DTH Jon and DTH Karyn appeared in the bedroom. They were presented with the sight of a very upset Karyn on her knees crying her eyes out.
"This doesn't look good," DTH Jon said as he took in the sight in front of him.
The kneeling Karyn instantly got on her feet. "Oh My God!" she squealed, "You're alive, you're actually alive!" She immediately hugged him, wrapping her arms around him. She was so relieved her brain wasn't even processing there was another person there. Another Karyn she was oblivious too.
"Okay let me breathe," DTH Jon gasped as he pushed Karyn away gently. She reluctantly moved backwards. "First things first," he said as he pointed as Karyn's hand with the stone still clutched in it. "You are clearly very emotional right now and you are holding a wish granting stone. That is not a good combination. I'd appreciate it if you put it down."
"Oh, yeah," Karyn said as she placed the stone gently on the bed. She turned back to Jon. "Why are you talking so weird?" She asked before she realised they weren't alone. "And who are you?" she asked as a follow up question as she pointed at DTH Karyn.
"I'm you," DTH Karyn said as she gave a little wave, "Hi."
"Jon, what is going on?" Karyn asked him. "You were dead."
"Yes I'd gathered that," he said, "I was trying not to think about it too much. It is quite disconcerting actually." He paused before going into explanation mode. "I'm sorry to say I'm not your Jon. The one that died. Karyn and I are from a parallel universe."
"Like this one?" Karyn asked.
DTH Jon looked around the bedroom. "From what I can tell, yes."
"Couldn't you just hang out here and pretend to be him?" she asked optimistically. "I mean, I wished for him not to be dead any more and that has sort of come true."
DTH Jon shook his head. "No, sorry, I have my own world to go back to. Honestly, I'm a little disturbed you'd be so quick to replace me."
Karyn turned away in embarrassment. "You're right, it was a silly idea." She started weeping again.
"Hey," DTH Karyn said, "We might be able to help. We've helped other versions of ourselves."
Karyn stopped crying and faced her duplicate. "I can't see how."
"Maybe if you tell us what happened."
"I wasn't here but I used the stone to find out why he was missing. He made a wish, spontaneously combusted and ended up as that," she said before pointing at the small pile of ash.
"What on earth did he wish for?" DTH Karyn asked.
"To be a successful lesbian porn star," Karyn said without a hint of emotion.
"That figures," DTH Karyn said as she glanced at the now frowning DTH Jon. She looked towards Karyn again. "But how could that cause him to catch fire?"
"Oh, it wasn't the wish. It was the stone's defence mechanism that stopped him from abusing its power."
"The stone doesn't have a defence mechanism," DTH Karyn said before turning to Jon. "Does it?" she asked, now not sounding too certain.
Jon had a look at the display of the DTH. "This is an early iteration. We're only a few hops from the origin point. Things could be pretty chaotic down this end. The corruption could be a lot more serious."
"So now there are additional rules we know nothing about?" DTH Karyn asked.
Jon shrugged, "It could happen anywhere but more likely in an early timeline," he said.
"Great," DTH Karyn added with a snide tone.
Karyn interrupted them. "Look I don't understand much of this but can you really bring him back?" she asked.
Karyn nodded, "We've encountered a number of ways of fixing stuff like this as we've travelled. We could get him cloned or create a copy of Jon in a new parallel universe with a special device that another version of Jon has."
"We could do those things," Jon said, "but I'm not willing to get bogged down in more side quests right now. There is an easier solution."
"There is?" DTH Karyn asked.
Jon waved the DTH. "Yeah I just hop into the past and pick up a living version of him. Bring him back to here."
