I couldn't say anything. I turned and ran back up to my room as quickly as I could. I turned, shut the door and locked it. My back against the door, I slid down until I was sitting up against it with my knees pulled up against my chest. I was finding it difficult to breath, and I could feel my heart racing.
"What did I do?" I whispered.
"You made a wish," a voice replied. I looked up, expecting to see Malcolm and was instead met by the gaze of my grandfather. He was sitting right there on the edge of my bed looking down at me...
"Grandpa?" I whispered, and I knew it was him. My grandfather had been in his late sixties, but he'd never truly looked old. I supposed it was his dedication to his work, to the field of archeology that kept him looking so young. His hair was silver, but given the relatively youthful appearance of his face, it made him look more distinguished than old. Right now, he was the most comforting thing I'd seen since this whole ordeal had started. I stood up. "What's going on?"
He smiled, and it appeared to be an attempt at comfort, but I could see the same element of fear there that I'd seen earlier in the evening. He simply repeated himself. "You made a wish."
There was a bright flash of light, reminiscent of the rock's most prevalent side affect and the world changed around me. I wasn't in my room anymore and Grandpa wasn't there either. The glare of the early morning sunlight and the slight autumn breeze told me I was outside, and the weight of the backpack hoisted over my shoulder told me that it was a school day. Feeling a few familiar sensations as I continued the walk that I was apparently on, I looked down and found that I was Natalie again.
But, why wouldn't I be? Who else was there?
I took a long drag from the cigarette in my hand and waved at Rachel when I saw her across the street. "Rachel!" I shouted. After everything that had just happened, it was nice to see a familiar face that didn't have the rather annoying habit of vanishing into thin air all the time. "Rachel," I said again, a little softer this time.
She smiled and walked toward me. "Morning," she said in a rather cheery voice.
"So," I said, finally, "You would not believe the morning I've been having. First Karyn showed up and then "
"How is Karyn?" Rachel asked. There was no shock in her voice, not the slightest bit of surprise. Only the tone of friendly curiosity was evident.
"Um " I said, feeling that things were definitely off. "She had a massive hole in her head " I looked at Rachel again, scrutinizing every detail. Did we normally wear our cheerleader uniforms to school in the morning? I suddenly wondered when I noticed that she was wearing exactly that. Looking down, I realized we were twins.
"Yeah," Rachel said conversationally, "She should really have that looked at. She could get a really bad infection." If I had drawn a line on the ground and labeled it: This Conversation, I felt I would have to place Rachel somewhere just a little off to the left. I looked at her again, scrutinizing every detail.
"An infection?" I asked helplessly. "From a fatal headshot wound "
"Worst kind," she said in a kind of airy voice.
When we arrived at school things were different again. There were no metal detectors, and I couldn't find any of the security cameras I'd noticed the other day. I didn't see any cops either. It was as if the entire debacle had never occurred.
I skimmed the crowd for familiar faces. I saw Sarah talking with Biff and Derrick. The blond Cheerleading Queen looked over at Rachel and I and smiled and waved. "Sarah's alive," I whispered.
"Why wouldn't she be?" Rachel asked, looking up at me.
"Because " Because Karyn blew her brains out! Because
I gave up. I walked over to the wall, the same one that Karyn and I had been leaning against just the other day Has it only really been two days? I wondered. It seems like so much longer. As I casually looked around, taking a quick sip from the Hard Lemonade that had just appeared in my hand, and taking another soothing drag, I noticed her.
It was Karyn. It was the Karyn I'd seen in the horrible flashback. She had her long black hair, the blond showing through her roots, and the same long jacket. She was sitting on the ground Violet? I squinted. That was definitely Violet she was petting, and she was talking to Zoe? What was my sister doing here. She shouldn't be at this school for another year. They appeared to be talking about something, but I couldn't quite make it out. There was a rather old and worn looking book spread out on the grass between them.
I looked over at Rachel who appeared to be watching the rather typical high school scene unfolding around us with a decided lack of interest. "What's going on?" I asked. "What's happening?" All she did was offer me a blank stare for my trouble.
Finally she looked up at me. "Did you bring it?" she asked eagerly. "The rock," she clarified apparently having noticed the look on my face. *But this already happened! Except * I looked back over at my sister and my former best friend, *That never happened * "Come on," she pleaded. "You promised."
I reached into my backpack, and it was there. I pulled the wishing rock out and looked at it. It didn't look any different. It was at about that point that I caught Karyn's eye. She looked back at Zoe for a moment and then... She just kissed my sister! My eyes went wide as she made her way over. I was dropping the rock into Rachel's hand, my eyes still trained on my dead friend, when I saw it happening. Karyn reached into her jacket and produced the gun. The same one that I'd seen in the flashback.
Before I could do anything, she was standing right behind Rachel. As the rock landed in her outstretched palm, the gun went off. The bullet shot through the back of Rachel's head, and her body crumpled lifelessly to the ground.
"No!" I shouted, my body shaking. Nobody else seemed to notice though. Everybody just kept doing whatever they'd been doing. There hadn't been so much as an eyelash batted in our direction. When I opened my eyes, only then realizing that I'd closed them, Karyn was hunched over Rachel's body. She came back up, holding the rock in her hand.
Except it wasn't the same Karyn. Once again she was wearing that jumper, and her hair was short and red. And, though her clothing was rather baggy, there were no apparent signs of wish enhanced body parts. I shook my head. I'm going insane, I finally decided. It must be a side effect of the rock's magic Like radiation poisoning. I nodded. Having accepted the fact that I was losing my mind, things did actually feel a little better.
"Sorry," Karyn said with a smile as she tucked the gun in the back of her jeans. "It's supposed to be me though, you know that as well as I do Jon-Boy." Like she had the day we first discussed the rock Again I couldn't believe it had been such a short time ago, she leapt up onto the wall and sat down, scrutinizing the rock.
"I wish that tree were blue," she said casually, glancing over at an old Willow Tree. A flash of light later, the bark on the tree had turned a dark shade of blue. "Pretty cool Jonny," she said with a smile.
"Karyn, what are you doing?" I asked, trying to leap on the wall. That was proving difficult as somewhere between the time that she'd hopped up and the present the wall had grown to about eight feet tall. "Come back down here!" I shouted.
"No can do Jon-Boy!" Gotta make the most of this while I have the time!" She looked back down as though she were a queen surveying her subjects from on high. "I wish everybody had long blond hair and big boobs!" After the flash I looked around and saw that it had happened. Everybody out here, even the guys, were sporting long blond hair and large breasts. Karyn laughed maniacally from her perch. "This is fun!" Nobody else seemed to realize what was going on.
I jumped at the wall again, trying to dig my fingers into the brick and knowing it was useless. "You have to stop!" I shouted. "Karyn, you don't know what you're doing!"
"And you do?" she said. She didn't shout, but I could hear her voice as though she were standing next to me. "You didn't stop Jon! Not even when things got bad! You just kept right on going!"
"You want me to do something about her?" I turned to see the worn and bitter Karyn standing beside me. I couldn't say anything. I couldn't stop her as she produced the gun. In slow motion, bitter Karyn raised the gun and fired on crazy-ass Karyn, I decided to label her. I watched as her body fell backward over the other side of the wall. The rock fell forward though, and somehow managed to land directly in my hand.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to run in a million different directions. I wanted to be anywhere other than here. This didn't make any sense! I turned around and shouted at the top of my lungs, "What is this!" I paused to catch my breath and continued. "Malcolm! Grandpa! Where am I? What the hell is going on here!"
"You made a wish," I turned to see my grandfather standing there again. He was nestled amongst a group of my classmates. Before I knew it, the world turned into light again, and reality changed around me
