Fantasy The Three Wishes

[Lotus]

Laney nodded, she somewhat understood the light at the end of the long dark terrible tunnel that you can't quite see yet mentality. It felt like that while she was in her wheelchair for eight months. Her legs were the most important part of her, and while one of them was injured it felt like the world was ending. Crutches weren't an option because of her arm injury to go along with it, so the only other option was an motorized wheel chair, oh wait her mother called it an 'automated movement assistant'. She tilted her head to the side and took a deep breath, as she was somehow hoping that it would bring up the courage she needed. "Do you have any idea how? To get out, I mean. I assume you have tried a few ways already." She wondered if it was just darkness in there like she had seen before, she pondered bringing up the question but didn't think that it would be a productive one. Her fingers drifted down to her dress bottom as she played with the hem.

A bright idea shot into her mind as her grey eyes lit up with excitement. "What about if I tried wishing you out? Or, what if I tried breakin... Never mind that might just kill you." The light faded from her eyes as that last idea was a dumb one, but she just couldn't seem to help herself. Laney had gone into hard thinking mode and there wasn't really a filter on her mouth when she was in that mode, in the past she had said some pretty terrible things. When she got an idea, she usually tried to put everything she had at it, and this was the new focus of her life. She felt a tad responsible, but also wondered, had that man known about Samir? Did he try to pawn the thing, sorry, cursed mirror object with a person inside, off onto her because he didn't want to deal with it anymore? Laney couldn't bring herself to think that, he seemed like such a nice old man. Looks and first impressions were always a weak point of hers, she didn't really sense the bad in people until they did her wrong, and sometimes she never did. "Did, did that old man know you were in there? The one who let me take it, well, you home?"

 

[NekoQueen49]

Samir brightened considerably with Laney's next line of thought. "Wishing me out? What a great idea!" No one had been willing to try before, including the man from the shop, Mikhail. They were all too afraid of the consequences to try. Samir never thought that Laney would be willing to be the one to try right off the bat. He was suddenly very grateful towards her for her genuine offer, but didn't dare let it show through.

At the mention of Mikhail, Samir's face soured yet again. "Oh him? He brought me here because my father couldn't stand the guilt of keeping me home. So Mikhail brought me to America in the hopes of hiding me away. They knew that I wanted to get out but they didn't dare try the direct method of a wish. A wish has consequences. So they tried other ways, which didn't work, before giving up and covering me up when I wouldn't have it."

 

[Lotus]

Laney was sad to hear the story about his father. He also seemed upset about the shop keeper, Mikhail, but she somewhat understood. She didn't have the best relationship with her mom either. Her dad wasn't there in the picture he just the name on the giant child support check she got every month.

The fact that nobody else wanted to try wishing Samir out of the mirror also concerned her a bit but she put that fear aside. Something inside her told her this was the right thing to do, something urged her to save him. Laney coudln't put a finger on where this feeling came from, she just had to try. The girl cracked her knuckles and smiled. "So, before I make some terrible life choice, what sort of other things did they try?"

 

[NekoQueen49]

Samir tilted his head, trying to fully recall the details. "Well if I'm going to be honest, it was a long time ago when they were actually trying... I remember that they researched into the curse but didn't find out much about it. All that's known was that it originated in a shrine to Isis, the goddess of magic and that it grants wishes with a drawback. As you already knew. But the price it charges changes without reason so no one will ever know what making a wish will do to you."

Samir didn't know why he was being so honest with her. Telling her all this would only serve to push her away from wishing him out of this situation. He grew angry with himself but he couldn't help it. Something about Laney compelled him to tell her. About all of it. Not about the pain, no, but the rest of the truth. Of the risk. Maybe a part of him wanted to save her from it? Samir didn't know. No matter his thoughts now, he continued on. But thankfully it was on an easier topic.

"They tried spells, I remember that. They tried breaking my mirror," Samir nodded at Laney due to her earlier suggestion of it. Then again, maybe the topic change wasn't as easy as he thought. "It was unbreakable, no matter what they tried."

 

[Lotus]

As she had thought, they had tried things like that before and it didn't seem like they got much of anywhere with them. They already tried breaking the mirror, so why not have some fun with it? "Okay, I wanna try!" Laney gleefully rummaged through her closet for a high heeled shoe. She emerged from the closet with a shiny black three inch heel that she had worn to her mother's funeral. Her fingers gripped the top as she flung it forward directly at the mirror. Like super titanium, the shoe just bounced off onto the floor, and Laney's look of amazement was pure gold. "Again!", she squealed as ran off to go find another item to try to break the unbreakable mirror with. She stumbled into the kitchen pulling every drawer open in hopes of finding something with a little more wow factor than just a simple high heeled shoe. She looked at the knife for a few seconds before turning to the drawer by the fridge. "I got it." Her hands held a large, stainless steel meat tenderizing hammer. This was not an average sized hammer, it was given to her by a friend who worked at a meat processing facility. Each part of the hammer's head was at least as large as both her fists put together. If this didn't do something, she didn't know what else she had to try to break the thing. Either way, Laney quite enjoyed this part of the 'creative process' that Samir and her were going through. She entered the room with the hammer behind her back and walked up to the mirror. She held on to the handle tightly and bent her knees as she swung with all of her force at the mirror.

Laney's eyes saddened as she set the meat hammer on the top of her desk. The result was the same, nothing happened but a slight shake of the wall and the mirror denting the sheet rock it was in front of. "Well, you can't just tell me it is unbreakable and not expect me to at leas try something." A smile appeared once again onto her face as she turned to face the mirror and inspect the damage done to the wall behind it. "I think I can fix that later, just needs some mud, putty and a new coat of paint and it should be good as new." The girl began to laugh as she had just had so much fun trying for something that couldn't be done. Her thoughts swapped to the only thing she knew she could do for him, make that wish. What would the price be? Samir told her that it was changing, and might not be a good thing. The worst case would be death, that would be no fun and Laney decided she really hoped that wasn't going to be an outcome. She knew her thoughts were nice but she should include her partner in the conversation. "Death, you taking over my body like in the movies, me getting trapped in there instead of you, you dying when you get out.." She let her thoughts speak for themselves like she normally did, the fear got to her, but talking to him made it go away. "Do I need to word it in any special way, or should I just go for it?"

 

[NekoQueen49]

Samir looked vaguely annoyed when Laney began rummaging through her closet. He wondered if she was going to get a change of clothes for some inane reason but instead presented a single shoe. The dark skinned boy raised an eyebrow. It was then that the girl threw it at him, aimed right for his head. Samir dodged it for no real reason and it bounced off onto the carpeted floor. "Really? We're doing this?"

Apparently Laney didn't catch his put-upon tone as she squealed and run off. Though childish, Samir couldn't help but be amused despite how he acted towards her. But, were people always this odd? He couldn't recall. However when Laney returned with a huge meat cleaver in hand, Samir decided it must be Laney alone. The boy softly laughed. This wasn't going to end well, he knew. It slammed against his chest, causing him to feel phantom pains. Or were those real pains? Samir was never able to tell the difference as the pain was gone the instant the hammer was moved away.

He grunted at Laney's comments, crossing his arms of the chest that was just struck and stared at her question. Samir frowned. "You don't have to, you know. You can think over it before making the wish. I know how much of a risk you'll be taking."

 

[Lotus]

Risks, the push and pull of life. The give and take, risk and reward factor of anything being alive. Anything from how risky a larger prey is to take down alone and how sure you are that things will go in your favor. "You know huh?", she asked Samir with a smile. There was no stopping her. The descision had already been weighed but her mind kept pulling at her to stop and think. Think about why two others had not taken the risk, to consider Samir was a bad person or not as he seemed. The risk factor in doing this was too high. Risks fail a lot of the time, most of the time the gamble is not worth it. An example of this was Laney's uncle's casino. The house won more than the player, people keep risking money everyday. All of those examples and factors did not matter to the girl. She wanted only one thing, to take a risk and try.

Her words were simple and not too well thought out. "Magic mirror thing? I wish Samir out of the mirror in a way that lets me keep living life how I am now, does not incapacitate me, or harm either one of us." The words she spoke seemed to have a ring to them. Nothing happened, Laney though it would be some sort of magical show to be held. She was wrong. Laney yawned and turned and flopped onto the bed. She was very tired for some reason and the second she hit the bed had fallen into a deep sleep. Her dreams were vivid. She thought she saw Samir and the events leading up to him in the mirror.

 

[NekoQueen49]

It was weird, finally having his greatest desire fulfilled after all this time. Almost anticlimatic in how simple of a solution it was. If it worked at all, that is. It felt like it was working. When Laney said her wish, a dark fog drifted over Samir and a tug pulled at his navel, almost giving him a stomachache.

When Samir blinked open his eyes, he wasn't in Laney's room. Instead he found himself in front of the mirror that he had been stuck in, back to its original size and inside of his father's office. Where he first made the wish. Where he first found the letters that Samir's mother had been sending his father.

Samir had never met his mother. Before those letters, he had thought she had been dead. Or that had been what his father had told him. He looked up from the drawer to see a dark haired woman in front of him. She was small and almost ghost like in a white dress. Samir vaguely recognized her but the memory evaded him as his father burst through the door behind her. Seeing Samir at his desk, papers and a mirror laid on the dull metal, the dark skinned man halted. Samir didn't say anything, just took in his gruff bearded face with cold brown eyes. "What did you do?" His father demanded in a tone that was just as freezing as his son's gaze.

Samir had a sense of deja vu but continued easily with the events that played out long ago. "What are these, Father?" He returned.

 

[Lotus]

Laney watched the scene in awe, seemingly able to see some of what was going on. She seemed stuck, unable to speak or move just sit there watching helplessly. She tried calling out, her mouth opened and the words came out but soundless. She tried to reach out for Samir, but nothing happened. She had hit a wall, her view was so limited, she wondered what was going on. A look of terror turned on her face as she turned her body to see nothing but darkness behind her. Was this a dream? Was this real? The poor girl didn't know and was too frightened to think things through all the way. All she could do was stare and watch from a distance, a close distance. She reached out her hand and was able to see the letters a little more clearly. She stared at them, and then at Samir's reaction to the woman. She didn't know what to do or say, was this the woman from those letters? The older man must have been his father, so that must mean the other is his mother. Logic was going to the wayside in her head as she spun around in a circle, testing out her slight movement. The scene looked so real, like the emotions ran so high that it was all about to come to a terrible breaking point. She tried saying a few other things, some just nonsense things but they didn't actually come out with sound either. Her mind wondered why she was here, what she was witnessing and how she had gotten here. "Samir!", she called out. The only word that seemed to produce sound after trying so many others. She didn't know if he could even hear her, if this was real or going back in time, if she was really there or it was just a dream.

 

[NekoQueen49]

Samir barely heard his father's answer of, "That is none of your business-" when he thought he heard his name. The man continued in a lecture but even before, the young man barely stopped to listen. Before, he had flung the papers off of the desk and screamed for answers.

But now, now he looked at his new companion. "Laney?" He called as finally remembered her name. What was going on? Was this all a dream? He felt his head spin. Or maybe that was the room. The stone walls surrounding them slanted and turned, doubling and spinning. The mirror flashed a light, dragging the two back into it.

Samir's back hit the hard floor, his breath leaving him. His head spun at the confusion that Laney's wish had caused. Even so, he found himself snapping up into a sitting position. Once again he was surrounded by the warmth of Laney's bedroom. It contrasted heavily with the chill of his father's office, where he could have sworn he just been. Was that all just a dream? After coming back from being stuck in a mirror it was hard to tell what was reality and what was fiction.

 

[Lotus]

Laney couldn't quite seem to break her sleep. She was no longer in the space that she was, that memory, that disrupted past. She didn't understand what had happened or why she had seen that but it was still vivid in her mind. She tossed and turned on the bed, flipping from one side to another. She couldn't open her eyes, as much as she tried they just wouldn't open. Her hands grabbed onto her eye lids and tugged. Still, even with forced movement they wouldn't open. Something was terribly wrong but she couldn't figure out what it was. It was dark in her dream, or was it a dream? She was awake but her eyes were not open. It was like her room in the darkness, she could see the feint figure of the mirror outlined in the corner but that was the only thing she could make out. "Samir?", she called out in desperation. In the back of her mind, she knew that it wasn't going to do anything, he could only hear her. He wouldn't be able to do anything or help her, he couldn't open her eyes or shake her awake. All he could do, if that was yell back a response. Why was everything so dark, why could she not open her eyes?

Her hands grabbed around her, feeling only her quilt. "Help!", she cried out in a panic. She had sworn that she had the lights on when she had gotten home, when the two begun this crazy whatever you would call this interaction. Laney reached for her face and threw her glasses to the side of the bed. Her knuckles forced their way into the corners of her eyes and even that wasn't enough to get her to open her eyes. The panic wasn't helping, she needed to take a deep breath in, and so she did. Laney exhaled for five seconds, then took a few more deep breathing cycles before trying once again to open her eyes. After repeating the calming down process a few more times, she was able to see the pattern on the sheets. She looked up to the ceiling and then glanced over to the mirror. There was one problem, Samir was no longer looking back at her from it.

 

[NekoQueen49]

Hearing Laney's cries, Samir picking himself in panic. Fear came over him. What had been taken from her? She wasn't in the mirror because her voice was coming from the bed. So what was it? She thrashed around on the bed, Samir posed over her to catch her in case she were to injure herself. She rubbed at her eyes, seemingly unable to get thrm to open. Was her sight taken from her? Samir gulped when she took deep breaths. How could he live his guilt down if she were to become blind?

He almost breathed a sigh of relief if he found that that wasn't the case. "Laney?" Samir called softly. "Are you alright?"

 

[Lotus]

Laney looked back at the mirror and felt like something was squeezing her tightly. She felt almost like she was being crushed by a snake. Hey eyes even has the same fire of panic as the prey of snakes do before their time. After a few moments the feeling had passed and she felt like nothing had happened. Laney heard the voice of Samir and looked at where it had come from. The voice was no longer in the mirror, but next to her. Her eyes glimmered and a large smile crept across her face. She had done it, she had wished him out. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary, besides the crippling pain she had felt and the problem with her vision. Those were both over and done with, so Laney did not think they were her punsihment. The type of butterfly effect Samir warned about had to be more severe than temporary discomfort.

Those thoughts put aside, Laneyturned to Samir and stared at him for a moment. "So, how are you feeling?", she inquired with a cheery tone. This moment was not about her, it was about him. It was about freedom and the hopefully new life Samir could have, if the wish didn't go teribly wrong. Her wording was not the best choice, no but it seemed to do the job. He was able to speak to her. Something had gone corectly. Laney started to wonder how he was doing and what his limitations were. " Feel any different? Missing any part of you?"