Don't open it

It’s 3:00 PM I hear Amy saying something, “Hello, you there?”

Amy: “What happened, you zoned out?”

I swear the conversation between my girlfriend and Professor Samuel is always so dull. 

Professor Samuel is a Chemistry professor, of the college we studied in, who has an interest in Alchemy.

I always have to bear it as Amy also has an interest in it. 

Amy: “Let us go, we are done here”

As we moved towards the bus, Amy started talking about how interesting the whole discussion with Professor Samuel was and started reiterating the whole conversation. I just don’t understand why Amy never understands that I don’t have an interest in this subject. 

Should I tell her, I guess not, maybe it's better if I handle the boredom instead of breaking her heart. I wish she could see how much I care about her.

It's been seven months since we moved in together, Amy was so happy initially but things have changed. She is usually worried, I always tell her to be patient as things will change very soon. 

Our situation took a bad turn when Amy lost her sister, Angella. She was her closest friend of Amy and used to listen to her and support her in whatever way possible. Amy used to share all her problems with Angella but after her death, things have changed. 

It’s a good thing she has grown interested in Alchemy, it keeps her busy and distracted. She spends most of her time posting online videos talking about how Alchemy can solve all of the world's problems if used properly.

Amy also believes in miracles and buys lottery tickets regularly, which has failed her every time. A lot of people, including our neighbors and college friends, think that Amy is delusional and that her videos are rubbish. I don’t believe her as well but I pretend to believe her and try to support her. I understand that she does not have a lot of support so maybe if I listen to her and pretend to believe her, she will feel better. Sometimes feel I agree too much with her, maybe things will be better if I disagree sometimes. It's not like I don’t try but I rarely convince her of something.

We reached our home, I started with the Dinner preparation. 

Amy: “Jack look, there is a weird letter in our letterbox”

Jack: “What is it, honey?”

I looked at a yellow letter with a red seal of some logo I hadn’t seen before. 

Jack: “To Mr Henry Strauss. Who is Henry Strauss do you know someone of this name?”

Amy: “ No idea, none of my close ones?”

Jack: “I think this is a mistake, this is not for us. I will speak with the post company and return this letter, tomorrow morning.”

Amy: ”Hey babe, wake up. Wake up Jack”

I looked at the time, and it was 2:00 AM, Amy was super excited and looked happy about something.

Amy: “I opened the letter which we received, you won’t believe what happened” 

She asked me to follow her to the hall of the house. 

It was pitch dark in there, I could see a candle burning with a low flame. 

Jack: “Why did you open the letter, it is not for us. What is going on babe”

There was something wrong with the environment. The whole silence, darkness, and the happiness along with the excitement of my girlfriend in it.

Jack: “It better be something which could not wait till morning”

We stood in front of a desk, and Amy lit a candle. I could see the opened envelope along with a one-page letter. It looked more like a card which seemed blank when it was in Amy’s hand. She gave me the letter, I was curious but I thought the card was blank. It was a plain, shiny but empty card with nothing written or even designed on it. I looked at Amy with confusion, I knew there must be something with the card or my girlfriend wouldn’t wake me up at this time.

She asked me to keep the card in front of the candle and just read.

As I placed the card in front of the candle, small but bold cursive English letters along with three square red stickers appeared on the card.

“ Congratulations, you are lucky. You get three wishes, you can get anything you want. To make a wish, take out one of the three square stickers at the bottom. Right the wish you want on the sticker and burn the sticker. Remember, your wish will come true 48 hours after burning the sticker “ 

Jack: “What nonsense, like something of such sort exists.

Someone just used some chemicals that make the letters visible in front of the fire and now playing a prank on us.”

I was amazed at how much effort had been put into fooling us, although I know few of my friends who could do this. The only problem in this whole situation was the beautiful person standing next to me. Amy looked like she believed it and wanted us to try it out. 

We discussed for like an hour, I usually support her but this is another level of craziness. I couldn’t let her believe in such stupid things, it would eventually break her heart. 

Amy: “We could wish for a lot of things that will bring back happiness in our life. Imagine going back to the way we were, the pure happiness when we moved in together. We can have all of that”. 

I wanted her to understand that this is not going to do anything and not going to solve our problems.

Jack: “ There is no such three wishes which will solve all of our life problems, we have only three wishes not a hundred”

Amy: “I will think of something, I will think of three things that will give us everything. Jack I believe when we lose something, we get something in return as well. This is it, this is the compensation of our months of grief and sadness. God is finally kind to us and we have our wishes heard. Let me try this, what is the harm in it”.

I wanted her to understand that this is not going to do anything and not going to solve our problems. I wanted to stop her but like always she convinced me and we slept after deciding to make the wishes in the morning.

The alarm rings, it's 6:00 AM of the day we are about to make our wishes. 

Amy marked this day as “Wish Day”. 

She looked like she already had decided. 

Amy: “I have figured out our first wish, it will be winning the lottery”

I understood why she chose the lottery, I mean money will solve most of our problems. However, she couldn’t simply ask millions. I believe winning the lottery will give the justification for a sudden abundance of zeroes in our accounts.

We went forward with the wish, Amy burnt the first sticker after writing the words: winning the first prize in the upcoming lottery. I wanted Amy to wait for 48 hours before making the second wish but it seemed like she was in a hurry.

25 hours since the first wish

Amy: “I have realized what will be our second wish: it will be the success of my online videos on Alchemy. I know it’s a little selfish of me to ask this but it will give us good fame and provide us a good source of income. You know what we should make this wish now, what is the point in waiting 23 more hours.”

I had a feeling why Amy was so eager to make this wish. For a long time, she has talked about Alchemy, and people have ignored her and behaved as if she is a weird person. She wanted people to believe her, she didn’t want to be just a weird girl anymore. This is the reason she used to talk with Professor Samuel so happily because he believes her. She was not selfish, she just wanted to be liked and believed by people. She wanted this so much that she couldn’t even wait to make this wish come true.

She burnt the sticker with the second wish written on it. 

48 hours after the first wish

I can’t believe this, look at our bank account. We have won the lottery, our lottery number was on the screen. We couldn’t believe it, I wanted to understand it but the sheer joy of this much money and Amy’s happiness made me just sink into the moment. I could see her tears of joy, it's been such a long time since I have seen her so happy. Maybe it was true, everything she said was true. God is kind to us, this letter is going to solve all our problems. 

We were greeted by many of our relatives: Our parents were really happy. Our college friends congratulated us, they sounded jealous but I am happy that they still called. We thanked everyone and promised to have a big party. Amy was on the phone for a long time now and I was not surprised. She was talking to her mom, they sounded happy as they planned expensive things for us. It was great to hear Amy and her family laughing together after a long time, especially after Angella. Little did we know, this laughter was not there to stay.

We wanted to thank God for everything so, we decided to visit Church.

Once I was done with my prayers I opened my eyes, only to find Amy crying. 

Jack: “What is wrong, you okay?”

Amy: “Hey Jack, I wish she was here with us”

She was talking about Angella, of course, the pain of losing someone stays with you even in your happy moments. 

I wanted her to be happy but there are things which we cannot get no matter how much we wish, Or can we? 

Can we get Angella back, of course, we can, we still have not used our last wish. I mean we have got everything we wanted, but still Amy is sad. This is because we have everything money, people will soon believe and respect Amy. The only thing we do not have is Angella. I wanted Amy to be happy so I agreed with this wish as well.

Jack: “Let's get Angella back”.

12 hours post first wish came true

Amy burnt the final sticker with the wish to get her sister back. I hugged her, touched her palm, and locked my fingers with hers. I could feel she was nervous, she had a shaky hand and sweaty palm, I guess that is because until now we have only asked for things that were practically possible. I was nervous as well, bringing someone back from Dead was something beyond my logical understanding. 

24 hours after the first wish

We got a call from Amy's mom, she took the call and yelled: “What, how is that possible”

Amy’s parents' house got completely burnt, and no person got hurt as everyone was outside the house when this happened. Although, no materialistic thing was saved. I couldn’t believe it, how did the house catch on fire when no one was even there? According to Amy’s mom, they had no idea how this happened. Amy was trying to calm her mom while I watched them from a distance, unaware of what to do.

12 hours post-fire in Amy’s parents' house

It's 4:00 AM, and I am holding Amy on the bed who was finally asleep. I was not able to sleep, I was not able to digest the fire incident. For some reason I woke up and moved towards the hall, I lit up the candle and looked at the letter.

Amy: “What is going on, why are you awake?”

Jack: “Nothing I was just tensed from the fire incident. Hey, do you think, our wishes might have something to do with the fire?”

Amy: “What no, we wished for good things not bad things. You are just overthinking. Let us go back to sleep”

Jack: “I guess you are right, you go sleep I will join you in a bit I need to use the washroom”

24 hours post the second wish

Amy’s mom came to our house, and she looked worried. Someone filed a complaint against Amy’s dad. I got to know that Amy’s dad used to be a drug dealer. However, he left that job when he got married to Amy’s mom, he got caught for something he used to do 27 years ago. Amy’s mom couldn’t stop crying, it seemed like hell.

48 hours post the wish to bring Angella back

Amy: “It did not work, how is this possible? Why is Angella not here, why didn’t it work?

She was looking for her sister, in the entire house.

Amy: “Why isn’t she here babe, maybe something is wrong with the letter”

Jack: “No, the letter is fine, it is working properly”

Amy: “What do you mean, why do you have a smile on your face? 

You knew about this didn’t you, You changed something, didn’t you? Tell me you useless piece of garbage, what did you do?

Jack: “Nothing I did not do anything, I never had to do anything”

Flashback, to 12 hours post-fire in Amy’s house, the night I alone went to look at the letter.

I asked Amy to go back but kept looking at the letter. It was when I first time realized that I never kept the back of the card in front of the fire. I never even got the chance, as Amy handled the letter from the beginning. As I kept it in front of the fire I saw: small but bold cursive English letters with the same three red squares.

“ Congratulations on your wish, now it's time to pay back. For every wish, you need to lose something of equal value. To mention what you want to lose, write it on one of the three square stickers at the bottom. Write what you want to loose on the sticker and keep it pasted on the letter. Remember you have to right what you are going to lose within 24 hours of your wish or else your wish won’t come true. You will lose whatever you have written within 48 hours of writing it down”

That is why every bad thing was happening within 24 hours of good wishes coming true, as bad wishes were coming true 48 hours post making wishing them. This was 24 hours post Good Wish was made.

I looked at the three stickers on the letter which were filled already.

Jack: “Who filled these stickers, only me and Amy knew about this. Did she fill these stickers? Did she know about it?” I tried to take a deep breath while reading the stickers. 

First sticker: Parent’s house, that is why Amy’s parents lost their house.

The second sticker was about her dad’s image, this is why he got caught after so many years.

Third sticker: Jack’s life.

Jack: “Me, wait what”

I got chills in my spine, I was at the point of disbelief and was scared. Scared of my own house, scared of my girlfriend, scared of the person I loved. She knew about this, she must have read the back of the paper on the “Wish Day” itself but showed me only the front side.

Back to the current time

Amy: “So you got to know about it, you changed something which stopped my final wish from getting fulfilled”

Jack: “No like I said, I never had to do anything”

Amy: “Then how”

Jack: “Did you forget? To get your wish fulfilled, you had to write down something which you wanted to lose. This something should be of equal value to your wish. I never was of equal value as your sister I think I was not of any value to you. None of your close ones were of any value to you, your mom, dad, friends no one”

Amy: “Yes, I don’t understand how you are so surprised. I gave my heart to everyone, I cared about my family, my friends, people who needed help, you everyone. Look what I got in return, my friends thought I was crazy, my parents used to think I was crazy, and everyone on the internet used to think I was crazy. Angella was the only one who cared about me but God took her away from me and left me with you. You, the love of my life, lied to me when you said you believed me about videos. I never wanted your sympathetic support, I just wanted your trust. You used to say everything would be fine but did you put effort into making things better? You were just a delusional, useless, and lying rat like everyone else. That is why when I got this letter, I decided to get rid of you and get whatever I wanted. I will do anything for my wishes to come true, even kill you.

The front door slammed as police came in. I had informed them earlier that Amy could kill me, I just recorded the entire conversation we just had. The conversation, where Amy said that she would happily kill me. 

As they took her with them, I saw her face. Maybe I was not the best boyfriend, I did not support her well. I used to lie to her about how good her online videos were, I used to give her hope when she wanted me to work harder. Maybe she was just a lonely person who stuck with me or maybe she was a lunatic who never saw how much I cared for her.