Wishing for Hell
Daria Moore
Copyright 2010 by Daria Moore
Wishing for hell
Introduction on That person
If you had the ability to get what you wanted what would you ask for? Money? Power? Strength? Or something more dangerous?
It takes one person to have the possibility to change the whole world, for things to break down. This time, it’s a girl. This girl, there is one in every school. She is the exact opposite of most girls you would talk to who are popular, or at least take care of their appearance, and have clothes that are more for revealing than hiding.
The girl, she wears baggy shirts and V-neck sweaters with form-less jeans that usually have bulging pockets that contain a few quarters (for the Muni), her monthly pass (for the Caltrain), a phone (that she didn’t want but had to get anyway) and an I-pod (with music that only she likes). Her hair is simple, nothing elaborate or even slightly out of the norm. It’s a simple pony-tail that falls limply down her back or short. To add to this, That girl wears glasses.
That girl doesn’t have friends; she only has people she knows. Because friends imply that she must talk to them and she has other more interesting things to do. You’d find her with her nose in a book or her computer more often than not. She thinks of friends just as an object that might be useful so that she isn’t alone in assemblies but nothing more. She doesn’t have exceptionally good grades or exceptionally bad ones. She just has grades.
Now That girl is dangerous. Because she seems like part of the furniture to most people, they don’t pay attention to her but she pays attention to them. She listens to their conversations attentively, keeping tabs of what you said you thought and compares them when you say otherwise. She has very strong opinions but never says them aloud. She is the type of person who couldn’t place a name on the class pictures but could say which person is shallow, smart or plain stupid. When she does talk to people, she has a lot of stories about people but none about her. You think you know her but all you know is her family, not her. Never her. She knows more about you than you would think.
She despises you, all of you who think of fashion and outings. But she’s always smart about it. She doesn’t tell you to “shut up” when you talk next to her during class. She doesn’t push you when you’re leaning on her locker. She waits for her time. And her time has come.
What she did
The girl left the school, ignored by everyone and wanting to be ignored. She walked to the Muni station quickly. Suddenly, she stopped. Someone was playing the violin. Perhaps a street-player but there was no such person in sight. Actually, everyone in sight was unmoving, still as a statue. A leaf stopped a few inches from the ground. It was unnaturally calm, eerie, as if the Earth stood still and time with it. But the violin kept playing and That girl found its source. Standing on a gate, a girl with a violin. She wore a black coat with silver buttons that covered her from head to toe and a scythe like the one death must use balanced on its blade next to her. Her face was rather normal, as were her hair. She was of the That girl kind. She even had the glasses. They slid on the tip of her nose and she stopped playing to push them up with one finger. That girl stared at the black-clad girl.
“That’s very cliché” she said, pointing at the violin.
“I was right, you are our kind.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a no one”
“Let me rephrase: what are you?”
“A spiritual being. The remnant of a human. Of one of your kind.”
“Oh, that explains a lot” the girl said, her voice dripping with sarcasm “since when do spiritual beings play the violin?”
“Since it’s a hobby of mine. When I was alive. I mean, human. I mean, not like this. Here, take this.”
She gave over a small white card.
“Write a wish on it and it will come true.”
“One wish? Just like that?” That girl asked skeptically.
“No. As many wishes as you want.”
“There has to be strings attached somewhere.”
“Right. As long as you stay one of us…”
“One of us?”
“Don’t interrupt me. That means, as long as you stay yourself, you will have as many wishes as you want. But the instant you become one of them, the other people, or wish a wish undone, however partially, you will become like me, a spiritual being, un-human. For every person that may die because of your wishes, I collect his soul. When I have a hundred, I will leave this cursed existence. But that’s none of your concerns. Mind that card. And be careful what you wish for.”
The girl vanished and the world started moving again. That girl clutched the card in her hand. That girl could just have clutched the world in her hand.
This card might not have done much harm in the hands of one of those beautiful bubble-heads that pollute the school grounds but there was a world of difference between the bubble-heads and That girl. That girl is not, by any extension of the word, pretty or even attractive. And That girl is not a bubble-head. More likely, she will know what happens in the heads of others even though she possesses no mind-reading super-power. The only power she may possess would be the ability to blend so totally in her surroundings that people forget she exists. Proof is, why do you think That girl has no name? Look around you. You may find her, the That girl. You don’t know her name or her story. As you don’t know the story of the furniture around you. She is just That girl.
That girl flipped over the card, making it walk between her fingers. What to do with it? People would kill for something like this so she wouldn’t talk about it. Not that she would talk about it, even if it weren’t dangerous. She didn’t need it in particular. But then she remembered something. And she began to plan. Because she is That girl, no one would think of her. She could cause utter chaos. She smiled at the thought. She took out a pen and wrote on the card.
Later, at around eight at night, she realized that the wish had disappeared. It could have disappeared hours ago because she hadn’t been paying attention. She took out her pen and wrote I wish I knew what has happened. The card animated itself as if she were watching a tiny TV.
At school, there were three girls. You have that type of girls in your school; the worst best friend type. On Mondays they’re best friends, on Tuesdays they dislike each other, on Wednesday they hate each other, on Thursday they have a huge public argument, on Friday they don’t speak to each other and it starts all over again the following week. The girls were named Camilla, Darcy and Lisa. It was a Monday so they were still friends and came out of class together. Lisa was the first to realize that something was wrong.
“Where is everybody?”
Nobody came out of class behind them. At the same time, all three of their phones rang. They pulled it out and all had an identical message on the screen: State your wish.
“What is this?”
“Is this some kind of prank?”
“I’ll try” Darcy said suddenly.
“Maybe you shouldn’t” said Camilla “we don’t know what it is.”
“And I saw this horrible movie…” added Lisa only to be interrupted by Camilla.
“It may be dangerous. Like some pervert or something.”
“Yeah, it was in this movie where…”
“Maybe some guy is listening to what you’ll say and….”
“And in the movie…” Lisa said louder.
“Will you shut up!” snapped Darcy “I wish you’d leave me alone!”
Her phone buzzed and a new message appeared on the screen: Your wish will be granted. The windows turned black as if it were night.
“What’s happening?” shrieked Camilla.
The ground trembled and started breaking up under their feet as parts of the roof came crashing down. A chasm appeared between the three girls, trapping Lisa and Camilla on one side and Darcy on the other.
“It’s the wish!” screamed Lisa, falling on all fours. She reached for her phone but it was out of reach, dropped on the floor when the trembling started.
Camilla looked at her phone which she had miraculously held on too.
“I wish Darcy’s wish hadn’t happen” Camilla spat into her phone as the rest of the ceiling came crashing down.
Suddenly the ground was whole again and it was bright and sunny outside and other students passed them. They were standing up again, trembling but alive and unharmed.
“That was horrible” whispered Darcy.
“So it wasn’t a hallucination?”
“Then we’re all sick or high” said Lisa “It’s all right now. I think.”
“Yeah. I’m really sorry” muttered Darcy.
“Don’t worry.” Camilla said in a wavering voice “never answer weird text messages, right?”
The three girls walked on, clinging to each other. At the school stairs, Lisa stopped abruptly, causing the others to look at her wearily.
“I forgot something in my locker, I’ll be right there. Wait for me.”
She rushed back up the hallway but when she
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