19 - Me vs Genie

For I don’t know how long, my brain shut down. I could only stare at the page, the bloody ink. The message from my dead wife. Even in the dim starlight, I recognized her handwriting from grocery lists and birthday cards.

She wasn’t dead. She was alive in this world. That should have been impossible. She must have been pulled here after dying, just like me. My hands trembled so badly that the book shook. My vision grew blurry, and my eyes burned. Tears fell down my cheeks.

“Cerise…” I looked up at the genie without really seeing her, seeing only my departed wife instead. “She’s alive!” At least, she had been alive when she’d written this. This message written in blood. My tears quickly cut off, and joy twisted into panic. I choked up, hardly able to speak, “She’s alive. She has to be!”

I carelessly let the book fall to the side and dropped to my knees. “Clues. There has to be more!” What if there were a map? A trinket that pointed to a destination beyond the oasis? A way to track her somehow? Another message? Madly, I dug into the sand with both hands like a burrowing dog. With my new stats, I carved through golden grains like a machine, sending a cloud of debris flying behind me. I dearly wanted something to point me in the direction she had gone, but as I dug, thinking of the bloody words, I felt rising dread at finding her beneath the desert, or maybe just her bones.

The genie curiously drifted over, turning her hand into a shield while she passed through the sand stream. On the other side of it, she sank low and scooped the book up, flipping it open again. She read the message aloud, then said, “Hmm. I take it you’re James, and your wife’s name is Cerise. Which is why you’re in a blind panic?”

Finding nothing where the book had been buried, I expanded the search.

Glasses appeared on her face, and her long, free-flowing locks whipped up into a bun with just a couple of stray tresses hanging free, looking like an overworked librarian. She inspected the book with diligent care. “This is not a natural book. It was created. Curious.”

I barely spared enough attention to hear her words as I dug. I found more scraps of burlap. Scrabbling around on my knees, I searched even wider. There had to be something. Anything. What had happened to Cerise after she’d come here? How long had she been here? Why had she written in blood? “Dammit, don’t do this.” Finding nothing, I sat back, running my sandy hands through my hair, heedless of the grit, despairing and staring at the wide, shallow hole I’d dug. It was empty. I looked over at the book in the genie’s hands. I jumped up and grabbed for it.

But she easily twirled out of the way. “I’m not finished.”

I leaped, missing again, and shouted, “Give it to me! Maybe there’s another message.”

“Mmm…nope.”

“You didn’t even check!”

“I’m busy.” She squinted and poked at the book cover. Very scientifically.

Anger twisted my features. “Give it back!” I lunged and came up with air.

“No. It’s not yours. I just found it lying there. Mine now.” She continued to study the book’s makeup while effortlessly evading every attempt I made to take it away. She tortured me at eye level for a while before snickering and sailing up and out of reach.

I growled and leaped with magically boosted strength and speed. My fingers snagged the bottom of the swirling, cloudy tail that existed in place of legs, then yanked down.

She yelped in total surprise, the book flying from her hand as she came back down to Earth. Well, not Earth, apparently. Back down to the earth, I guess it was now. She looked at me, both aghast and scornful. “How dare you violate me that way!”

Seeing only the book sailing away in the night, I ran for it, hands out like a wide receiver about to catch a Hail Mary pass. I was sprinting through sand, not expecting to trip on anything in the empty desert, which should have been safe enough even in the dark of night. Yet my forward foot came down on nothing, and I faceplanted, hard, into a wide but shallow hole. A shard of sand-turned-glass jutted up a hair’s breadth from my cheek. She’d tried to kill me. Again!

The genie swooped in and skillfully caught the book. “Now, where was I—Ack!” She went wide-eyed as I yanked her down to the ground a second time. She grunted as the book was snatched from her hand.

I immediately let go of her and turned away, stalking further out into the desert. Wanting to see the book better in the dim light, I cast, “[Vengeance shall be mine! Lightning Scorpion!]” Haphazardly, I flipped through the pages, looking for more writing, notes, any hint of Cerise. I was about halfway through the book when the genie’s fingers snapped nearby, and a ball of light appeared right in front of me like a second sun. It stung my scorpion-sense eyes. I cried out and flung an arm across my face in defence. The book was stolen away.

The light went out, and the genie whooshed away with her ill-gotten gain. “Not one but two otherworlders brought here following their deaths. And a book about how to survive in the desert just waiting for them. Ooo, it sounds like a mystery.”

I aimlessly wandered, unable to see anything but vivid bright dots through watery eyes. A headache split my brain like a spike had been driven into it. But I kept moving toward that evil witch’s voice, anxiously willing my vision to return. The instant I was able to make out her glowing blue form, I rushed at her.

The genie cruelly scoffed. “Too bad I don’t give a dead flea’s flightless corpse about your mystery.” She reached back, back, impossibly far back with her arm and seemed prepared to throw the book so hard it would probably be launched into space.

I grabbed the book with both hands and took it away. “Stop being such a bitch!”

Caught by surprise, she spun, her arm retracted back to normal, and she snarled. “You want me to stop? Why don’t you wish for it, Master!”

“Not this crap again. I told you, I’m not like that. Now, back off. This is important!”

She didn’t answer, just darted forward in the air, her arms outstretched and long, pointed nails ready to claw my eyes out.

But I wasn’t a normal human anymore. I was faster. I twisted, dodged, and evaded her every attempt to get at the book. My newfound speed surprised even me. That, combined with the look of frustration on her otherwise beautiful face, caused me to smirk.

Her eyes widened at that. She pulled up and stopped. Eyes boring holes into my own, she waved a hand like she was backhanding me. Because of her bonds, she couldn’t touch me, though, and her nails harmlessly whisked past my nose.

I snarked, “Ha. Can’t touch this. Remember?” I backed up some more. Then I wised up and looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, there was a great big hole in the desert, one filled with glass spikes. I threw her a look. I’m not falling for that again. I edged around the depression, giving it a wide berth because the edges were made of sand and already collapsing. I glanced back at my tormentor.

One moment, she was several paces away. The next, my entire vision was filled with a snarling, furious, blue monstrous face with fangs and putrid breath.

“Ah!” I changed course and backpedaled away from the terrifying form.

She didn’t follow up on the scare. Her face returned to normal. Blank. She floated there, watching.

I was confused, not least because of her unpredictable emotions. She was always flashing from one extreme to another in an instant. It may not be ‘nice’ to refer to someone as crazy, but if that wasn’t a huge red flag…

A growing whistling reached my ears. I frowned in confusion, stopped just to be safe because I didn’t want to accidentally trip into another one of her traps, and then looked around in all directions. The desert was empty. But the whistling was increasing.

The genie raised a hand, palm facing me. She waved bye-bye with her fingers.

Alarmed, I finally clued in. I looked straight up.

All that sand she removed to create the hole was now a massive sphere a hundred meters straight above me and falling fast. It was a double trap! She’d tried to trick me into falling into the hole, then, when I fled the wrong direction, she’d maneuvered me into place by startling me.

“Fuck!” I threw everything I had into every shred of speed I could muster. Moving through sand was a slog, and I gritted my teeth in frustration as each step sank into the soft granules. Book clenched to my chest, I ran faster than I ever had before.

The ball slammed into the ground with millions of kilograms of force. The shockwave threw me off my feet, and sand blasted me through the air. Like a tumbleweed pushed by a tornado, I was tossed and turned so I had no idea which way was up. Until I crashed into the grass around the oasis and was flung against a palm tree so hard it nearly snapped my spine like a twig. I still felt a crack and lots of pain. Reflexively, I cast [Heal Wounds] with a thought, and thank goodness I did, because I’m pretty sure it saved me from paralysis. I fell to the ground with a grunt, then lifted my head.

The genie was barreling at me, a blue comet of death in the black night.

“That’s it. You asked for it.” I groaned, stuffed the book into my robes and wedged it in place behind my back, then tied the sash tighter around my waist, all the while not taking my eyes off of her. I rolled my shoulders and bunched my fists. “Let’s do this.”

The genie screamed as she came for me, fueled by untold years of pent-up rage. She would be on me in three…two…one—

At the last moment, I activated [Fists of Fury]. My body surged forward, and I threw the wildest roundhouse hook right in her furious face, stopping the genie’s motion in one punch. I could actually see her face change shape from the power and speed. Then came another with my left. Then jab-jab-uppercut-jab-then four rapid punches like I was using her nose as a speed bag. Each blow contorted her fine features into mush and pushed her backward. Then the skill ended, and I fell into fighter stance again, breathing hard.

She was stunned for a few seconds, then shook her head like a dog. Her pretty face returned to normal. She looked at me in surprise. Then her frown returned. “I. Hate. That. Cursed. Lamp!!” She reached over and tore an entire palm tree out of the ground. She rammed the leafy end at me.

She couldn’t cause direct damage like that, so at first, I almost laughed the attack off. All it had done was surround me with palm leaves. It barely tickled. There weren’t even any assassin spiders left. Well, there were no adults left.

Dozens of frightened babies the size of tarantulas scurried out of every nook and crevice in the treetop, attacking me in panic.

“Gah!” I tried to run but the damned genie just followed, keeping the palm leaves all around me as the babies jumped on my head and face and crawled into my robes, biting ever pieces of flesh they could get their little fangs on. And they hurt! I slapped at them, activating [Fists of Fury] again to rapidly deal with them. Then I recalled my fire skill. I bunched my right hand into a fist, pulled it back, held it for a moment as re-and-white fire built, then punched the infested treetop.

The treetop exploded in flames. All around me.

Sure, the little spiders went up like kindling, snap, crackle, and popping in the sudden heat. But I was now surrounded by fire. And unlike the magic fire of the skill, the tree was burning with real fire, and that did hurt me.

The genie laughed so hard at my self-inflicted plight that she forgot to keep the flames on me, allowing me to escape. “What a half-wit!” She laughed more. “This is great. I don’t have to do anything. You’ll just end up killing yourself!” She laughed so hard, the giant torch in her hand waved back and forth.

I ran, leaped high into the air, and came down with a HUGE superhero punch to the side of her head.

The genie lost her grip on the tree, and this time she was the one to go tumbling. The tree fell to the ground, still on fire.

Worried the fire would spread around the fragile oasis, I ran over and grabbed the trunk. Surprised by my new strength, I hauled the tree out of the oasis and into the desert, where the fire would not hurt the sand.

The genie sneered at me. “Wow, I bet you think you're so strong and powerful. I can't even hit back because the lamp prevents it. I’ll bet you get off hitting women who can’t hit back, don’t you?”

I pointed at her. “Don’t even. No way. You tried to kill me. Multiple times!”

She shouted, “Death is all you evil meat brains deserve! Shame it hasn’t taken yet. But it will.” She wiggled her fingers, and sword blades of glass grew out of the desert. Each was twice as tall as I was.

“I have never met anyone so in need of a therapist in my life.”

“Ever see one of those street performers who juggles and swallows swords?” She poofed into the shape of a lanky man with a turban and emaciated belly. The glass swords rose up into the air, and she juggled two, four, twelve of them, all without looking. She only had eyes for me, and they gleamed. A cruel smile twisted her lips. “Here. You try.” She closed her eyes and threw all the swords up into the air, seemingly at random.

Would the magic protect me, or would a sword capable of cleaving through a horse split me in two because she honestly hadn’t aimed at me? I couldn’t chance it. Tense and trying not to panic, I danced back and forth, trying to dodge the deadly objects. Whether it was me or the magic or both, I somehow made it through unscathed, though it was a close call.

Something caught the corner of my eye. Feeling [Passive: Second Wind] kick in and restore my energy, I marched toward it. “That’s how you want to play? With weapons? Then I will too.” I picked the spear up off the ground, got a good grip on it with both hands, and turned to face her.

All cruelty and amusement were wiped from her face in an instant. In fact, the way her eyes tensed, she almost looked…worried.