Jon quickly scrambled around the corner as Karyn fired another deafening shot. Jon yelped in pain as it hit her in the leg.
"Karyn, it's Jon! You don't know what's going on!"
Karyn put down the stone on the living room table. She really didn't want to be holding it while talking. The gun was more than enough for the dog anyway, if it turned out to not be Jon and just trying to trick her.
"Jon? Is that really you? What the fuck did she do to you." The dog's female sounding voice hadn't escaped Karyn's notice either.
"Just put down the gun and let me have the stone and fix this!" Besides, you have the stone, why are you pointing a gun at me, Jon thought.
"If you're really Jon," Karyn started, "then what's my favorite ice cream flavor."
"Butter pecan," Jon answered.
"Hmmm," Karyn responded.
"I'm going to come out now, don't shoot me again, ok?"
"Again? You're hit?" Karyn said.
Jon limped out, her left leg was bad, blood spurting out of splintered bone.
"I, don't know, what to do," Karyn admitted. "What should I do?"
"Just let me have the stone."
Jon limped over, it hurt so, so much, and Karyn stood back as she reached out a paw and accidentally knocked the stone to the floor. "Damn it, I'm not used to this body, and I'm injured."
"Sorry about that," Karyn admitted. She picked up the stone. "How about I just wish that..."
"NOSTOP, DO NOT FINISH that sentence while holding that thing!" Jon yelled frantically.
"Oh. Yeah..." Karyn thought that maybe hers really weren't the right hands for the stone after all. Her own personal track record with it was absolute shit after all. Then again, how had this happened to Jon? Maybe Jon's weren't the best hands, or paws, either. Anyway, probably better than hers right now, she would defer to Jon's knowledge of the situation.
Jon held up her right forepaw, pad up. "Just put it in my hand, I don't know if it'll work, but I know what's the best bet."
Karyn balanced the stone on top of Jon's paw.
"All right. I wish my injury would heal itself in the next 2 seconds and if the bullet or any fragment of it is still inside of me that it would be gone.... Ahhh. Much better. It was important to ask that my injury would heal, I didn't want to simply ask not to have been injured because then I might have been changed to not remember anything even happening at all and not even know what was going on or to not even be here in the building. This thing can be very tricky and you have to be very careful with it. All right. I wish Sarah would come back to life, with no brain damage or any other injuries and with all her memories until the moment she died."
Sarah got up and looked around, but held her hands in the air as she faced Karyn.
"Sarah, are you fully restored?" Jon asked.
"I, I guess," Sarah answered.
"Do you remember what just happened?"
"I think, she just shot me."
"Right between the eyes," Karyn admitted.
"That's why you aren't even sure you were shot, you only lived a split second after she pulled the trigger," Jon said.
"Shit..." Sarah said.
"All right. There's something I need to check on. And maybe everything is fine. Or maybe it isn't."
"What's going on?" Sarah and Karyn almost said together, to be followed by a semi-unfriendly look between them.
"If everything's fine, it's nothing you need to worry about. So I don't want to tell you and maybe it won't matter."
Jon put the stone in her mouth and walked on all fours toward the corner in the hallway, around which was the bathroom. "Ern't hollow ee," Jon said, saying don't follow me. Sarah and Karyn stood back, Karyn looking at Sarah with hostility, Sarah looking back with sad acceptance that things weren't ideal.
Jon entered the bathroom.
Mr. Katt was still dead. Jon started crying. "...for him to have a young and healthy body right at the end of kittenhood that would live as long as Sarah does."
Jon dropped the stone to the bathroom's linoleum floor and put a paw on it. "I wish Mr. Katt would come back to life, with all his memories of both times he lived until the moment he died the second time, and for him to have a young and healthy body right at the end of kittenhood that is biologically immortal like mine and will not die even if Sarah does."
Mr. Katt's body remained limp and lifeless.
"She's alive again, if she's living again, he should be living again too, right? It's as long as she lives, that's what I originally asked for, and she's alive, right?! I wish you would tell me why this isn't working." Jon cried.
A new piece of paper appeared. Jon stood up on her back legs and was about to reach over and turn on the light so she could read it, when Karyn flipped it instead. Sarah and Karyn were both standing over her at this point. Sarah was quietly crying. The paper said "Your wish was that he would be brought back to a body that would live as long as Sarah did. When the condition of Sarah no longer living was met, his body ceased to live. The condition of Sarah ceasing to live has still been met even if she lives again. His body lived as long as she did and ceased to live when she ceased to live. You also can't wish him to be brought back to a different body because he was wished to be brought back to that body."
"Now listen here you draconian, disciplinarian, piece of frozen lava," Jon said, holding back tears. "I don't care how you do it, but you just do it. I don't see how it contradicts him ceasing to live for him to resume living anyway, if Sarah ceased to live and then resumed living. This cat, this life, may not seem to be so important to you, but I say he carries the weight of the world. I don't care how you do it, I don't care what excuses you use, but do it somehow, you hear me? I wish you would break your rule and bring him back, just this once, you hear me?"
1600 years earlier:
"The weight of this power should be felt by those who would thoughtlessly think to use it. I wish," the priest of Itzamna began (translated from Mayan), "that you would never again grant wishes to undo or contradict previously granted wishes, except one single time, just one time, when it's very, very important."
1600 years later again:
"Just this once," the words appeared on the paper.
Mr. Katt's eyes opened.
Jon cried in triumph and relief and joy, as Sarah hugged around her, while Karyn couldn't help but blink out a tear from each eye either.
They soon quieted down and backed away, as Mr. Katt began growing.
"I wish, you would indicate what the heck is going on now," Jon asked, her paw on the stone. New words appeared on the paper.
"like mine" the paper said.
"What does that me... I wish you would indicate what does that mean?" Jon asked in confusion.
"a young and healthy body right at the end of kittenhood that is biologically immortal like mine", the paper elaborated.
"oh," Jon said.
"I think I'm going to need a bigger food bowl for Mr. Katt," Sarah said.
"BIG kitty," Karyn said.
"Meowww," the 160 pound Mr. Katt said happily, butting his head against Sarah's upper thigh, knocking her off her feet. Sarah fell painfully to the floor, but was too happy to care.
