Jon instantly realized exactly how foolish his wish just was; not only was it recklessly vague, it was necessarily devastating. He had just received one of the most interesting items in the universe, so wishing for something more interesting than it was going to do a doozy on just about everything in his life.
He instantly felt lightheaded. After he opened his eyes he realized the stone had disappeared from his hand. Looking in a mirror on the make up table -- that definitely wasn't there before -- he saw that his entire head was now a sickly green. Oh God it's almost like a cartoon, he thought. The green kept spreading down his neck to his clavicle, then into his short hair, and finally into the whites of his eyes. From the neck up he appeared as some kind of emerald sculpture of himself.
No no no no no no no... he tried to say, but his vocal cords were now part of whatever this new material was. He grabbed his throat only to make a new discovery: it was moist and squishy. In the reflection he noticed that not only had his room almost entirely changed to that of a girl his age, but every part of him from the neck up was growing completely translucent. He could almost see through his head, and it didn't look like he had any internal bones or muscles or organs in there to speak of.
How can I still see... how am I alive at all??? he panicked. The lightheadedness was only getting worse... and the lack of any ability to breathe, to scream, to make any noise at all, was driving him to near lunacy. He felt something at the bottom of his throat. It felt almost like he was going to puke, but... prickly? And coarse, like hair. He looked closer at his reflection and saw something even more unnerving: many strands of straight, black hair emerging from where his neck met his torso.
He completely freaked out and lunged his hands at the hairs to try and remove them, only for his body to go progressively more numb. He felt like it was only half-listening to him after a while, and the janky tugs he managed on the hair seemed to result in erratic spasms he had no ability to temper. It suddenly occurred to him that below the end of his neck, he couldn't feel anything at all. His hands kept moving though, and even more frantically. They wedged themselves between the base of his neck and the strange hair and pushed upward with all their strength. Jon only had a split second of consciousness left before his goopy, disgusting head splatted into the ceiling, sticking there like a piece of chewed gum under a student's desk.
Catherine couldn't comprehend how stupid she'd been. 'My life is so dull, I wish something interesting would happen' after her grandma had just willed her an all-powerful ancient artifact? The thing was more than capable of creating anything out of thin air, and everyone would just think it'd always been that way. In fact, if she wasn't secure in the knowledge that she herself made and heard the wish, she could be entirely altered without ever even noticing!
All of that ran through her head as her eyes were closed... and remained closed? This was taking much longer than her previous wishes... maybe because it was altering so much? She felt very numb all over, too. Like her whole body had fallen asleep. The only sensation she seemed to have was the feeling of some kind of gel in her hair. Am I in the shower now? Why can't I open my eyes yet? she wondered, growing increasingly nervous. What if I'm just blind now, what if that's what the wish did?!
Against her will, her arms seemed to grab onto the ends of her hair. She tried to control them, and found she could, but just barely. Her arms got off a couple sharp tugs, which surprised her a lot more than it hurt her. Startled, she started moving her arms about trying to regain full control over them. It got progressively easier to move but she realized that the gel on her hair was a lot heavier than she initially noticed. And it was also moving.
Oh god is a weird monster is trying to eat my head or take me over or something?! Still worried about not being able to open her eyes yet, she struggled to get her arms underneath the weird goop on top of her.
Get off, get OFF, GET OFF!! she screamed internally and she flung the goop off her as hard as she could muster, falling over in the process.
She lay there for a while, and slowly the world came back to her. She was in her room, and a giant... snot thing was on her ceiling. It looked a little like a horrific mold was eating through the roof. The horrible thought that it could fall down on top of her caused her to quickly scoot back towards her bed and quickly stand up. As she did, she realized what her wish had done:
From below the neck, she now had the body of a boy about her age. Her hands were now a much lighter shade, too, probably indicating a different heritage than her own Chinese background. The body was very well maintained and generic, with no dirt under the finger nails, no particular muscle tone or fat, and definitely no callouses on the fingers from her violin.
Her room, aside from the disgusting ceiling-phlegm organism, was the same as it always was. Extremely plain, with a couple posters for whatever TV shows and pop artists she'd been into over the years, her instrument case, and some pictures of her relatives on her dresser. She nervously skimmed them all for any difference, but thankfully found none. Then she noticed that even she had her original body in the photographs.
That's not right, reality should've changed so that I always had this weird body... why is everything exactly the same? How will I explain this to anyone?!
Her mind immediately went to the stone. She had entirely forgotten about it during her ordeal, and frantically searched the room for it. It was gone!
She suddenly heard a male scream -- her younger brother -- from down the hall. Momentarily forgetting her bizarre body, she rushed to his room and gasped at what she saw:
There was another, blue pile of goop, this one stuck to the wall of Ryan's room, but next to it was something very unnerving. Her brother's tear-streaked face was on top of a black-clad girl's body about his same age!
