This was perfect. Stuart and Alan already knew each other from work, so it wouldn't be like they were total strangers. With just a simple tweak ...
Oliver smiled. His controlling power was getting easier and easier to use, it seemed, the more he used it.
"Stuart," he began. "What are you doing here? I thought you said something about going out with your husband tonight. A special night out on the town, you said."
"Husband?" Stuart asked, confused. But somehow, it seemed right.
"Yes. Alan McMichael is your husband, right? You two introduced yourselves to me earlier today. Remember?"
"Uh ... yeah. That's right. But ... he's not gay ... is he?"
"Well, of course he's gay. Just like you. And you two are very happily married."
Stuart suddenly smiled. "Yeah, we are. Alan and I have been married for three years now and it's been just perfect."
Oliver smiled too, but then something caught his eye. He watched in stunned silence as a wedding ring appeared on Stuart's hand. How the hell did that happen?
"Well, if you'll excuse me," Stuart said. "We have to get going."
Oliver blinked and realized that the woman who had accompanied Stuart (the woman he said was his girlfriend Teresa) was no longer there. And sitting in the car parked on the street was Alan! What was going on?
Stuart walked back to his car with a bit of an effeminate gait, definitely seeming gay, just like what Oliver dictated in his mind when he was imagining Stuart's new life as Alan's gay husband ... but whatever was happening was more than just minds being changed. Somehow, whatever he was doing was changing all of reality!
Oliver didn't wait for Stuart to get in his car and leave. He turned around and ran back upstairs to his bedroom to see if Brenda and Rachel were any different. But they weren't there! And after quickly inspecting the rest of the house, he saw that Krista was no longer there either, and it looked like the three of them were never there in the first place. How could this be?
If ... if he was able to change reality.
It suddenly occurred to him what might have happened. He willed Stuart and Alan to be a gay married couple, who probably lived in Alan's house. But if Alan was married to Stuart, then Brenda would never have been there and their two daughters would never have been born!
Oliver broke out in a cold sweat. Controlling minds was one thing. But this was totally something different. He changed the past. He didn't mean to, but it was now done and he couldn't do anything about it. Unless ...
He sat down on his living room sofa and concentrated, hearing Stuart's car driving off outside. Maybe if he used his power ...
But nothing happened. He tried to imagine Brenda and her daughters back and even tried making wishes both in his head and out loud, as if that would do anything (he never made any wishes before ... that's not how his power worked), but it didn't work.
He then came to the conclusion that maybe the only way he could change things back was if he used his power on a person again, the way he used it on Stuart.
That was the best idea he could come up with. But he didn't know where Stuart was. He drove off with Alan, who was now his gay husband of three years. But they lived across the street, so eventually they'd be back, right? He just had to wait.
But what if he couldn't wait? What if his power evolved again? And if it did, what would it evolve into?
