Night had fallen on Lakeview and it was nearing midnight. Most of the town, apart from the downtown strip where the nightlife was concentrated, had turned in, but nevertheless there was a figure dashing towards Theo Guest Park at that very moment. If anyone had been able to make him out in the dark they may have recognized him as Jon Gibson, a student at Lakeview Academy, wearing a green Milwaukee Bucks jacket, basketball shorts and Nikes. The young man slowed as he arrived at the entrance to the mid-sized municipal park, and began looking around for something as he walked.
It had been a bizarre afternoon and night for the original Karyn Black, who was the consciousness within Jon Gibson's body. She hadn't had much time to investigate or even process the effects of her accidental wish before Deshawn arrived and she found herself having to bluff through things as well as she could. She knew Deshawn vaguely, the lanky African-American boy was the vice captain of the basketball team and generally stood out for being much less of a dick than the actual captain, Steve Farber. She'd never had a conversation longer than half a minute with the guy, and was pretty sure Jon hadn't either, but when he arrived at the Gibsons he acted as though he and Jon were old friends and Karyn had just sort of had to roll with it.
They ended up hanging out in the Gibson's basement, watching television while Deshawn complained about Steve, and Karyn occasionally chiming in with little noises of agreement when it seemed like she was supposed to say something. It wasn't hard, she didn't like Steve very much at all anyway, but there were a lot of specifics lost on her. The basement was the same unfinished one she remembered at the Gibson house, but it looked like a little hangout spot had been made with a tv, an old couch, and an x-box, plus a set of dumbells she couldn't imagine Jon-boy owning before the world went screwy.
From listening to Deshawn and the brief observations she was able to make, she figured out that reality had somehow shifted to make Jon a member of the basketball team. That was the most obvious major change, and accounted for several of the smaller ones like a friendship with Deshawn, the weights, or the jersey she'd spotted, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out why. It was easy enough to see how her wish could have been interpreted to switch her into Jon's body and him into her's, so even if she was freaking out a little bit about the switch, she understood what happened there. What she didn't get was where Jon had gone in her original body, or why the wish would have changed Jon's life at all.
Eventually she saw what, or rather who, she was looking for. Standing beneath a street light by the park's central fountain was her old body. She seemed to catch sight of her body before the girl caught sight of her, and she had the bizarre experience of seeing her body from the outside, piloted by someone who wasn't her. The red head tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear before taking her phone out of the pocket to check it, before glancing about and catching sight of Karyn, and giving her a little wave.
As she walked over, she couldn't help but realize that bizarro Karyn also wasn't a one to one match with how Karyn had been before the wish, in the same way the Jon body she was in was slightly different. For one, the girl wasn't wearing the bulky green hoodie Karyn basically lived in, particularly in the colder months. Instead she was wearing an elegant looking rose colored single breasted peacoat Karyn was pretty sure she hadn't owned before the wish. Even odder, it was obvious the girl was wearing a relatively short dress or skirt under the coat, considering her bare legs; Karyn technically owned dresses, if only because her mother foisted them upon her, and usually only wore them for things like weddings. Finally, as she finished closing the distance with bizarro Karyn, it looked like the girl had used a curling iron to give her scarlet tresses a bit more wave, and had on a light coating of makeup including lipstick, another thing Karyn would only ever bother with on formal occasions.
"Jon?" Karyn asked hesitantly.
The girl gave a little shrug, "Kind of. Are you.... Karyn?"
"Who else would I be?" Karyn replied, "that stupid rock flashed and suddenly we switched bodies. Plus reality seems to have gone all screwy; I just spent all afternoon with Wilkes who's like your best guy friend now. I'm guessing you suddenly flipped into my body with a couple weird changes too?" That was her best explanation for the clothing differences, reality must have made a few little shifts around her life too.
Mirror Karyn gave her a weak smile, "again not exactly. I was Jon Gibson, but I haven't been for a really long time."
Karyn blinked in confusion, "what do you mean a really long time? It's been like six hours, seven tops."
Jon shook her head, "Karyn, when you wished I'd live your life, that's exactly what it did, sending me back in time to the day I was born. I've been Karyn Black for 16 years."
