It came to him like a dream. Holding the medallion in his head, barely cognizant of what was going on around him, Julian declared to the heavens in a loud, almost commanding voice:
"I wish my brothers were the size of ants in my hand!"
~~~
Joseph had no idea what the hell had had just happened.
He'd just gotten back to his hotel room at the time in a total funk. He really didn't want to think about what happened between him and Julian. A part of him had been gnawing away at his insides thinking about how his little brother had just... slumped after he threw him against the wall like that. He couldn't let it get to him, though. Julian was the one that had been acting like an entitled prick this entire vacation. That selfish prima-donna brat had been nothing but a pain, always whining and complaining about how he missed his friends back home and didn't even want to go to Hawaii to begin with. It was only natural that Joseph lost it a bit after having to deal with that nonstop for days. Besides, the punk had gotten into worse scraps than that. He'd walk it off, no problem.
Then there'd been this flash of light, and for half a second he'd been floating in a white void, and now he was here, in this bizarre suspended with Seth and Robby. There were these strange rolling peach-colored hills as far as the eye could see, with countless ridges and lines cutting through the surface. The surface itself was soft and constantly shifted with his weight when he tried walking, yet was also rough and coarse to the touch. In the distance, he could see about four, maybe five or so pillars towering above, each comprised of three or so rounded segments and filled with even more of the lines and ridges that he saw earlier.
One thing was certain, this was nothing like the hotel room Joseph was in just a few second ago, and he was right on the edge of freaking the hell out.
"Wh-where the hell are we?" Robby muttered to himself, though he was loud enough that everyone could hear clearly.
"No idea." Seth answered. He touched the ground and observed it molding to his hand as he put more pressure on it. "Looks... gnarly. Like we're on the back of some oversized pink rhino or something."
That was one way of putting it. This whole place/fever dream/LSD drug trip was starting to get on Joseph's nerves. He didn't like any of this one bit, and he was starting to get the sinking feeling that he knew exactly where he was. But that couldn't be it; there was no way that was even possible, not even in his worst nightmares. Then again, there'd been this dumb golden trinket that he'd seen Julien wearing at dinner, and at the time, something about it that had unnerved him for reasons that he couldn't quite describe. He'd ignored that at the time in favor of kicking the twerp in the shins and teasing him along with his other brothers, but now, thinking back on it, and how that same unnerving feeling came back when he was thrust into that white void, he was desperately hoping this was all
Unfortunately, a massive shadow came down upon the three brothers, and they all had little choice but to look up. There, taking up the entire sky, the monolithic, all-seeing eye of Joseph's shrimp of a little brother stared down at them, squinting as hard as it could just to make them out. In a single instant, all of Joseph's worst fears had been confirmed, and they all screamed.
~~~
The moment the words had left his mouth, a sudden impulse told Julian to open up his right hand and hold his palm facing up. He swiftly obeyed the supernatural command, and the next thing he knew, he felt three tiny pricking sensations crawling all over his hand, disoriented and about to meet with a very unpleasant surprise.
The 12-year-old Latino was barely able to make the figures of his brothers out even while squinting; for all that he tried, all he could see was squirming little gnats futilely trying to crawl away from his palm. He barely had to tilt his hand to ensure that they stayed in their rightful place, his brothers tumbling down the vast rolling hills of his palms like pebbles. Perhaps he should have made them a bit bigger, so that he could hear them pleading and begging for mercy, but this would do just fine. All that ever came out of their mouths was raw sewage, anyway; if anything, it was relief he didn't have to hear their grating, jeering voices trying to drill their way into his head like he was some kind of septic tank. Ants didn't talk, after all.
Julian grimly chuckled to himself, a gnarled, twisted mirth creep its way ever so gradually through his heart. He really did have a lot of options, didn't he? So many ways he could make these pests pay for everything that they'd done to him, and he was more than ready to make sure that this went on for as long as he deemed necessary. First, though, he needed to make sure that he wasn't rudely interrupted. The doctor could arrive at any moment, and he would definitely start raising unwelcome questions if he saw his patient suddenly holding three tiny ants in his hand. Teleporting out of the clinic would also raise more questions than he was comfortable answering, so there was only one way he could think of ensuring that no one would come and disturb him.
"I wish that time was frozen for everyone except in this very room!"
At 7:35 PM, a familiar surge of power from the medallion flowed through Julian's body and expelled itself outwards. Suddenly, the world outside the entrance door's window became a wall of total blackness, and the light abruptly switch off, thrusting the room in total darkness. For a second, Julian panicked and thrust his head in all directions trying to figure out what going on, before a realization hit him straight across the eyes:
Oh. right. Time being frozen meant that the power wouldn't be working anymore, because electricity wouldn't be flowing outside the room. And now that he thought about it, there was probably a limited amount of air in here given that circulation wouldn't be flowing in from outside. Since time was frozen.
"I also wish that there was an independent source of light in this room, along with all the air me and my brothers need to survive."
The lights instantly flickered back to like, and Julian could swear that his breathing now easier than before. He held the medallion up to his face and glared at it, irritation clearly written all over. This thing could be really picky about how it interpreted wishes sometimes. As an all-powerful supernatural wish-granter, the least it could do was read his intentions first before deciding to do whatever it wanted.
The renewed sensation of scurrying on his right palm brought Julian back to reality, and his set the medallion back down on his chest alongside his irritation. It looked like they were trying to get over one of the creases of his palm, but all he had to do was to close his hand a little to send them tumbling back all the way to the very beginning. All those muscles, all that bravado, and it all amounted to nothing but hot air. How utterly pathetic.
The young preteen got to his feet and slowly paced around the clinic. He could do this the simple way and dangle his brothers over his mouth, watching as they fought for dear life to not become another calorie on his vast temple of a body. He could also put his brothers in as many compromising spaces as he could think of, really hammer home the humiliation of not being able to fight back against his sweaty armpits or clamber out of his butt crack. Alternatively, he could get creative and host some "challenges" for his brothers to overcome under the threat of being turned into strawberry jam if they didn't comply. Finally, he could just set them down on the floor and make them fear for their lives while he rampaged around the room, though he would have to be careful not to actually step on them too hard. Irritating as they were, he wasn't quite sadistic enough that he was willing to kill them. That would make him far, far worse than his brothers could ever hope to be, and there was no way in hell Julian was going to give them that satisfaction.
It was almost paralyzing, really. So many options and all the time in the world to enact them, that one couldn't help but be intimidated. Nevertheless, Julian was eventually able to settle on one particular thing he would like to have his brothers do first...
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