Jon’s finger hovered over the mouse. The webpage had finished loading, and in the middle of the screen was a small, grainy photograph.
The image was simple—almost ordinary—but somehow that made it more unsettling. A boy of maybe ten years stood in front of a whitewashed farmhouse with peeling paint. His denim overalls were faded and patched, one strap hanging loose as if it had been repaired too many times. He wasn’t wearing a shirt beneath them, just skin: lean shoulders browned by the sun, a wiry torso that spoke of hours spent outside. His blond hair spilled all the way down his back, far too long for a boy his age, shining almost gold in the sunlight.
And his expression—Jon couldn’t tear his eyes away. The boy stuck his tongue out and flashed a sloppy peace sign with both hands, grin stretched wide across a round, angelic face. Mischief and innocence fused together.
The farmhouse loomed in the background, the photograph cropped so that part of the front porch and a slanting roofline showed.
Jon felt a lurch in his gut. This was the picture. This was the life the wish had chosen for him.
He didn’t even have time to call out in shock. His breath caught, his vision tunneled, and then—
Blackness.
It wasn’t just the kind of darkness you got when you closed your eyes. It was total erasure, the sensation of being pulled through a gap between one world and another. His body vanished; his sense of self became a drifting thread, stretched thin, tugged hard. For one nauseating instant he thought he was going to dissolve altogether.
And then he fell.
Not literally—there was no impact, no ground rushing up to meet him—but suddenly the blackness opened like a curtain and light poured in. The air smelled sharp with cut grass and dust, rich with the tang of manure and hay. Wind brushed against his face, soft but carrying the weight of open space. He blinked against the brightness and found himself outside.
No city blocks. No schoolyard walls. Just a farmhouse. The farmhouse. The same sagging porch and weather-beaten siding from the picture, right there in front of him.
And his body—
Jon staggered a step, his knees nearly buckling. His center of gravity was wrong, his limbs too light. He glanced down and froze.
His arms were bare, brown from the sun but thinner than his own had ever been. His shoulders stuck out like fragile bones beneath skin, narrow and sloping. His stomach was flat, tight in the way of a boy who spends his days running fields and climbing fences. And his clothes—
Dungarees. Denim, stiff with dirt and wear, straps biting into his shoulders. No shirt beneath them, just the rough scratch of fabric against bare skin. His chest tingled in the breeze.
But what stopped him cold was the weight on his neck. Something brushing down his back. He reached up with small fingers, and they tangled in hair—long, soft, flowing all the way past his shoulder blades. He yanked a strand into view. Blond. Shining. Exactly like in the photograph.
A high, startled laugh caught in his throat. “What the hell—”
“aaa!”
The voice came from behind the camera’s eye. Jon turned.
Standing there was a man in his forties, rugged in a way no suburban father could ever fake. His arms were thick with muscle, veins standing out like cords. His face was tanned and weathered, jaw sharp beneath a day’s stubble. He wore a simple plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, heavy boots coated in dust. In his hands—large, strong hands—was an old digital camera, the kind you’d buy at a chain store back in the early 2000s.
The sight should have been comforting. Ordinary. But Jon felt the bottom of his stomach drop.
Because he knew who that was.
Karyn.
Or rather, Karyn wearing someone else’s life. The wish had dragged her here too, into the role of the father? in the photograph. She didn’t look like herself—there was no trace of her red hair, her green sweater, her lopsided grin. But the way the man was staring at his hands, blinking as though he’d never held a camera before, the way his lips pressed together in bewilderment—that was Karyn. He’d have recognized her anywhere.
She lifted her gaze to him, eyes widening. Her mouth opened. “What the—”
Jon cut her off, smugness and there who they where and what has happend there in clamping down on his chest. If anyone else was watching—if this world believed they were father and son—then he desided he had to play along... maybe have some fun.
The words tumbled out before he could second-guess them. He forced a grin, stuck out his tongue like in the picture, and called:
“Hey, Pa! How’d the pic come out?”
For a heartbeat, silence. Just the wind rustling through tall grass, the distant cluck of hens.
Then he saw it—Karyn’s face, pale beneath its sun-weathered disguise, eyes darting from the camera to his body and back again. She looked like someone who’d woken up mid-dream and couldn’t find the edges.
Jon couldn’t hold it in. The absurdity of it all, his overalls now, his now long hair, the farmhouse, the fact that his best friend was suddenly a grown man pointing a camera at him—bubbled up in his chest until it broke free. He doubled over, laughter spilling out, sharp and uncontrollable.
It was much more loader and sounder much more like a kids happy laughter. It shock him but also made him feel good with this could be fun and the body felt full of energy, looking at Karyn now this boy he is dad, with she was still in disbelief and some how looking on her now mans face, like it was all tangled together. but Jon just smiled, His stomach hurt, his ribs shook, but he couldn’t stop. The more he laughed, the more surreal it felt, as if every sound confirmed that yes, this was real, this was happening.
And through it all, “Pa”—rugged, strong, utterly bewildered—stared at him with that pale, stricken face.
Jon wiped his eyes, still grinning, still gasping between chuckles. “Oh, man. You should see yourself.”
The farmhouse loomed behind him. The fields stretched out forever. And the wishing stone—wherever it was—hadn’t lied.
This was his life now. At least for the next twenty-four hours.
