“Mutti…nein…” Jürgen started crying.
Through his tears, he saw something glistening under another piece of rubble, like metal. It was then that memories came flooding back to him. He’d lived this before. Last time this had happened, he’d found, under the rubble, a magic lamp, with a genie called Marcio inside it. Jürgen reached to the piece of rubble that was covering the metal object. He pulled it off, and found…a cooking pot.
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In 1993, a 43-year-old Brian was depressed. Really depressed. Last week, his wife had filed for divorce, after Brian had caught her in bed with another man. And another one. Even worse, today he’d lost his job, after his boss had announced they were making cutbacks. Brian had had enough. He was going to end it all. He was sat on a bridge over a small cliff, with a fast-moving river underneath it. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if it was big enough to kill him, but he’d give it a go regardless.
“What on Earth are you doing young man!?” An old man shouted. He came up to him, and tried to pull him back. “Get off of there this instant!”
“Why should I? My wife’s gone, my job’s gone, and I’ve got no friends. There’s nothing left for me in this world.”
“Now now, that’s not right. Whenever you hit rock bottom, just remember that things can only get better.”
“Can, not will. The sweet release of death has surely got to be better than this.”
The old man sighed.
“Listen to me, young man,” he said. “I’m dying. I’ve not got long left. Minutes maybe, if that. I have something which has kept me happy for many years. I was going to just let fate decide who gets it next, but I can tell you need something.”
“What on Earth are you talking about?”
“I assume you know what a genie is?”
“Of course I do. I’ve seen Aladdin. They give you three wishes.”
“Not 3, as many as you want. It could solve all your problems.”
“Sure it could. If genies existed.”
“Why, of course they do.”
“Old man, I’m about to kill myself. Cheap jokes aren’t going to stop me.”
“No, but this might.”
The man reached into his coat, and pulled out a metal lamp.
“Inside this lamp is a genie named Lexia,” the man explained. “She can grant your every wish.” Brian looked at the lamp, and remembered. He remembered doing this before. He remembered the future. He remembered being given this lamp, releasing Lexia, and sorting his life out. He needed this lamp. He reached out to get it, but as he did, the old man collapsed forward. He lost his grip on the lamp, and it fell off the bridge, into the river below.
“Nooooo!” Brian shouted. “I need that lamp!”
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“Do you think we’ve done the right thing?” Sophie asked Matt, as they watched what was going on from her living room. Matt nodded.
“They needed to be punished,” Matt said. “And it’s not like they’ll be like this forever. Alex is in prison, and the other 4 are trapped in alternate versions of their pasts. But they’ll all eventually die, and pass on to whatever comes next. That’s better than how they’ve treated people before.”
“I guess you’re right. It’s for the best I suppose. We couldn’t let people like them keep on going in the world.”
“Come on Sophie, let’s go to bed.” Sophie nodded, and the two of them walked upstairs to her bedroom, hand-in-hand.
“Alexis…” Lumiosa said. “What do you think of what they’ve done?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Alexis replied. “I mean, I wanted them to suffer a little bit for everyone they’ve ever hurt. All the humans, Ophelia, Lexia, Iago, and hell, even Marcio. But now, I honestly don’t know. I decided long ago not to hold grudges against my bad Masters. I decided it was better to just live and let die. Once they’re gone, they’re gone, and I just let my life go on, with all the good Masters I’ve had. What about you?”
“I do not know either. I should be fully supportive of my Master’s wishes, and it is nice to see my brothers and sisters liberated, but…I have been the victim of much cruelty over my life. I do not enjoy watching people suffer.”
“Don’t worry,” Alexis said, picking up Ophelia’s lamp, which was sat with the others. “I trust them both. I don’t think they’ll end up like the society. I think they’ll stay true to themselves.”
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Author’s message: So with this chapter, I wanted to show that the society weren’t totally evil. That they came from sad pasts, which their genies had helped them to overcome. I wanted to show that their evil had come from nurture, not nature. I hope I managed that.
I hope my German was good enough, but if it wasn’t, dann korrigieren Sie mich bitte. Ich möchte’s verbessern!
We’re really approaching the endgame now. I anticipate the story ending in the next couple of chapters, it’s just a matter of how we get there, which I’m still not sure about. But to be fair, I’m not really sure what will happen in a chapter until I write it. This particular method of punishing the society didn’t come about until today, and I started writing the chapter a couple of days ago. So while I know the general gist of the story’s ending, I don’t know the bits around it yet. That will come later.
Incidentally, I mentioned before that I also post this on Literotica, but you’re getting the better version. When I submit this chapter to Literotica, I’m going to have to remove the sex scene between 15-year-old Sophie and Alexis, since Literotica has this bizarre policy of “no sex for under 18s”. So you guys are getting the uncensored version of this chapter!
Someone mentioned in the comments of the last chapter that they were hoping Alexis would turn out to be the Mona Lisa. Honestly, that crossed my mind while writing it, but I didn’t cover it because I wanted to cover Leonardo’s early years. I might put a throwaway line in a later chapter about it, but if I don’t, feel free to keep assuming it.
Anyway, I’m off to bed now because it’s nearly 1am and I’m tired.
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Micah says
Okay. I really like that March 13, 1959 really was a Friday.