The last time Edwin had been barefoot, he'd been trapped in Hell, forced to run across endless floors covered in blood and shards of glass and debris as he did his best--over and over again--to outrun a giant spider demon made of baby doll heads. His soles had remained agonizingly sensitive, despite his being in Hell for decades. He could feel every prick, every cut and scratch, every slip of bloody flesh against flooring.

        It was something that would forever haunt him.

        As it dawned on him now that, somehow, someway, his footwear had seemingly been removed--his boots and stockings no longer a barrier to the fluttering feelings on his foot--he couldn't help but be reminded of the ways in which his ghostly wardrobe had been forcibly altered before. Sure, he and Charles had the ability to change up their clothing at will, but he'd never opted to go barefoot since escaping back to the world of the living.

        Edwin's soles--pale and long--were face-up on the other side of the mysterious mirror. Unlike their appearance in Hell, here they were clean and blemish-free. The cuffs of his trousers were snug around his bony ankles. He curled his long toes as the first sensation rippled up from the ball of his left foot. Something soft and wispy fluttering across his skin, up near the base of his toes. 

        Edwin FELT it.

        And it did, indeed, tickle.

        He hadn't remembered what it was like to feel such a sensation. Sure, he'd experienced plenty of emotions; he also had the ability to exert his energy against objects and even other ghosts...but this? All of his previous interactions in this realm had merely been...spectral. A sensation beyond touch.

        Now, it was like his nerve endings were being resurrected.

        The sensations bubbled through him, fluttered about in his stomach, and were trying to force a smile from him.

        "Oh. Oh no." He gasped, expression reflecting both shock and panic on the other side of the wall.

        "What?" said Charles quickly. "You feel it too?"

        Edwin closed his eyes. The soft, fluttering, wispy sensations traveled up his sole to his heel, then back down again. The muscles gathered in his jaw as he tried to maintain his composure. His mouth twitched. He breathed in sharply through his nose.

        "Edwin?"

        Edwin nodded. "Th-this is impossible," he whispered, hissing with every use of the letter 's.' The downy touch against his soft, pale skin was driving him mad. Electric. Incessant. Exploring every inch of his wrinkling sole. As it neared his toes again, creeping into the crevices between them, like the whispering touch of angel's wings, Edwin's eyes slammed more tightly shut than before. His brow furrowed in ticklish agony. He whimpered as the laughter threatened to spill from him. 

        "Edwin! Mate! Are you okay?"

        "Pffffffttttssstssstss....."

        "Edwin!"

        "F-for f-fuck's sake, Ch-Charles..." stammered Edwin. The more he talked, the more he started to smile. "I am clearly...n-not...okay!" The feathering around his toes was increasing in swiftness. He tried to kick the feelings away, frantically moving his feet about, but it didn't seem to help much. Whoever--or whatever--was working its away long his sole would disconnect for a second or two, before returning with that same, incessant need to explore his soft skin as before. "O-ohhhhh...." He snorted and snickered. He kicked furiously again and, finally, the sensations subsided, leaving his nerve endings abuzz. Edwin tentatively relaxed, his jaw unclenching, his breathing returning to normal. His chest loosened.

        Both of the boys waited a moment--anticipating another ticklish attack on their soles from the other side of the wall, but nothing happened.

        "What is going on, man?" Charles muttered.

        "I'm... I'm not sure," said Edwin. "It's got to be some sort of dark magic. There's no other way this could be happening." He made another pointless attempt to free himself from the wall.

        "But...tickling, bruv?" Charles snorted. "Why would someone--?"

        "Or something," Edwin interjected.

        "Right...something want to...tickle us?" Charles looked sheepish as he said it.

        "Your guess is as good as mine," Edwin spat. "I think what we really need to do now though is figure out how to free ourselves."

        "More motivated now, are ya?" Charles winked.

        "Aren't you?"

        "Of course, but there's not really much else we can do now, is there?"

        Edwin struggled and struggled. He tried to faze out again, tried to press his hands through the flooring, but the strange spell that was surely holding him captive prevented him from doing so. Finally, with another huff, he gave up. "This is useless."

        "Oi! N-not again!" exclaimed Charles unexpectedly from beside him, which made Edwin jump. "Oh! Hohoha!" Charles threw his head back, chin jutting forward, jaw sharp, and he started to laugh again. On the other side of the wall, the fluttery, feathery feelings had resumed upon his feet again, which were also seemingly bared--long and soft and shapely just like Edwin's--but the tops of which were tan, his soles a blush of pink and brown hues. The wispy sensations danced downward into the shadowy spaces between his toes. "Hahaha! Oi! St-stop that! HaHA! Heeheee!" squealed Charles.

        Edwin grimaced in frustration. He hated feeling helpless, but at least, it seemed that whatever was tickling them could only focus on one of them at a time.

        "Oh makeitstop, makeitstop, makeitstop!" Charles giggled, the stream of words flowing from his smiling mouth.

        "Charles, get ahold of yourself," Edwin insisted, reaching over to place a hand on his friend's forearm.

        Charles shook his head frantically. "I c-can't! Heeheehahaha! I-it t-tickles!"

        "I know, but maybe, if we don't react, it will stop."

        "Pfffftttttttssssseeheehee!" Charles tried to suppress the laughter spewing forth. He also kicked his legs around, but as with Edwin, this didn't do much to stop the sensation from exploring his soft soles after a few seconds. "God, Edwin, th-this is horrid!"

        "I wish we could know what was doing this to us. Perhaps then we could could figure out a way to--" Edwin started, but then he felt the tickling return to his own feet. The sensations danced around his left and right soles in a strange, zigzagging choreography. Still feathery, still soft, but simply relentless.

        "Ah-h! N-n-no!" Edwin gritted his teeth and tried to resist. It was all he could do. resist. He'd endured agony in all forms; his tolerance for pain was off the charts--it was the very reason why Esther had targeted him in Port Townsend. But for some reason... for some god awful reason, he found this to be so immediately unbearable...

       Charles had calmed down beside him, but that meant that Edwin had to endure being watched by him. 

       Just. STOP, he demanded inwardly.

       But the tickling did not stop. The wisps seemed to sift into the grooves of his wrinkling foot so effortlessly... 

        "N-no..."

        "Edwin, just laugh, mate." Charles chuckled. "You look like you're about to have an aneurism."

        "I will not give this thing what it wants."

        Charles sighed. "We don't have much of a choice."

        "We a-always h-have a ch-choice," Edwin stammered. "Maybe w-eehee can--"

        But, on the other side of the wall, the soft, curious sensations suddenly transformed, flipping into something pointed and sharp--thought not painful--but with a strong enough pressure that the effect was instantaneous and electric.

        BAM.

        Edwin yelped, arched his back, and helpless caved. His composure crackled away into laughs: "N-NOHO! NOHOHO! HAHAHA!"

        "There ya go," Charles said.

        "OH! HAHA! CH-CHARLES, IT'S A-AWFUHUHUHUL!"

        "I know, man." But Charles didn't know--he had yet to experience what Edwin was experiencing--and when this newer, sharper, tickling sensation jumped back to him, Charles's own reactions were dialed up to eleven.

        "F-FUCK! HAHAHAHA!" Charles screamed, his foot flailing around, but with no means of escaping. The scribbling was maddening. It worked his heels, alternating between each, drawing circles, before meandering down his soles to his toes. It dug in right beneath his big toes. "SH-SHIHIHIT! HEEHEEHAHAHA!" 

        "This is ridiculous!" Edwin was growing more and more desperate, more and more angry. He felt helpless for himself, helpless for his friend. How long was this supposed to go on? He simply had to watch Charles lose his mind from beside him.

        Not that, you know, he didn't look...well...adorable.

                The way his face was lit up with laughter.

                        And the sound of it, so uninhibited and infectious...

        "E-Edwin! Heeheehahaha!" Charles grabbed his hand and squeezed, as if this would somehow help him better endure the tickling. "H-hehehehelp! Hahahaha! ACKPTH! HAHA!"

        "There's nothing I can do, Charles!"

        "F-figure s-something ouhowhowhout! You a-always doohoohoo!" His laughter shot up an octave as the scribbling drilled into the flesh at the base of each of his toes, despite his trying to curl them. "EEEEHEEHAHAHA!"

        Edwin slammed his left fist against the ground and directed an outburst into the empty room. "Hello! We demand to know who's doing this! Stop this now or-- AIEEHEEHAHA!" The tickling interrupted him, crackling across his foot again like a little whirring, bulbous drill head. Edwin continued slamming his fist against the floor, drumming, drumming... "HahahaWAIT! I s-said STAWHAWP! I d-demand you sh-showhowhow yourself! HAHAHA!" His body shook as his laughter increased.

        The tickling stopped. Both Edwin and Charles caught their breaths, their nerve-endings abuzz and alive. 

        But no one answered Edwin's demands. No one came. The funhouse fell silent again save for the electrical hums of the lights and the creaks and crashes of ocean waves on wood somewhere below.

        "Well, this is just brills," said Charles.

        "Insane, more like."

        "I mean, out of all the cases we've taken--all the things we've been through--this one's...out there."

        Edwin ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He groaned. He dug into his coat pockets, but they came up empty. "Charles. I... I really don't see a way out of this."

        "So... we just have to sit here and get tickled to death?"

        "We're already dead."

        "I know, but imagine? What a way to go out."

        Edwin sighed. "I'm sure there's a room in Hell where something like this happens."

        "Better than being chased around by a spider-baby-doll demon, yeah?"

        Edwin closed his eyes. He reached over and held Charles's hand. "Yeah. It is."

        After a few moments, he realized that he was still holding his mate's hand. Soft. Warm. 

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