this time making a sturdier bubble than before. However, this bubble was strange in the fact that the object slowly sank, somehow staying in the middle of the bubble until the bubble suddenly popped off and fell to the pool.

You still enjoy watching it, and decide it was time for the main event. You ignore a few warnings along the path and make your way up the ladder to the top of the chamber. You find yourself a few steps away from the ring that held your attention captive for so long. The path to it was very tedious to walk, however, it was more a support for the hoop than anything. However, you decide that the walk was doable, and climb onto the support.

You take a few steps, walking ever closer to the hoop, before a sudden bump in the path makes you trip forward directly into the film. As soon as your body touches the smooth, shiny surface of the ring, the film starts to wrap itself around you in a double-layered bubble. You enjoy every second of the bubble’s ever-stronger squeezes, blushing as the bubble gives you a loving hug slowly down your body.

The bubble finally gets to the point where it’s got you squished head-to-toe, finally reaching itself and starting to merge. Your face gets redder and redder as the bubble squeezes you more and more, attempting to merge with itself with you, its poor, pressured victim inside.

Just when you think you can’t take any more, the bubble’s pressure finally releases as you and the bubble fall down to a squishy floor. You push against the bubble’s surface, feeling your own fresh sphere’s walls. The bubble just wobbles indifferently, its membrane rippling while wiggling you. You spend a few minutes getting accustomed to your bubble, pushing it out in all directions, nuzzling it with your head, pressing your body against its wiggling surface. If anyone were to see you right now, they’d think you’re in distress and call for help. For you, though, this was just a way to engage with your playful captor.

You eventually grow tired of the bubble’s embrace and start looking for a way to exit. You try poking the bubble to pop it, but it doesn’t work. You try poking it with more force, but the bubble still doesn’t pop. You try punching and kicking at the bubble, yet it doesn’t budge. With no options left, you just lay against your prison’s walls, looking longingly at the outside world, wishing this bubble would let you go.

However, the bubble had other plans. You hear a few gusts of wind and feel yourself rising away from the pool of bubbles below you, the bubble slightly caving around your now pressing body. You push your hands against your captor’s surface, denting the bubble’s squishy membrane further out, trying to reach something to hold onto, but your hands land on nothing. You float away, straight out of a large, open roof window.

As your surroundings change from a testing facility to the night sky, you see the beautiful skyline in front of you and grow appreciative of what seemed to be your new home. In here, you didn’t feel the need to maintain yourself, you could just lay down, rest, and enjoy the world’s beauty. As the night turns from day and the world goes back to work, the factory people wonder who tampered with their stuff while you lay down asleep inside of a loving soapy prison/home.