Genie light

“What can make you move?

Chihuahua!

Can you feel the groove?

Chihuahua!” Vera bounced around in the car as she sang along to the music, watching the speedometer sail past 100 mph. “Might I maybe get up to a hundred-twenty mayhaps methinks perchance possibly?” She frowned, pushing harder on the pedal. The lines on the road shrank with each tick faster she got. She had a destination.

There was a brick wall surrounding the back side of the gas station she had worked at for most of her adult life. Or at least had in one reality. “I am going to drive my 2008 Honda Accord into a brick wall.” She said outloud to nobody. Her whole body tingled from the irresponsible amount of edibles she’d downed earlier. “I am clinically sane and can be trusted to operate a motor vehicle responsibly.” She prattled on as the dial reached a hundred-thirty. “Huh, I didn’t think she could do that.” Vera was impressed at her little car’s speed for a moment before the check engine light flipped on. “I’ll need to get that looked at. What else do I have going on, today?”

She saw the gas station quickly approaching as she blew every light she came across. What were they gonna do? Pull her over? If she crashed early, then oh well. Just one last surprise.

“Take it and you’ll win!

Chihuahua!”

She rejoined the chorus as her engine cried for mercy. The oil light flipped on. “Ooh! Genie light! I wish to die in a horrible fiery car accident. And also for one billion fentanyls. And for infinite wishes.” She didn’t flinch, even the very instant before the crash. Why would she? It wasn’t like she didn’t see it coming.

However, what did cause her to jolt was the sudden sensation of weightlessness. The road, the wall, everything suddenly seemed to sink a hundred feet, leaving her car sailing through open sky. Vera’s eyebrows went cross as she looked out her open window, bending her head over to look down at the streets passing below her. It was surreal to see, as if she were in a helicopter.

She pulled her head back in and stared at the red oil lamp light on her dashboard. “I got greedy with my wishes. I shouldn’t’ve tried to trick him.” Her shoulders slumped. She kept her hands on the steering wheel, waiting for the moment of the cartoon where the car suddenly realized it was in the sky and suddenly started falling. The moment was taking a long time to arrive, leaving her alone with her thoughts and the trumpet line of Chihuahua.

“What can make you move?

“Chihuahua.

“Can you feel the groove?”

Sophie sat seething in the passenger seat in abject disbelief. Her arms were crossed and her eyes burned through Vera’s skull in a mixture of rage and befuddlement. If Vera realized she was there, there was no indication as the girl just kept singing along to the obnoxious song blaring through the bass boosted speakers.

“ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY!?” Sophie finally screamed, watching the woman dance in her seat like she wasn’t floating in the sky.

Vera turned her head to regard Sophie, pressing the volume knob on the stereo to mute the song, leaving just the sound of the puttering engine. “Huh?” She asked, pointing to her ear, indicating that she hadn’t heard her.

“ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY!?”

“Oh!” Vera smiled, nodding. Angels don’t cuss, she reasoned, asserting that she was either going to hell—rad as fuck—or wasn’t dead—she could take it or leave it. Maybe eating a whole bag of pot gummies right after her shift wasn’t such a good idea. “Uh-huh.” She turned her eyes back to the windshield as if she was watching the road. She had no clue who this was or why she was in Vera’s car. But she came in with immediate aggressive energy and just had a face Vera could tell would be funny to annoy and piss off. Under the possible circumstances of her sudden appearance, the woman probably deserved some ragebaiting.

Sophie watched Vera for a long moment before just sinking down into her seat, looking straight ahead. “Make a u-turn here. We need to pick someone up.”

Vera nodded, clicking her tongue as she flipped on her turn signal. Sophie’s head snapped to chastise her. “Are you fucking serious? We’re in the sky.”

“No,” Vera regarded the statement like the stupidest thing in the world. “I’m fucking crazy.” She said, spinning the wheel to the right after checking her blind spot.

***

Talia’s lungs burned. The world had mostly faded except the **** pain for oxygen and the taste of the plastic bag on her tongue. It hadn’t even been a few seconds before something grabbed the top of the bag and ripped it open, instantly soothing the fire in her lungs. “Hank, no…” She pleaded, coughing and sputtering.

“A grocery bag? What are you, a toddler?” Sophie scoffed, snapping her fingers to put Talia in the passenger seat, held down by forty-six seatbelts, one covering her mouth.

Talia was frozen in horror at the sight of the pale skinned woman turning the ignition. It was her. The girl from the store. The one that sold them that horrible game. She screamed against the seatbelt, desperately struggling against the blanket of restraints.

Sophie’s face turned into a grimace of annoyance. “Wah! Wah!” She mocked Talia, reversing the car out of the parking space. “God, maybe you are a toddler.”

Talia began hyperventilating, terrified of what this witch was going to do to her. Of where she was bringing her. After a few minutes of driving, Sophie spoke again. “I told you you needed your receipt.” She said. “I told you.” She shook her head. “I’lL eAt ThE cOsT oN tHiS oNe. Now it’s my fucking problem because you can’t handle some mouth play.”

Sophie fumed the entire trip back to Hank’s house, where Vera’s car was parked and another car Talia wasn’t familiar with. The witch stomped over to the passenger door and began individually unbuckling the belts restraining Talia. “You are going to go inside and sit on the couch. And if you try to do anything stupid, I will copy the text of a poorly written and misogynistic internet erotica and paste it into your biography. I’ll fucking paste it in the future section, too, so you have to live through it.”

Future section!?

“Oh, yeah. There’s a future section.”

As soon as all the buckles were released, Sophie seemed to almost immediately lose interest in Talia, ripping the upside down umbrella off the rearview mirror, muttering something to herself.

Natalie was in the middle of calling 911, **** to get a police officer or medic to talk Hank down and get him to a hospital for help. When the door flew open, her eyes turned to see a furious, unnaturally pale woman trouncing through the door as if it hadn’t been locked.

“911 what is your emergency?”

The phone ripped itself from Natalie’s hand, sailing into the woman’s open palm without breaking her stride. “Oh, my god!” Sophie spoke into the phone, adopting an embarrassed voice as she started making her way down the hall. “I’m so sorry. I did not mean to call you, my phone has a button I must’ve accidentally pressed and… well, anyway, I’m sorry.” She hung up, pocketing Natalie’s phone and silently phasing through the door to the master bedroom.

Natalie, overwhelmed and horrified by the high intensity of the moment and the unexplainable sight of her flying phone and incorporeal woman, turned to run for the open front door. She was frozen in place by the image of her. Talia Lee stood with a defeated, teary look in the doorway. Her long blonde hair was messy and wet from the rain, frazzled by the humidity or by sex. All of this was her fault. She pushed him to this.

Talia hardly recognized Natalie Pierce. She more recognized that she knew her, face fresh from the photos scattered around the altered house. But the look on Natalie’s face made it clear that she knew Talia. And she had some very strong opinions about her.

“Did you write your name in the book, sweetheart?” Talia asked, pitying the woman who was now likely joining their game.

Natalie hadn’t actually seen Talia since the very beginning, when she first moved in. She wrote that note. She did all of this. “I—I’m going to kill you.” Natalie said in a meek, shaking voice. That same rage she felt when she slapped Hank was returning ten fold. She must’ve known he was in such a state—she put him there. For months she was manipulating, fucking, and god knew what else, putting him in a scared and paranoid state of mind. And now he was going to… “I’m going to fucking kill you!” Natalie shrieked, charging forwards.

***

Each player was sealed in a latex vacbed, mouths filled with a breathing tube so that they couldn’t formulate words. They were suspended in the air via a spell cast by Sofie, who sat on the lazy boy staring the players down with disappointed glares.

With an unenthused voice, Sofie began reading from a clipboard that materialized in her hand. “We at Ophelia’s are sad to hear that you have not enjoyed one of our products. While we understand the sometimes distressing nature of magic, we have always strived to offer people one of a kind experiences to improve people’s lives, not destroy them.”

Talia couldn’t help but let out a singular humorless “Ha!” Sophie’s eyes peered over the clipboard at the offending vaccuum bed. Talia suddenly felt the rubber surrounding her go from a snug fit into a tight squeeze, making inhaling a difficult affair, latex pressing her lungs together. Then Sophie’s eyes returned to the clipboard and she picked up where she left off.

“Our commitment to improving lives is the heart of Ophelia’s. And it’s clear we missed the mark, here.” Sophie rolled her eyes, speeding through the rest. “While we have a strict, magically unbreakable refund policy, our customer care team—oh fuck off! It’s just you!—has decided to send you a qualified magician to help guide your experience so that you can have a safer, more rewarding time with your purchase. If this magician reaches the end of this without swearing or rolling her eyes, she will have the opportunity to recuse herself and substitute in a different magician.” Sophie dropped the clipboard into her lap and worried her tongue across her teeth. “Welp, I walked right into that one.”

Taking a moment to gather her thoughts, Sophie stood, allowing the clipboard to fall and disintegrate before reaching the floor. “Alright, because you’re all pussies who don’t jive with the impartial, fair, and slightly malicious board game, I’m here to put a face to the game. I’ll be here to help explain game mechanics, set up challenges, and provide insights into the game’s behavior, and prevent you from killing yourselves, obviously. For all intents and purposes, consider the board’s actions to be my actions. I’m also here to spoil the big surprise: you get a wish when you reach space 100, so you can literally wish that this game never happened and go back to your sad, pathetic lives. Except you, Natalie. You actually get to go back to a pretty cool life that you don’t remember.”

Sophie put her hands on her hips, briefly scanning over the floating panes of black latex, broken up only by the silhouettes of the bodies trapped in them, their air valves, and their goggles, allowing their frantic eyes to scan about wildly. “Well, any questions?” Immediately muffled protests began erupting from the breathing tubes, Sophie pursing her lips. “Was kinda hoping the answer was gonna be no…”