Waterpark Wanda

[marloweny]

This is the first chapter of a story I had two or three chapter ideas for.

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It was the worst-kept secret in the water park influencer biz. This particular park had what people in the know called “The Waiver Slide.” Out of the two dozen or so people who made their living (or wanted to make their living) doing content for water parks, there was not a single person who wouldn’t kill to get a glimpse of The Waiver Slide. As far as anyone knew, there were only two influencers who had ever had the Waiver Experience, and both of them immediately stopped posting. The generally agreed upon interpretation was that they were given jobs within the industry and got locked down with NDAs. Probably a dream come true for them, but Wanda had different goals.

And thus, she was dressed in her “very nearly violating terms of service” bikini, sitting at a desk in the back room of the water park “reading” a stack of waiver and NDA forms. Mostly she was just looking for places to sign. She was convinced her coverage of that last mystery of the water park biz would be worth whatever legal trouble she’d get into for violating the agreement.

She was probably a bit delusional in that regard, but she’d never claimed to be the sort who thought things through.

Once the forms were filled out, she was taken to the massive “multi-track” water slide that was the crown jewel of the park. The dead-eyed young man at the controls took the sheet Wanda had been given and looked it over.

“Okay, the special slide. Which experience do you want? We’ve got “The Special Preserves,” “the Champagne Room,” and “The Mad Scientist.””

“Can I do all three?” she asked.

He shrugged. “You come back with another one of these sheets, and I guess you can do another.”

“Then let's start with the Champagne one.”

“He removed a key from his pocket, unlocked a panel, and pressed some buttons.”

“Okay, you’re good to go.”

She giggled excitedly and hopped into the blue, rushing tube. One thing that had been entirely explicit was that she was not to bring a camera, but the nice thing about cameras for recording water slides, they have to be waterproof and portable anyway, so you could easily hide them in… hard to search areas. And she’d done this slide over a dozen times already to try the different paths, so it was equally trivial to strap on and activate the camera before the first branch. And that was good news, because the first branch was where things changed.

Every other ride she’d taken down this slide either sent her sloshing left or right through the different sections of the slide. This time, the slide suddenly sloped downward. Apparently some sort of hatch had opened. She was already beginning to rehearse the lines she’d say in the video about this as the tube whisked her this way and that.

Lights, seemingly shining through the plastic of the slide, started sweeping by in a dazzling strobe. The lights felt warm on her skin, in a tingly but oddly soothing way. The tube, she realized, seemed to be changing size. After every batch of lights, it seemed to expand out, then slowly it would funnel smaller. This cycled a few times. Each time the lights were larger, the tingle was even more severe. The final funneling was so intense the tube became almost claustrophobically small, eventually pinching her through a bottleneck that actually squeaked against her body on all sides. Then came an abrupt shift. Suddenly the thick blue plastic vanished in favor of a smoother, thicker, olive-green surface. It was slick, cool, and hard as glass. An instant later, the slide ended, sending her sweeping around the tube of glass with such speed that she looped several times like a marble rolling around the bottom of a cup. When she finally stopped, she found herself dizzily at the bottom of a chamber or capsule of the same green glass. She stood, leaning heavily on the glass, and nearly bumped her head. The capsule tapered at the top, and was only barely large enough for her to stand in.

Now that she wasn’t blazing along a waterslide, she realized where she’d ended up.

“Oh, I get it. ‘Champagne Room,’” she said.

Indeed, the slide had dropped her off inside a giant champagne bottle. There was even a label glued to one side, though she couldn’t read it from the inside. Only a splash of water had ended up in the bottle with her, and now that the end was over, she found herself wondering what she was supposed to do now. There didn’t seem to be a hatch or anything. It was actually a little confusing how she’d fit through the mouth of the “bottle.” It looked too small for her. Probably this weird chamber would just move along like a conventional theme park ride, then let her out. But it was sure taking its sweet time getting started. It wasn’t like there was much to see right now. The other side of the glass just showed an unimpressive view of a back room of the water park, the kind she’d been led through before this ride. It was scaled up, of course, roughly the size it would have to be for the bottle to be normal size, but that seemed like a waste. If you were going to build a large-scale set, why not make it more interesting? Though, it was really detailed. … It almost looked like…

“Omigosh! It is you! Waterpark Wanda!” Squealed a booming voice.

Wanda turned to find a massive looming face grinning through the glass of the bottle. She reached out and grabbed the bottle, jolting Wanda against the smooth surface. This was not special effects or a set. This seemed… real. Somehow she’d been shrunk by the slide. And bottled.

“I’m such a big fan. I’ve seen all of your videos. I even conducted the tour last time you came through here, not that you’d remember,” she gushed. “But you’re so cool and funny and cute and entertaining and hot and clever and sexy…”

“Uh… th-thanks…” Wanda said. “What, um, what happens now?”

“Just what it says in the waiver. Just a second.”

The woman tipped the bottle sideways and held it up. Wandw flopped against the glass, laying on her belly and pressing the glass with her hands. The woman squealed, gazing up from below.

“I love the way it looks when you smoosh against the glass like that! Remember that one video you did, where you did the photo shoot in the post-slide shower? You smooshed your boobs against the glass then, too. Look!” She fumbled for her phone with her other hand. “It’s my lock screen!”

Wanda stared down at a phone that, from her point of view, was the size of a mattress, and saw a freeze frame from an old video. Hearts and other cringe emojis had been added.

“Anyway, anyone who signs the waiver becomes park property, and when I saw it was you, I had to call dibs on you.”

She lowered the bottle and casually squeaked a cork in place.

“Come on! I’ve got a spot on my display shelf waiting for you!”

“Wait, wait! How long am I–” Wanda shouted, hammering on the glass with a pathetic little *TINK* with each blow, but before she could finish her objection, she was slipped into a tote and hauled away.

[Sumguy14]

Okay, thematically I love this. I have been contemplating a water park SW story for more than a little while and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one. Really enjoyed the pacing here, and I am hoping that this goes one of two routes...

This vignette is the last/only thing we ever hear about Wanda and the next installment covers either the of the other two options.

OR

We follow Wanda's further misadventure and her new owner either realizes or was already aware that this is all being recorded.

Regardless, I encourage further installments. This was a wonderful, quick, exciting, read. I have very few/no notes. Well done and thank you for sharing.