"I don't know what to do," said Jon. "We need to get the stone back but somehow I can't get the nerve to approach Karyn and Sarah." Of course, they had forgotten Karyn's previous wish, its effects, and the confrontation, but they still knew that they couldn't approach them. "Maybe we should try tomorrow..."
"Maybe," said Alan. "But we're forgetting something."
"Really?" answered Jon. "What's that we're forgetting?"
"This!" exclaimed Alan, holding up the dream/nightmare machine. "This still works. Not only that, you wished for it first... so Karyn and Sarah can't reverse it. Suppose they say 'I wish you were wearing long nails forever...'. Well, she can't reverse the wish that the dream machine gives you your fantasy, so if your fantasy has short nails in it, you can still get that, even though she said 'forever'."
"But I can't just pick what my fantasy is," said Jon."
"Do you need to? Isn't the one thing you want most in the world to have the stone back? Wouldn't that please you the most? Just imagine it, you get the stone back and you can do anything. Be rich, be immortal, rule the world, have a harem full of girls..."
"Yeah, that would be fun," said Jon.
Alan looked at the machine's display, nodded, pointed it at Jon, and activated it. The stone instantly appeared in front of them, and Alan laughed.
"What's so funny?" asked Jon.
"What's so funny? Well, that wasn't your fantasy until a few minutes ago. After all, fantasies aren't logical. Just because the logical way to get a lot of stuff is to have the stone doesn't mean that's what your fantasy is... until I convinced you that that's what your fantasy really was. Once your fantasy was to have the stone back, then I could use the machine."
"Hmm," said Jon. "Well, it worked!" He picked up the stone. "I wish, uhhh... that I knew whether Karyn used to be my friend like I suspected. Whoa... yeah, me and Karyn used to be like me and you, Alan. I wish Karyn was our friend, and that she'll walk in here in a minute, and take our nail tips off. I wish that we have memories of Karyn being our friend."
They watched the door and soon Karyn entered. She said "Hi, guys," but seemed not to notice where she was walking. She might have normally sat down, but she seemed half in a trance, heading directly for Jon and reaching out to his hands. She pulled on a nail, and it came off easily--too easily.
Karyn talked as normal, not even realizing she was removing the fake nails. Then once she had removed all of them, she sat down and stopped moving strangely.
Then, only two really bad wishes were left. The first one was that Karyn was Sarah's twin sister. The second one was that one of the two boys was a girl who looks like and thinks like a boy. And they didn't remember either wish....
