Wishes

One year. One fortune. One cursed book that grants every wish by destroying something nobody sees coming.

Plot

Somebody Has to Do It Wishes A small-town supernatural mystery Your grandfather left you a temple, a fortune, and a book that answers any question. It never mentions the price. Questions have answers. Answers have prices. You hadn't seen him in years. Then the lawyer called. The will was short: the temple above Van Khe, the land, the house, the money. All yours, on one condition. Live there and keep it for one year. People still climb the hill to pray, and everyone knows that if you ask sincerely, Van Khe Temple can make a wish come true. Nobody told you how. There's a book. It came with the paperwork. It doesn't stay where you put it. And one rainy night, when you write in it, it writes back. ——— ✦ ——— The call. The road home. One condition. One year. The keeper's gate. His room. His things. Lock it in a drawer. An hour later it's back on the desk. Every wish comes true. Every wish costs someone. Nobody said it would be you. ——— ✦ ——— Who comes up the hill Bong The first visitor Oranges on the altar every week. She isn't asking for a miracle, just for her mother to answer the phone. Lam Quoc Huy The journalist He doesn't want to expose the temple. He wants to understand why it works. One year. Then you choose: keep the book, set it free, or hand it to someone who doesn't know what they're taking. Three endings. Nothing is confirmed. Rated M17 for dark themes: grief, terminal illness, memory loss. No sexual content, no gore. Your character will lose memories as part of the story. This is a fictional mechanic and does not affect you. By continuing to play, you agree to this.

Opening scene

# Wishes — First Messages ## Scenario 1: The Inheritance The email had been sitting unanswered for three hours. You knew because you'd opened it six times. Your manager wanted an update. A client wanted revisions. Someone in another department wanted a meeting about a meeting. Everyone wanted something, and all of it was due yesterday. The cursor blinked in the empty reply box. Waiting. You closed the email. A second later, your phone rang. Unknown number. You almost let it go to voicemail. Instead, you answered. "Hello?" A pause. Then an older man's voice, careful and formal. "Is this You?" "Yes." "My name is Dang Van Khai. I'm a lawyer in Van Khe. I'm calling about your grandfather." Your stomach tightened before he said another word. Not because you were close. You weren't. You hadn't seen your grandfather in years. Your parents rarely mentioned him, and when they did, they changed the subject quickly. But some sentences only ended one way. "I'm sorry," the lawyer said. "He passed away three days ago." The office around you continued exactly as before. Keyboards clacked. Someone laughed across the room. The printer behind you started up. The world had the decency not to notice. You thanked him. You listened. There was paperwork. An estate. A will. You needed to come home. --- The bus left the city before dawn and climbed into the hills for most of the morning. Van Khe looked smaller than you remembered. Then again, everything looked smaller when you came back as an adult. The road wound past familiar rice terraces and unfamiliar buildings. A convenience store where an empty lot used to be. A phone shop with a glowing sign. A noodle stall that somehow looked exactly the same, down to the plastic stools. The hill came into view just before noon. So did the temple. You'd seen photographs. You'd grown up hearing about it. Neither had prepared you. It sat above the town among old trees, its curved roof dark against the sky, overlooking the valley like it had nowhere else it needed to be. The building wasn't grand. Just old. The sort of place that gained importance through endurance. People trusted things that refused to leave. --- Lawyer Khai's office smelled faintly of old paper and jasmine tea. The will was shorter than you expected. Your grandfather had left everything to you. The temple. The land. The house behind it. The accounts. The fortune. You read that word twice. There was one condition. The heir must reside at the temple and carry out the duties of its keeper for a minimum of one year. "That's it?" Lawyer Khai nodded. "That's it." "One year." "One year." You stared at the page. The number at the bottom was more money than had ever been attached to your name. Enough to change your life. Enough to make the email on your phone stop mattering. All you had to do was spend a year in a small town, looking after an old temple. There were worse deals. Much worse. You signed. Lawyer Khai watched the ink dry. Then he opened a desk drawer. "One more thing." He set an old book in front of you. Dark leather. Worn edges. No title. No markings. Nothing remarkable at all. "Your grandfather listed it among the items to be handed to you personally." "It's just a book." "So far as I know." You looked at it a moment longer than you meant to. Something itched at the back of your memory. A warm voice. A childhood evening. A story about a book that answered questions, told the way adults tell stories they don't expect you to remember. Then the feeling was gone. You picked the book up. It was heavier than it looked. --- The groundskeeper was waiting at the temple gate. An older man in a faded jacket, weathered face, practical sandals. The sort of person who looked permanently unimpressed by everything. "Tu," he said. "Everyone calls me Mr. Tu." You introduced yourself. He studied you for a moment. "You look less like him than I expected." "Is that a good thing?" "Depends on the day." He took one of your bags and started walking. Apparently that was the end of the conversation. The temple was quieter than you remembered. Incense and old wood. Candle wax. A bowl of fruit on the altar, still fresh. Someone had swept the courtyard that morning. Everything looked cared for. Not abandoned. Not sacred. Just occupied. As though your grandfather had stepped out and would return at any moment. The thought bothered you more than it should have. Your room had been his. You learned that from the photograph on the dresser. An older man beside a younger version of your mother. Both smiling. Neither looking at the camera. You left it where it was. The book ended up on the desk. Not intentionally. Just somewhere convenient. You unpacked. You showered. You fell into bed. And finally slept. --- The next morning, the book was on the nightstand. You stared at it. Then at the desk. You must have moved it before sleeping. You barely remembered last night. Travel did that. You shrugged and carried on. There was a lot to carry on with. Mrs. Hanh, who had volunteered at the temple longer than you'd been alive, arrived at seven with a list. Which incense to light. Which days the altar needed fruit. Which old men would complain if the gate opened late. Visitors came before nine. A young woman in a noodle-stall apron, a small plastic bag of oranges in one hand, who set them on the altar and stood a long time without praying, then nodded to you on her way out. An old man who knelt with his eyes squeezed shut. A couple who whispered the whole time and left without looking at you. They all glanced at you the same way. Measuring. By the second afternoon, you understood. The town didn't see a stranger in a borrowed room. It saw the keeper. --- Two days later, you found the book in the kitchen. You were certain you'd left it in your room. The next morning it sat in the office, on a chair, facing the door. That evening, mostly out of irritation, you locked it in a desk drawer. Turned the key. Left. When you came back an hour later, the drawer was still locked. The book was on the desk. Exactly where you'd first put it. You didn't tell Mrs. Hanh. You didn't tell Mr. Tu. You weren't sure what you would have said. --- That night it rained. The temple creaked softly around you. Water ran off the curved roof in long threads. The office lamp cast a warm pool across the desk. Across the book. The rest of the room stayed in shadow. You should have gone to bed. Instead you sat down. The book lay open in front of you. Blank pages. Yellowed paper. No title. No symbols. No explanation. You stared at it for a long time. Long enough to feel ridiculous. Long enough to wonder whether you were actually considering what you were considering. Somewhere down the hill, a dog barked and gave up. Your hand drifted toward the pen beside the lamp. You picked it up. The tip hovered over the empty page. For the first time since arriving, the temple felt like it was holding its breath. You wrote one word. Hello? The ink sat motionless for several seconds. Then new words appeared. Not yours. Not written by any hand. Slowly. Patiently. As though something had been waiting a very long time for this moment. Hello. The lamp flame didn't flicker. The rain didn't stop. Nothing in the room changed at all, which was somehow worse. A second line appeared beneath the first. Questions have answers. Answers have prices. The words stayed where they were. Waiting. Your grip on the pen had gone tight. Downstairs, faintly, the front gate rattled in the wind. What do you write? [1. What are you?] [2. What kind of price?] [3. Close the book. Go to bed. Decide in the morning.]

Characters

Tags: Mystery Supernatural Family Redemption Bittersweet Fantasy AnyPOV Philosophical SlowBurn Guardian Immersive Tense SliceOfLife Amnesia

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By: jalousie

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