“He was an ordinary shaman, at first. He wasn’t particularly talented, nor smart, nor even charismatic. He was kind. As all shamans are. He was the mediator in his village. He should mediate disputes and keep order. Lest the people turn to less sophisticated means of solving problems.”

=======================================================================

Cary heard heavy steps approaching him from behind, even through the sound of the rain, and felt a large hand on his shoulder, a warm hand, warm enough that he felt the heat through his jacket and shirt in the heavy rain almost instantly.

Cary paused and looked up behind him, his eyes trailing from the person's hand, up through the exposed arm, glancing at the t-shirt he was wearing and then to his face, he could see steam coming off the man's entire body. The body of a brute, rivalling the most ferocious warrior, at least 2 meters tall, probably weighing over a hundred kilos in just pure muscle.

The face of the brute, however, had a tender smile, the kind you only gave to precious family members to tell them that everything was going to be all right.

Cary looked down, not trusting himself to stop crying, and whilst trying to keep his voice steady, he said: “What do you want, John?”

The brute, his brother, not answering, merely swinging his backpack from his back to his chest, and in one smooth movement picked up Cary, like he was a feather.

He might as well have been. His brother was the famed athlete of the school, being first in several disciplines. He was everything Cary wasn’t, strong, quick, charming, and with the body of a spartan warrior. Every girl wanted him. He had enough women throwing themselves at him. He could simply pick whatever type he wanted.

Captain of whatever team he wanted, football, soccer, swimming, it didn’t matter, he could easily become the best on the team, with just a few weeks of practice. He intimidated every school jock. He was the reason that Cary wasn’t bullied at all. The one time someone had given him a blue eye, John had found out who did it, and promptly send him to the hospital. After that, no one had laid a hand on him. No one dared to.

Cary was piggybacked, not given much choice. His weak protests were ignored. Cary immediately felt the heat radiating from his body. It was like a roaring fire in the icy rain, refusing to go out, vaporizing any rain that dared to get close. He felt John’s breath, a deep ocean, breathing deeply with the waves coming and going.

He buried his face into the broad back that was carrying him, trying to compose himself.

Then John started running, Cary glanced up to see the trees zooming by, and yet Cary couldn’t notice it from touch. John held him steadily. Cary felt John might as well have been walking. He heard the heavy steps over the sound of the rain again. They felt comforting. As if they’d protect him against the world.

Whilst Cary didn’t know how far he’d made it on his own, he knew it wasn’t long before John put him down, still as warm and steady as ever.

Cary had on the way home composed himself and could maintain some dignity in front of his mother, who immediately admonished them when they arrived at their doorstep soaking wet.

She told them to go shower, directing one of them to go to the upstairs bathroom, and for the other to go into the basement bathroom. John subtly offered to help Cary take off his backpack, that was quite tightly bound to his back, but he could take it off himself since he’d gotten warm from being carried by a literal furnace.

They jumped into each shower, although Cary had to slowly turn up the heat, lest he suffer chest pains from the sudden change in blood flow.

They finished simultaneously, meeting on the ground floor, where their mother stood waiting for them with bowls of snacks.

“Alright, you two, it’s been a while since we properly spent some time together, so we’re going to be watching a movie tonight, I’ve already bought and made some snacks, all the two of you need to do, is pick the movie.” She said, leaving no room for arguing, not that they dared. A mother’s fury wasn’t something they dared to face, no matter how brave or strong they became.

They sat on the couch with a nice warm cup of tea each, and they went to work. Suggesting a movie only to have it shot down by the other one, rinse and repeat.

They went on like that for a solid 5 minutes until they in unison said the same thing: “How about that!” both said it with such fervour that they stunned each other, before breaking out into laughter. That settled it.

The movie was a movie about the main characters being trapped in a different fantasy world, and the main characters fighting their way home where they lived happily ever, or not, because there was a sequel neither of them had seen.

Just when they’d picked, their mother came in care an armful of bowls with candy, chips, and drinks. Almost dropping it before her helpful sons helped her unload it all onto the table.

“So, have you picked?” She asked. The response she got was to see her sons grinning like madmen. “I’ll safely assume, because you’re smiling like idiots, that you found the perfect movie.” She continued with a glare. “And NOT a horror movie like we did last month.” They meekly nodded. Truly, a mother’s fury wasn’t something they dared to face.

“It’s about normal people being sucked into a fantasy world with dragons and monsters. They have to fight to win against the Demon King, who’s basically evil manifested. They must defeat him to get home again. Although it’s not very complicated, we like it a lot.” Cary explained to their mother, who was listening attentively, making sure it wasn’t another horror movie.

Her eyes were almost sparkling when he’d finished his explanation and she gave an excited girly screech and said: “Ohh, let’s start, I can’t wait, is there romance, do any of the main characters diewhataboutthedemonkingdotheywinOHandwha-.”

“Not telling! You gotta watch the movie.” Cary shot down his excited mother.

‘For her to be such an emotional person, it’s a wonder that neither of us have inherited at least some of her more extreme emotions. I mean, we never even get close to as excited as she does. Wait, is that why she doesn’t like horror? That could make sense.’

His thoughts were interrupted when the lights were switched off, and his mother jumped into the couch, literally jumped over and into the couch from behind it.

‘I guess that is where John’s love for physical exercise comes from.’ Cary commented in his head when he saw his mother land and snuggle herself into a blanket.

The movie was just as good, if not better, than John and Cary remembered it, ending with a beautiful climax, where their mom literally cheered as the hero and his companions were able to pull through and beat the Demon King, and shed a tear of joy when they were finally sent home by the head priestess.

“I think I might have a new favourite movie. That was amazing! I’ve seen nothing like it!” Their mother said cheerfully and continued. “Gotta go pee, be right back!” and she jumped up and ran upstairs, full of energy.

Cary and John shared a laugh at their mother being excited like a little girl, but unbeknownst to each other, they both had the same wish, after they’d watched the movie:

‘I wish I could go to a world like that. Learn magic and martial arts that would make me stronger, where I could be the hero, save the princess from the evil lord, travel on adventures where I was adored, fight monsters and save villages. Explore ancient ruins. Ahh it would be heaven.’

With his head in the clouds thinking of a fantasy world like that, he was shocked when a green glowing light had manifested in front of them, bursting quietly into being.

Quietly floating on top of the coffee table.

In the same instant, John was in front of him, with his fists raised, standing ready to fight whatever was floating in front of them should it attack. His speed was hair-raising to see, It couldn’t have been more than a quarter of a second between when the light appeared and when John stood in front of Cary, he saw John slump into a martial artist pose, maybe something from boxing, but Cary wasn’t sure.

They heard an ethereal voice, one that ignored space. It sounded like it came from inside of them.

Let The Final Wish Be Granted.

Then it the green light disappeared, as quickly as it arrived, like it was sucked into a black hole.

And in its place, sitting discreetly on the coffee table, was a nondescript game console with 2 controllers.

They stared at it in disbelief. John still standing hunchbacked, and arms raised in front of Cary. They didn’t know how long they’d been frozen, but they jumped when they heard their mother walk up the stairs. Neither of them knew why the other did it. They simultaneously grabbed the console and hid it under a blanket, and sat on top of it. Only after they’d sat down did they realize they had almost copied each other’s movements and stared with wide eyes at each other, astonished and stunned at what had just happened.

“Hey! You stole my blanket; I was planning on snuggling in it whilst I forced you two to make dinner since I made snacks!” Their mother said half-joking when she saw them sitting on it.

Neither of them said a word for 2 seconds. They were stunned silly.

John was the first to react: “Sure thing mom, if you find the recipe, and put the ingredients on the stove, we’ll cook dinner, you won’t get back the blanket until then, it’s surprisingly soft.”

Perhaps surprised John agreed so readily, and that Cary wasn’t protesting, she rushed into the kitchen to find whatever recipe she was looking and getting the ingredients ready.

John whispered hastily to Cary: “Go, put it somewhere where she won’t see it, hurry before she comes back.”

They knew they’d have to talk about this after dinner. Their mom could be very curious when she wanted to be, something that was extremely annoying when you wanted to keep secrets from her. Especially when it was something that she absolutely shouldn’t find out. So, it was extremely important that she didn’t have any suspicions.

Cary rushed as quickly and quietly as he could up the stairs with the game console in his hands.

Looking closer it wasn’t as nondescript as they noticed earlier, it had some subtle markings on it, and an engraved title in capital letters, “THE LOST WORLD”, he tried to check the controllers, but they looked abnormally normal, just two controllers with buttons and joysticks.

“Cary, come help John with the cooking. I wanna take pictures of the 2 of you.” Cary heard his mother call from downstairs.

“Coming, I just went to the bathroom.” He yelled back, trying to sound as casual as possible. This was NOT something he wanted to share with his mother.

He quickly put the console wrapped with the controllers into a shelf on the tv stand.

Cary casually strode down the stairs, seeing his mother to the right, snuggled in the blanket and taking pictures of them with her phone, and to the left was his brother getting the pots ready.

Luckily, the kitchen had their backs facing their mother, so the confusion on their faces at what happened earlier wasn’t visible.

Unluckily, the kitchen wasn’t nearly private enough to have a private conversation without their mother picking up bits and pieces.

“Cary, could you cut the tomatoes and chilis? Our lovely mother has decided that she wants chili con carne tonight.” John said, trying to set the pace for the evening.

“Sure, just let me get the chopping board from under you.” Cary agreed, trying to quickly finish dinner so they could figure out what the fuck had happened.

They went back and forth, doing whatever teamwork they needed to get dinner on the table as quickly as possible, neither of them stopping at any point, but continuously moving on to the next task whenever they’d finished one.

In 50 long minutes, they had the food on the set table, and were quick to chow down despite neither of them being a big fan of chili.

When they were finished, they quickly did the dishes and whatever they hadn’t cleaned during the cooking.

“I’ll be having a girl’s night tonight with my old classmates, and your father won’t be home till tomorrow, so you have the entire house to yourselves.”

“With Janet and Andrea?” John questioned.

“Yeah, and someone you haven’t met, Lisandra, she’s worked and lived in China for the past 3 years, and she finally moved back home, I won’t be home until at least 3 at night, we’re gonna interrogate her for all her secrets.” She fired back.

“Alright, have fun.” Cary said and smiled, trying to cover his chills at the word ‘interrogate’.

She did her makeup whilst Cary and John tried, unsuccessfully, to relax on the couch and have a fake debate about watching another movie.

When the sequel to the movie they watched earlier was mentioned, they heard an angry screech:

“YOU’RE NOT WATCHING IT WITHOUT ME! PERIOD!”

When after what felt like several hours, she walked down the stairs and kissed them goodbye, and was picked up by a taxi, she’d finally left.

They waited 20 more minutes in silence until they were 100% certain that she wasn’t coming back if she’d forgotten anything.

They tensely walked up the stairs and into Cary’s room, where even if the console was found, it was more easily justified than if it was in John’s room.

Cary pulled it out from the shelf and placed it on his bed.

Aside from turning on every light in the room and shining it on the console to inspect it properly, they really didn’t know what to do. It was the same as before when Cary had inspected it. Subtle markings and patterns were all over the console, making it look quite exotic. along with the words “THE LOST WORLD” engraved in capital letters.

“It said ‘The final wish has been granted’, or something.” John spoke.

“No, it was, ‘Let the final wish be granted’, but what does that mean? Did you wish for anything?” Cary questioned, not really knowing if he wanted the answer to be a yes or no.

“Yes.” He croaked out silently.

“What did you wish for?” Cary continued.

John was silent for a moment before speaking: “I don’t remember the exact words but…It was something like: ‘I wish I could go to a world like that. Interact with the different animals and talk to them, live with them. Learn all there is to know about the people and cultures there. Go on exciting adventures, in mountains, forests, deserts, perhaps even the skies, if they had secrets waiting to be discovered. Help people in need.’” He paused before quietly continuing doubtfully: “Does that mean that I made it appear?”

This time it was Cary who was silent for a moment, before he answered: “No…Maybe…I don’t know, because I was wishing for something too.”

Surprised, John hesitantly inquired: “What did you wish for…?”

Taking a deep breath to remember what exactly the wording was, he spoke: “‘I wish I could go to a world like that. Learn magic and martial arts that would make me stronger, where I could be the hero, fight evil lords., travel on adventures where I was adored, fight monsters and beasts with overwhelming strength and skill, save villages in need. Explore ancient ruins. It would be heaven.’”

The silence that lingered in the room was suffocating. Neither of them knew what to say.

Cary said, trying to be logical: “We’ll get nowhere if we just stand here, trying to figure out what we should do. Let’s just plug it in.”

John groaned but knew that they’d never know what it was, if they simply buried or destroyed it.

“Alright, let’s do it.” He answered.

And with that, their destiny was forever altered.