Kyleigh's Turn

Kyleigh appeared back in her room and freaked out. She had just been in Libby's antique shop, and then-

Her phone buzzing distracted her. Looking at it, she saw a text from Samantha.

Sam: wtf i jst appeared back in my room wbus

Kyleigh calmed down a little bit. She wasn't going crazy. That was something that had really happened.

Ky: im home 2. u ok?

Waiting for a response, she sighed as she looked around her room. Her walls were plastered with posters and both a speed limit sign and a no trespassing sign, neither of which had been obtained legally. On her dresser was a neat stack of documents, one of her hobbies. They were each a copy of a letter from her dad. He was a very famous legislator, and thought that 'writing on paper is so much more sincere than through the internet.' Kyleigh only even glanced at the letters because she found it comedic: every single letter had some version of the phrases 'you can't keep breaking the rules at school,' 'that person didn't do anything wrong to you,' and 'this is the last time I'm going to bail you out.'

It was never the last time, though. Her dad doted on her to no end, because he felt guilty that he was never home. He would never let her get into any trouble for the bullying and blatant cheating she did at school. She even had a whiteboard above her desk where she kept a tally of the number of students she and her friends had made switch schools, and kept a sticker on each of the letters her dad sent about them.

Kyleigh flipped through social media until another response came through.

Sam: that sux. im fine except i keep tripping over all the bullshit the freak left at my place

Ky: i still cant she moved in wth u lmao

Kyleigh giggled to herself before getting up and booting up her computer. She loaded up her favorite game, Rust, and spent an hour loading into random people's worlds. Choosing only servers that requested nice behaviour, she spent her time killing people as much as possible. She loved it, especially those that begged her not to. The fact that some of these people had worked for hundreds of hours for their bases made her enjoy it that much more when she destroyed them.

Grinning as someone raged at her in Russian, Kyleigh sat back and ordered a pizza delivery on her phone. Samantha still hadn't responded yet. What was she doing?

The person kept raging on the mic, switching to broken english. "Why are you destroy? Don't be the mean!"

Kyleigh rolled her eyes as she aimed at the player. She didn't consider it being mean, it was just a part of the game. They should have protected their base better if they didn't want it to be destroyed.

When she tried to click her mouse, nothing happened. Her hand stopped moving. Kyleigh shook her hand out, blaming hand cramps, and tried again. Her finger wouldn't pull the trigger. Inspecting her mouse for flaws, she jumped when her phone dinged.

Sam: something really bad is happening to me i need help

Kyleigh stared at the message as she put two and two together. She had been cursed by that fucking bitch, Libby! Kyleigh was already furious at the girl, and now she was determined to destroy her, curse or not. If her dad had taught her anything, it was that any rules had loopholes that could be exploited.

She began to type out a response to Samantha, explaining what was happening as a small gust of wind blew her stack of letters over. Annoyed, she got up to close the window. But it was already closed.

A chill of fear shot through her. She slowly reached out and grabbed the guitar her dad had given her, holding it like a weapon. Steeling herself, she turned around with a loud yell.

Al'Rinda stood there, looking unimpressed. In her hands she held the letters her dad had written, though she had stopped reading them when Kyleigh had turned around screaming. After a moment of looking at the girl, Al'Rinda continued reading, finishing off the last few letters.

"You're quite the rebel, aren't you? Never doing what you're told. I'd almost respect it, if you weren't, you know, an absolute fucking asshole."

Kyleigh screamed again and swung the guitar. It broke in half across Al'Rinda's head as she didn't even flinch.

"Rude. Don't attack me."

Kyleigh froze midswing as her body stopped responding to her. Her control returned to her as she backed away from the genie.

"I'm kind of following a theme here, aren't I?" Al'Rinda mused as she read Kyleigh's whiteboard. "I come check in on you fucks, find out that wow, you're bigger assholes than I thought you were, and use something you've taken advantage of against you. It's kind of poetic. Do you like poetry, mortal?"

Kyleigh prostrated herself.

"Please, great Al'Rinda, I mean no harm. I can change! I-I'll listen to my dad! I'll stop what I've been doing! I can be better, if you let me! I'm remorseful! Please have mercy!"

She was shaking like a leaf as she lay there, trying not to move a muscle. Al'Rinda tapped her lips.

"Well, I've come all this way. It would be kind of a waste to just leave without doing anything..."

Her eyes caught the open computer game.

"Do you like games, mortal?"

"I-yes, whatever you want."

"Let's play a game. If I win, I will have my ****. If you win, I will change the way I have carried out Libby's wish. You will be able to do what you want, so long as it does not impact Libby in any way."

"...Which game do you want to play, great Al'Rinda?"

Kyleigh stopped shaking. She had played the games on her computer for hundreds of hours, and she was fairly confident that the genie hadn't left the lamp in thousands of years. There was no way she would ever lose to her.

"How about spot the difference?"

"Spot the difference?" Kyleigh was confused. "How would we play that?"

Al'Rinda smiled. "Simple. I will make a noticeable change to your room, and you have three guesses to tell me what it is. I'm going to confiscate your phone though, I can't have you looking at these 'pho-twos'."

Kyleigh felt insulted. Spot the fucking difference? In her own fucking room?! She had lived in this room for her entire life. There would be no way she wouldn't spot something missing or out of place.

"Alright. I'll accept, genie." A smirk had appeared on Kyleigh's face. Al'Rinda knew the girl had swallowed the bait she had left.

"Excellent." Kyleigh's phone vanished.

"Should I close my eyes, or...?"

"No need."

Al'Rinda waved her hands in an exaggerated motion before resting her finger on top of the stack of Kyleigh's father's letters slowly and deliberately.

"I've made my change."

Kyleigh looked around the room. Nothing seemed amiss at first glance. Her posters were the same, her signs, window, floor, ceiling... she checked her closet. Everything was there. Her whiteboard still had the correct number of tallies. She didn't see anything added or moved. The genie watched her with amusement as she moved.

Kyleigh didn't rush. The genie hadn't set a time limit. Even if this took her days, the time would be worth it to get this correct. She walked up to the magical being.

"Move. I need to make sure you didn't hide something beneath your feet."

"That's a bit pushy, missy..." Al'Rinda wagged a finger as she floated up a foot. Kyleigh took the time to check under the rug and below the genie. Nothing.

Kyleigh made her way over to the desk. Everything seemed to be in order. She counted out her father's letters, the ones without stickers. 33. The correct amount. She counted the number with stickers. 25. A nice number. A square. And not the correct amount. She looked at her whiteboard to double check. Her tally read '24 successes, 33 fails'.

She cackled as waved the letters around. "Here, genie. The difference is these letters. Now get this curse off of me and get the fuck out of my house!"

Al'Rinda inspected her fingernails. "I wouldn't be too proud, mortal. thought I was being pretty obvious about that. Now, which letter in particular are you talking about?"

"Well, that'll be obvious. It'll just mention some person that doesn't exist."

She started rifling through the papers. Chloe, that was real. She remembered that one. Adam, yup. Alexis, yes, they weren't allowed to share a name with her friend. Georgia... she didn't remember a Georgia. This one must be it! As she pulled it out of the pile, she read the next name. Molly. Molly... who was Molly? Kyleigh sat down on the bed. Molly... Molly... she didn't remember that name either. She looked through the papers more frantically. Josiah. Yes. Emma. No. Phoebe. No idea.

Kyleigh began to panic as she sorted the papers into girls she remembered and girls she didn't. By the end of it, the girls she remembered was a stack 15 tall. And the stack of girls she didn't remember was 10 tall. She read through the letters again, **** for more information, and read her father's writing instead of just the names of the girls.

That one was for her birthday, when she had gotten the guitar. It was real. And that one... Christmas. She remembered that one too, she had spilt eggnog on it when her friends were reading it and laughing.

A pile of 8 letters remained.

Kyleigh agonized for what felt like hours. She took a glance out the window in desperation, searching for some inspiration. The sun hadn't moved the entire time she was going through her room. The fucking genie must have stopped time. Casually.

Kyleigh tore through the papers again in fear of the genie's power. She eventually found 2 more she could safely put aside. Leaving her with 6 papers left. 50/50 odds of guessing. No amount of reading or re-reading would spark any memories in her mind.

"This one!" Kyleigh said, holding up the letter mentioning Molly.

"That girl still talks to her therapist about you. And you don't even remember her."

Kyleigh cringed. She looked over the papers again.

"This one!" She shouted, using Georgia's letter.

"Georgia gave up on her scholarship to get away from you."

Fuck. Yes, now I remember her. That fucking bitch.

Kyleigh ground her teeth together. She only had one shot left.

She read the names over again. Emma. Phoebe. Tom. Isobel.

She stared at the papers for 15 minutes. The genie stared into the back of her head, unmoving. Finally, Kyleigh selected Emma's paper.

"This one."

The genie stared at her.