Jon was desperate now, gripping the stone so tightly his knuckles went white.
"I wish I was back to my sixteen-year-old self," he muttered, teeth clenched.
Nothing happened. Again.
"I wish I was sixteen!" he barked louder, voice cracking in that now-young pitch that didn’t even sound like him anymore. Still, the stone stayed inert, warm but unyielding. Jon’s breath hitched. He looked down at himself — this scrawny eight-year-old body in the damn uniform that fit too well, even hanging slightly loose on his thin frame. He felt ridiculous. Helpless. On the edge of tears.
Across from him, Karyn hadn’t moved. She was still staring at him, but her eyes had widened with something more than surprise. There was confusion there. And unease.
"What?" Jon snapped, his voice too shrill to sound threatening. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You... you don't look like you," she said slowly, as if afraid the wrong word might make him shatter. "Not even like how you looked at eight. I knew you back then. You were this gawky little thing with a bowl cut and crooked teeth. But now..."
She gestured, speechless for a second, then: "You look like a model. I mean—perfect skin, that ridiculous haircut—what even is that? Some kind of TV-star mullet? And your voice is different. You don’t even sound like you grew up here."
Jon blinked. “What the hell are you talking abou—?”
Karyn lunged and snatched the stone from his small hand before he could react.
“Hey!” he yelped, scrambling toward her. “Give that back! I need it to fix this!” His tone was less commanding than he wanted — it came out sounding like a bratty kid being told screen time was over.
"No," Karyn said firmly, backing up. “You’re not thinking straight. You’re desperate, Jon. That thing twists wishes, and you're not in the right mindset right now. You could make it worse. For you. For me. Hell, maybe for everyone.”
Jon glared up at her, arms crossed over his too-thin chest, his face flushed with fury and shame. “I’m not some kid who—”
“Actually, yeah, you kind of are.” Her voice softened, but her grip on the box didn’t. “Go look in a mirror. I don’t think you realize what you even look like right now.”
He hesitated, halfway to another outburst, but curiosity — and dread — won out. He turned and jogged to the restroom across the hallway, sneakers squeaking slightly on the linoleum floor.
A moment later, she heard his voice from inside:
“What the hell—?!”
“Language, young man,” Karyn called after him, half-joking.
“Fuck off!” Jon yelled back, stomping out a moment later. He folded his small arms again and glared. “Seriously. What the hell is this? I look like some... child actor from a cereal commercial.”
He wasn’t wrong. The boy standing there didn’t just look young — he looked designed. Like someone had taken a sketch of a “perfect kid” and built it from scratch. Clean, tanned skin, no blemishes, not even a scar. Eyes just a bit too vivid. Hair thick and flowing in a modern cut that no eight-year-old had naturally. Nothing about it said Jon, except maybe the scowl.
He looked down at his thin arms, then up again. He was starting to breathe more evenly now, the panic softening into bitter acceptance. “So... how the hell do I fix this?”
Karyn was quiet a moment. “Good question,” she said finally. “Right now? I don’t know. But standing here isn’t helping, and I’m not taking that rock out again until we’ve calmed down and thought it through.”
Jon nodded. Reluctantly.
“We’ll go to your house,” she said. “I’ll call in sick for both of us. Say we got food poisoning or something. We need time. And I don’t trust that thing while it’s acting up.”
She tucked the box firmly into her backpack and gave him a tight-lipped smile. “C’mon, kiddo.”
He gave her a look.
She smirked. “Kidding.”
Mostly.
