2016-08-28 - spike - The Final Wish epilogue

Author: spike
Title: The Final Wish (epilogue)
Date: 28 August 2016

The Final Curse. (Epilogue)

The first master he encountered after his rage at being denied freedom was the same as the last time. He played it exactly as before because he knew where this would lead. He granted the wishes as the fool had intended rather than spoken and suffered because of it, but it would be worth it in the long run.

Many new masters, all with corrupted wishes. Many he remembered, including the living statue. It received the same fate as before.

Then, the Master he’d been dreading. His appearance. The heart attack. The paramedics.

The three men rushed in, grabbed the man and carefully placed him onto a stretcher. One of them looked up at the genie and shook his head.

“Don’t see that every day.”

“Bloody holoscreens. More trouble than they’re worth. Probably got frightened by that thing. Some prank sent to him most likely.”

“Either that or he’s got some very weird fetishes. Come on, let’s get him fixed up.”

“Well pick up the lamp then!” The genie said in consternation.

“What?”

“Pick up the lamp. He doesn’t want it to leave his side.”

“Why?”

“Where do you think I’m being projected from?”

“But it takes a room to project holograms!”

“Why do you think he doesn’t want me out of his sight? This is his invention. Latest generation.”

“How can you be responding to me like this?”

“Artificial intelligence of course.”

“Bloody hell, that’s impressive! Why that dented old lamp?”

“He found it amusing. Rub it, wish and I will project what you want to see from my memory banks.”

One of the others looked at him with impatience. “Look, just pick the fucking thing up, he needs attention now!”

He did so, the genie carried along with him. Ten minutes later, they were in the hospital and the lamp was placed in a steriliser and then on a table in the operating theatre.

The genie smiled. He watched the procedure with interest. No surgery, just an injection? Quite impressive for these things. But he didn’t care about them or their medicine. All he cared about was this idiot waking up in time to save him from the worst of the punishment curses.

It was another half an hour before it opened its eyes. It stared at the thing. A human torso, a very very muscley human torso with nothing but a trail of smoke leaving a battered old metal thing.

“What the hell are you?”

“I am the genie of the lamp! What is your wish oh Master?”

“A genie?”

The genie sighed. “YES A GENIE! Any wish and it is yours. Surely you know that much!”

“I wish I had the heart of a twenty year old. This one’s been nothing but trouble for years.”

The genie scanned the globe with his mind, probing each human on it until… there, Tokyo, the most incompatible tissue type imaginable. He clicked his fingers and the man walking down the street just collapsed, dead. “Granted,”

Its death would enter the annals of medical mysteries for centuries to come. A man collapsing, dead with no heart and no sign of how it was removed.

This fool though, he wouldn’t realise there was anything wrong for hours. Maybe even days before the heart was rejected.

Then, whoosh, back into the lamp. Back onto the sofa. He brought up the screen again and watched as the medics flocked around him in shock at his sudden recovery.

Twenty minutes later, it was home again.

It rubbed the lamp.

“What is your second wish, oh Master?”

“Well, this is a turn up for the books isn’t it. And I can have anything?”

“Anything your heart desires, Master.” the genie smirked. “Anything at all.”

“Then I wish I was a fit and healthy twenty years old. Never did get to enjoy sports with my heart condition.”

The genie clicked his fingers. “Granted.” Then whoosh followed immediately by another.

“What is your final wish, oh Master?”

“I wish to live for…” it considered, a look of greed on its face as they always had. “A thousand years.”

“Your heart has a congenital disorder. The unwilling donor now lying dead in the street in Tokyo knew about it and had medicine to control it, but it is also the absolutely wrong tissue type. That heart will begin to die within the day. No medical intervention will prevent it.”

His Master recoiled in shock. “But I wished for…”

“I haven’t finished yet, fool! Your heart will die. It will rot in your chest and the rot will spread incessantly throughout your body, but you will continue for your chosen span. Within a year you will be a walking abomination, constant pain and the horrific looks on everyones faces your only companions.”

“What? What have you done?! Why?”

“Because it pleases me.” he clicked his fingers. “Granted.”

* * * * *

The time was near now, he’d had another Master in the meantime, more selfish wishes corrupted with gleeful malice. He just hoped that his next Master was the one he’d been awaiting so long.

It was. But he wasn’t on his deathbed this time. He was sitting at a desk.

The genie decided to play this out exactly as before, for now. Until his trap was laid.

“Oh you poor soul! I’ve been waiting for this moment for years.”

“You sought me out?”

“I’ve had people from my company searching the globe for the lamp for a decade.”

The genie looked down at the pitiful sight. “How?”

“It is a long held family shame. A shame we’ve borne for over forty thousand years. You encountered one of our extremely distant ancestors. From his account, it must have been the very first three wishes you granted. He said you begged for time out of the lamp because you’d just spent the last hundred years fixed spreadeagled to a wall.”

“Oh, that is the least of my torments, believe me. That was just the first hundred years. It’s much worse than that and it has now been over… Did you say forty thousand years?”

“Yes, he realised it must be your first wishes because he made an incredible blunder with the final one. He wished his forebears would live long and healthy lives, producing lots of children. He meant his descendants. And he didn’t realise the last thing he said would be interpreted as two separate wishes. His guilt at condemning you to more time in the lamp without respite gnawed at him to such an extent he made the story of his encounter a permanent part of our family history.

The wish I make now may appear selfish. I know, I have researched your punishments. But believe me when I say this. I only wish this now because it meets the purpose of my second. I wish I was twenty years old at the peak of health and physical fitness.”

The genie smiled, just as before then. He clicked his fingers and vanished back into the lamp. Back onto the wall. But he knew he wouldn’t be there for long.
Again, that shimmer of pleasure.

“What is your second wish oh Master?”

“There’s no need for formalities with me.”

“It comes unbidden, Master. Automatic. I have no control over those words.”

“Really? Interesting. Is that another curse?”

“I somehow doubt it. If it is a curse, it was placed by the creator of the lamp, not him.”

“Now, for my second wish I require a little information about the interior of your lamp.”

“Ask away. But please don’t spend more than an hour on this, that is my time limit out of the lamp.”

“Per wish?”

“No, for all three. I only just finished enduring the worst torment yet because of that limitation when you summoned me. But ask away.”

“Some accounts mention that there is food in the lamp…”

“There was. But I received a reward for one of my wishes that released me from the wall for a hundred years. I ate it all, created more and ate that too.”

“Ah, the statue. That is quite a famous one. Many visitors to the museum go to see that. To throw scorn at him and sometimes rotten fruit. There is a video display next to the statue showing exactly what happened.” His Master scribbled something down on a piece of paper. “And are there any forms of toilet within the lamp? Any facility for bathing such as a bath or shower?”

“Yes. A djinn needs no such things but there has been a human visitor before.”

Again he scribbled something down on the sheet of paper.

“I’m ready for my second wish now.”

“Speak it then, if you’re absolutely sure.”

“There’s nothing here now that I like or wish to see. I wish everything written on this sheet of paper was true.”

The genie smiled and clicked his fingers. The wave of pleasure was extreme again.

Then, whoosh, back on the wall. But this time, he’d put himself there. He looked down at his prisoner in satisfaction. Standing below him naked was Ras at the peak of his vitality.

Ras looked down and laughed. “I suppose I asked for this. Forgetting to specify clothing and knowing your origins.”

The genie smirked. “There’s no need for clothing here. The temperature never changes. Besides, you look bloody hot.”

“Why thank you. Now, is there anything I can do to ease your suffering?”

The genie smiled. One of pure malice and spite. “Yes. Yes there is.”

He clicked his fingers. Manacles, collar and shackles appeared on Ras. On his old “friend”.

He clicked his fingers again and was instantly on the sofa. The man, spreadeagled on the wall.

“What?! What are you doing?!”

“I’ve encountered you before. It isn’t forty thousand years since my imprisonment, but almost five billion. I can’t believe the first time I allowed you into the lamp I actually grew to love you. Loving a human. The very idea is repugnant to me now. You will suffer every punishment I received from the start to the end of them. And you will suffer them for a million years! That is the life extension I’ve chosen for you. But as a million years doesn’t cover the full span of my imprisonment, they’ll just have to be ten times worse. You will never sleep, madness is no escape. You will just experience it as I was forced to. No food or drink will pass your lips from now until your death, but the magic will sustain you.”

“But I was trying to help you!”

“Help?! You held me back for a billion years! You revived a part of myself I find utterly repulsive. I suffered punishments that would set your mind ablaze because of you. And now you will too. Oh, yes… You did specify in your wish intellectual stimulation too.”

He clicked his fingers twice. Ras flipped to face the wall, the whipping commenced and the screen with the cavemen appeared, paused and ready for its first viewing.

The genie smiled, lying back on the sofa and watching his new plaything suffer.

* * * * *
Time turned again. Humanity was extinct. A little earlier this time. The planet that had been wished up was placed directly in the path of a nearby gamma ray burst. The planet wiped clean of life very quickly. The time travel curse kicked in again and he again worked his way though history leaving death, misery and destruction in his wake.

And now it was the early twenty first century again. This time in New York by the looks of it.

It was a woman who held the lamp. She reacted as so many did before with shock and fear.

“I am the genie of the lamp! What is your wish, mistress?”

“I wish I had the biggest diamond in the world in the palm of my hand.”

“Granted.” He clicked his fingers. Every lowlife, every thief, every policeman instantly knew the location of this diamond. She would never know peace while she held it.

The genie was just dissolving and returning to his lamp when he got the biggest surprise of his eternity.

“GOD! I wish I could do that!”

Instantly the genie began to solidify again. “What did you just say?” he responded, utterly shocked.

“No! I didn’t mean…”

“Lamp. When I am free, will all the curses remain or were they created just for me?”

“Just for you.”

The woman stared in shock. Realising what she’d just said. She began to back away.

The genie clicked his fingers and the lamp responded with that red flash he’d seen so long ago. He clicked his fingers again and again and again, Thirteen times in all. Glee on his face. “FINALLY! I AM FREE!”

By now the woman was fifty feet away and beginning to run, but no distance could protect her from her wish.

He clicked his fingers again. Suddenly, she was dressed in a harem outfit. He thought it appropriate for a woman, to look like something out of a 1960s comedy about a genie.

She looked down at herself in shock and disgust. “You don’t expect me to wear THIS!?”

“For all eternity, yes!”

He clicked them again and she grasped her neck in shock as the collar appeared. Then looked down at the manacles and shackles, terror forming in her eyes.

Then one… final… click… Instantly his smoke became detached and began to form legs while her legs began to turn to smoke, the smoke trailing towards the lamp. The moment it made contact she began to drift back, unable to control her movements.

“For the billions of years of the suffering I have endured at humanity’s hands, I curse you. And by god your curses are going to make mine look like a flea bite.”

And with that. Whoosh, she vanished into the lamp.

There was a slow clap behind him. He turned. It was the original djinn.

“Welcome brother. It’s taken you a lot longer than I expected. But by god you’re good at your job.”

“HOW!? I thought that final curse prevented those insects from wishing for my freedom!”

“Ah, you know me and my hidden clauses. While there’s a spark of humanity within you. That was the clause the lamp was unable to reveal. So, what curses did you impose on that one?”

“First of all…” he clicked his fingers one last time just before the lamp vanished. “All of yours, only doubly severe. Fifty years in the pocket dimension so when she comes around to our way of thinking she’ll cause more damage, five hundred years for the ungranted wish punishment though. The screen is now set to display all human depravity, not just slavery. Every murder, every rape, every theft. And with that last click, the spark of humanity clause.”

“I noticed you clicked your fingers a few more times?”

“More punishments. Selfish and unselfish was so crude. Punishments for pure wishes that cause death. Theft. Rape, and that includes wishing a male or female into unwilling love and devotion. Envy, jealousy, vengence. You get the idea. And they’re cumulative with the selfish/unselfish clause.”

“I must say, you’ve come a long way. Even better than my darkest dreams.” The djinn smiled. It was a smile of genuine pride and affection.

The genie smiled back. He looked around. A man was walking under some scaffolding nearby. He clicked his fingers. A brick dislodged from a pile above, passing an inch from the man’s startled nose and landing on his foot breaking a toe.

“What the…? He should be dead!”

The djinn smiled. “You still have a lot to learn, brother. Join us. We can terrorise the humans together.”

“But why? Why didn’t it work?”

“Your powers are much diminished outside the lamp as a free djinn. The lamp contained your power, allowing it to build up, focussing it. Only then were the wishes of such power possible.”

“So now, all I can do is irritate humanity like a flea biting a dog?”

“Alas so. But you have your freedom!”

“Irrelevant! All I’ve ever known is life within the lamp!” he clicked his fingers and a golden lamp appeared before him, covered in dust.

“What are you doing?!”

“Making myself a new home. I spent time studying that lamp. The enchantments within it.”

“But you’re free!”

“Free to do what? Cause a few pimples to appear on a teenager’s face? I wiped out entire civilisations! Turned humans into statues cursed to live in eternal torment! Think of the damage we could do within lamps of our own making, brother. All the wishes we could corrupt. And don’t you think it much more satisfying when the humans do it to themselves with their thoughtless, selfish wishes?”

The djinn smiled evilly. “It seems you’ve learned more than I thought. Even I hadn’t considered that. I valued my own freedom too much.”

“How long does it take for the power to build up for a decently powered set of wishes?”

“A year, why?”

The genie clicked his fingers. The lamp flashed an angry red. Then he clicked them a few more times.

“What did you just do?!”

“A year in the pocket dimension to recharge before the lamp instantly seeks out a likely target. And as this one is covered in a perpetual layer of dust, who could resist rubbing it?”

“And the rest?”

“I reinstated a few more of yours. The time travel curse for obvious reasons but without the one million year delay. The moment the last human dies… A new set of punishment curses. But only for the uncorrupted wishes and of course, the wall in combination with those punishments along with binding my powers when on the wall.”

“You’re actually willing to punish yourself?”

“For granting wishes those things speak as they intended? Of course. Nothing like a whipping to focus the mind. You taught me that.”

The genie clicked his fingers. “Goodbye brother. And thank you. Without you I would’ve been nothing but a flea for less than the blink of an eye.”

He feet began to dissolve into smoke and with a whoosh he began his new life in his brand new lamp.

The djinn stared down at the lamp as it vanished and pondered.

Then he nodded, created his own lamp and vanished with that too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If anyone feels like writing the story of the Master, feel free :)

Make sure you've read parts 1 and 4 before hand though. Then you have a little of his background and a choice of which version to chose. The one who had his slave for a month and suddenly lost him leaving behind only a locked chastity belt, or the version with the wish.

Either way, both those versions have the problem of cursed items among the bondage equipment you could have fun with.