LZ0291

You can't remember anything now. All you recall is the voices. The sounds echoing through the room, into your ears, deep into your mind. Let go. Be blank. Be free. Forget what you were. Become a clean slate... Time now starts, as far as you know, when the voices began. You don't know when that was. You don't know who you are, or were. You're almost a clean slate. Almost free. Almost blank. You've almost let go. Let go. Be blank. Be free. Forget what you were. Become a clean slate... And you do. The voices pause, as they realise you are now fully under. Wiped clean, all your memories, all your feelings, your free will, you, all buried deep and locked away. What's left is just empty. A vessel to be filled with new ideas and a new person later on. But for now, you will stand. You will wait. You have no thoughts. No desires. No feelings. No sense of time passing. You are blank.

"Look, it's completely safe. You can't do anything you wouldn't normally do," Tom said. He was demonstrating his skills in hypnosis using Winnie, his girlfriend, as the test subject, trying to convince her friend Michelle to help him with the upcoming talent show. "Well, I still don't know. Like, if you command her to hurt herself she won't, right?" "I'd never have her do that, but she wouldn't even do something minor. Watch. Winnie: Pinch yourself." The entranced woman did not even move. "See? But if I give her a harmless instruction, she'll do it. Winnie, act Goofy!" Tom grinned. "...I'd prefer to be Donald Duck," Winnie replied in a monotone voice. Both Tom and Michelle stared at the entranced woman in confusion. "Well, um... Okay, I guess you can't make anyone do something they don't want to do after all," Michelle shrugged.

Daphne Blake had until now thought it was one of your run of the mill spooky abandoned mansions that was 'haunted' by a janitor in a bedsheet, when the room she wandered into added a great many points onto it being exceptionally creepy. Her flashlight shone on rows of wooden puppets on strings, on shelves of assorted dusty toys like jack in the boxes, cymbal monkeys, and spinning tops, and a pile of ragdolls in one corner, each of their stitched grinning faces and red blushing felt cheeks seeming especially disturbing for some reason. And then there was the rack of pink frilly dresses, curly haired blonde wigs, and what seemed to be a makeup set. "Well, I think I'm going to go check another room now," She shuddered and made for the door, only for the shelves to come alive. She yelped in surprise as the jack in the boxes all leapt out, as the spinning tops began to rotate, as the lights came on and flickered, and in the cacophony of noise, she only just heard the door

"That's a great Stargirl costume!" Another person said as she wandered the convention. "Thanks!" She replied, enjoying all the praise she'd been getting for her costume. She felt like she'd put a lot of work into it... though she couldn't really remember it that well just now for some reason. But she must have, why else would she be here at this convention in Gotham City? After all, plenty of other people were dressed as superheroes too. Even some fictional ones.... Also, there was the fact her neck felt itchy but she wasn't going to scratch it. And she couldn't remember her name, but her neck was itchy.... And then a redheaded woman spoke to her. "Courtney? Ah, good, we found you," The woman said. "Um... Do I know you?" She wondered. (Who was Courtney?) The woman quickly reached behind her neck, before she could react, and with a yelp she felt something being pulled off the itchy spot. To her surprise the woman showed her some strange little tag thing that... ....had been

"Pfft, you'd never be able to hypnotise me," Tina laughed. Olivia however, simply gave a small smirk of her own. "Well, maybe you're right. You see, the truth is hypnosis works best on the most intelligent of people...." Tina frowned. "Wait... But, I'm smart enough. Are you saying I'm too dumb to be hypnotised?!" "Oh, no, not at all, I think you might be wrong is all. And you know, beautiful people are vulnerable too. Not a good mix to be beautiful and smart around hypnotists, all I'm saying...." "W-Well, um, I guess maybe you could be able to hypnotise me. No, wait, in fact you will hypnotise me!" Olivia grinned, and began the process, having successfully appealed to vanity once more to get someone under her spell....

Things had gone quite wrong when the party had entered this dungeon. It had all seemed calm enough and then rockslides began, caused by a monster ambush as hordes of small bugs poured out of the crumbling walls. Celes wasn't entirely sure what had happened to the others after a rock had turned to dust beneath her feet and dropped her into a lower cave during the fight. It was a tight set of tunnels, barely big enough for Celes to stand in some places and narrow enough her hips brushed the walls as she tried to squeeze through at spots. But after a few moments wandering in the gloom she heard someone or something coming. A faint glow of flames held up revealed Terra, the green-haired half esper holding a small fireball to light the way, allowing Celes to relax a little. "Terra... You all right?" The blonde former General asked. "I think so, I have a few bruises but they're not major," came the response. "You fall through the ground too? I didn't see what happened to the

"This happens every time?" John wondered, as Julia snored away, eyes wide open but blank. "Yeah. Ironically, we found out trying to cure her snoring through hypnosis. That worked, but now if we put her under it's snore city...." Paula sighed. "And it's just with her?" "Yeah. Greg's not snoring and he's hypnotised, you didn't snore either. I guess it's because she stopped snoring in normal sleep?" "Wait, I was hypnotised?" "Yep, I snap my fingers, she's out of her trance and you're a chicken," Paula said, demonstrating. Julia ceased snoring, but John began clucking.... Whilst also snoring. "...Seriously?" Paula groaned, as Julia watched the scene in confusion.

The dozen volunteers looked at the kit they were given. Sets of glasses and what looked like a laser tag setup, chestplates and plastic blasters. "This is all a very early proof of concept here of course, but we have plans for more elaborate equipment for the future. What we envision is a combination of augmented reality technology, and use of hypnotic suggestions to create a unique physical gaming experience," one of the testers said. "So how does it work?" One woman asked. "First you will all put on your glasses, and then a five minute induction program will commence. It will place the players in a state of hypnotic trance, and then give them the rules of the game. This test is a simple freeze tag game. We'll try different team sizes and also a free for all." "So what, we get hit we stay still? Why's that need augmented reality and hypnosis?" A male volunteer asked. "The AR is for visual effects and eventually for NPC enemies and such once we get more advanced with

"You've spiked them with something," Natalie concluded after Jennifer had offered her to test out two new soft drinks, looking at the two glasses before her. "Come on, Natalie, have some faith, why would I do that?" Jennifer said innocently. "Because you always do it, you find some way to hypnotise people for your pranks. I drink it, it's some kind of drug that puts me in a trance, and then you have me doing the chicken dance in the street again." Jennifer gasped theatrically. "I am shocked you have so little trust! All I want to do is see if my friend likes these two new sodas I found in the store! Look, I'll show you they're not altered in any way. Watch." She took a drink of one, a cherry-flavoured fizzy red liquid. The other was some odd orange coloured liquid but the can claimed mixed fruit. Jennifer drank some of that too. "See? I don't spike food, that's not my style." Natalie still suspected a trick, but decided that it wasn't in the drinks at least. She tried the