He ran back to his room to call Karyn.
"What's wrong?" Karyn asked. "You never call me this early."
"Mikey is gone...It's like he's been erased."
"Who? You haven't been using you know what to erase people, have you?"
"No," Jon insisted. "I know this sounds crazy..."
"Crazier than you having an object that grants wishes?" Karyn said. "Makes it hard to know what's real anymore..." She paused. "Who's Mikey?"
"My brother."
"You have a sister...Zoe."
"No, not her. I had a younger brother too. These weird guys came in...like robots...they took Mikey and everything about him out of the house. He's missing from all the pictures, you don't remember him..."
Karyn cursed. "I'm really sorry Jon...but...what did you wish for? Maybe there's a loophole."
"Nothing...I mean....earlier I accidentally wished something interesting would happen...but...nothing happened."
"Until some guys came and erased your brother," Karyn said. "I mean...that has to be it."
"I can't believe I blurted out something so stupid."
"You mean like my stupid wish?" Karyn reminded him. "I still can't get used to these things...at least the wish changed all my clothes to match or I'd be in serious trouble. But mine was really specific...maybe yours was vague enough we can fix it."
"I tried wishing Mikey back. Nothing. I tried wishing I knew what happened...nothing."
"So, you can't contradict the original wish...but you don't know what it is...so, maybe we just keep trying stuff until it works?"
Jon sighed... "It can't make anything worse, can it?"
