1 Chapter One: The Necklace

It was like I was wrapped in plastic. Anything I felt--if I could even feel at all--was dull and flavorless. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to be an edgy, emotionless robot. And I don't have a dramatic, life-changing event that somehow left me cold. I wasn't always like this either. I don't know how or when it happened, but it did. I haven't felt 'normal' for years. I only felt extreme boredom to say the least. To compensate for this, I often tried to look at situations logically first, and then ponder upon how a more emotional person would respond in that situation. I tried to understand people more, and understand feelings more, which is why I often went with the "emotional choice" in an attempt to try to break the plastic I was trapped in, even when it landed me in trouble.

Ryan, who I had met two years ago when he decided we were best friends, knew this about me and has low-key tried everything to 'cure my boredom'. I went with it. Shopping, partying, girls. It was always a nice distraction, but it was never enough. His newest thing was trying to get me into online mobile games.

I hid from Ryan because he demanded something of me that I refused to do, and he wouldn't take no for an answer. Instead of hanging out with him in the cafeteria like I always did during lunch, I stayed in a place called the 'couple hallway'. It was basically a secluded hallway in a building at the back of the school where couples went to make out and get lovey dovey and whatnot. The hallway did have a tendency to get a bit uncomfortable if you were there without a partner, but I needed some space from Ryan and this hallway was the last place he'd expect me to be.

I sat alone in the hall eating my pastrami sandwich and drinking my peach tea, staring blankly into space.

"Nick! Nickie!" I looked right and April started running towards me. Great.

April was a fling Ryan set me up with a few months ago. It kept things interesting for a while, but then she became a real bother.

I sighed. "Oh, hi April," I greeted in attempt to be polite.

She plopped down right next to me, all smiles and giggles. "I haven't seen you in a while. Wanna hang out tonight?" She whispered in my ear.

I nudged her away. "Not really. I'm good."

"Why? Do you have a girlfriend now or something?"

"No."

"Am I ugly now or something?"

"You look fine."

"Then why haven't you called me in forever?"

"I haven't been in the mood, okay?"

She glared at me. "Not in the mood for sex, or not in the mood for me?"

"Both."

"Jerk." She slapped me and stomped away.

She had no right to slap me. She was incredibly entitled and threw a fit whenever things didn't go her way. Even so, I wished I could've gotten angry at that, but I couldn't. I still felt too numb. In a weird way I wished she would have slapped me harder. Get a response out of me. Something.

I finished my sandwich, and began to sip my tea and stare at nothing again. All there was left to do was to wait for the bell.

But then I realized I wasn't staring at nothing.

Jason momentarily stopped groping his girlfriend. "The fuck are you even looking at, Nick?"

I realized I'd been accidentally watching a couple, Jason and Jean, make out and do other various things with one another.

"My bad," I said. "I didn't realize I was staring."

Jason got up and kicked the peach tea right out of my hand. "Fuck off," he said. He turned to Jean. "Get up." She did as told and he immediately grabbed her hand and held it firmly. "Let's go." He stabbed me with his eyes one last time and hauled Jean away, straight ahead.

Jean lingered behind as they walked. She turned her head to me and mouthed I'm so sorry.

I shrugged at her.

I've known Jason since he's moved to this town in ninth grade, and I've known Jean since she let me borrow a maroon crayon in kindergarten. I never knew either of them that well personally, but I've observed them. Jason was probably going to be our school's valedictorian, and that was the only thing he had going on for him. He'd always been odd, but on top of that he was a dick. Jean on the other hand was a nice, cute girl, and had always been reserved. She seemed intelligent and always read books above her grade level. Obviously she was only book-smart because dating Jason was about the most idiotic mistake a woman could make. Not that it was really any of my business anyway, but it really made me wonder what a nice girl like her was doing with a guy like him for three years to be precise.

The bell rang, and my useless thoughts about dumb high school gossip and drama dissolved into the next task: going to P.E. class. I went into the boy's locker room to change, and Ryan snuck up behind me.

"Where were you during lunch?" Ryan asked.

"Avoiding you."

"Are you still upset about earlier? It wasn't really a big deal."

"You tried to make me do something I didn't want to do.��

Ryan facepalmed. "I just wanted you to skip the terms and conditions, Geez."

"I wanted to read them but then you clicked 'I agree' without asking me."

"Why does it even matter?"

"Because I never want to agree to a contract without reading it first. I want to know exactly what my rights are, and what their rights are on everything. Even if it's just a game. Otherwise I'll be making deals with the devil without even realizing it."

"Dude. You think too much."

I finished putting on my P.E. clothes and closed my locker. "That's just the way I am."

We walked over to the bleachers, and Ryan started bursting about some new illegal scheme to get a girl to like him.

"Okay, you know Kaylee Martinez, right?" He asked.

"Yeah?"

"And you know how I've had a thing for her for a while now?"

"Two weeks. Go on."

"Well her and Anthony just broke up and I heard she's looking for a new man. Do you think she'd be into me?"

"Not really."

"Me either. But look at this." Ryan pulled out a phone that wasn't his. "This thing's got all the answers to how to get her."

"Uhh, did you steal her phone?"

"I duplicated it. Check it out."

We watched Kaylee off on a distant bleacher, and as she swiped her thumb on her own phone, the phone Ryan had swiped and unlocked.

"The way it works is that anything she does on her phone, I can see realtime. Everything she wishes her boyfriend did? I can see her talk about it with all her friends."

I stared at Ryan, and I wish I could say I stared at him in disbelief, but I could totally believe it. "I know you're desperate to get laid and everything, but this is crossing the line by a lot."

"I have good intentions."

"No you don't. This is going to bite you in the ass just like everything always does. Remember the time that one chick said she liked Gucci and then you shoplifted a purse? Or the time that one girl said she was into cops so you told her you were a snark? How'd that go? You got arrested and jumped."

Ryan grunted. "You'll see."

"See you behind bars for being a stalker, yeah."

"Well at least I've got ambition. All you do is sit around all day like a potato and look at life pass you by."

That would be the part where Ryan and I would get into some argument or fight or whatever, but I didn't care. He always tried pissing me off and pushing my buttons to elicit a reaction from me, but he never did. He often annoyed me, but he could never manage to anger me. No one could. I felt like a blob that was kinda always just standing there. I wanted it to be different. I wanted things to change, but I couldn't shapeshift who I was, or the situation I was in no matter how much I wanted to.

Jason walked up the bleachers and went out of his way to bump into me before he sat down. Ryan's jaw dropped.

"Who does that guy even think he is? Do you have beef with Jason now or something?"

"I didn't even do anything. I was just looking at him make out with Jean earlier and now he's pissy."

"Well I can see why. The guy's totally insecure. Everyone talks about how Jean could do better and he knows it too. He probably thought you were thinking what everyone else was thinking."

"No reason to kick tea right out of my hand."

Ryan did a double-take. "You're going to take that from that guy?"

"Do you think that's worth fighting over?"

"Yeah!"

Sometimes Ryan came in handy because an opinion from an emotional point of view is a valuable one to have. Whenever people did things things that should've elicited certain responses from me, he'd be the first to let me know. Sometimes I listened, other times I didn't.

Ryan put his hand on my shoulder. "Are you gonna fight him?"

I looked back at Jason, who was still staring at me. "Maybe not fight him, but teach him a lesson."

Ryan smirked.

"Listen up," our P.E. teacher, Mrs. Fox gathered the attention of the class. "New rule. No jewelry is allowed at P.E. It's a safety hazard. If you've got jewelry, take it off and either put it in your pocket, or in your locker right now."

Some people got up hesitantly and walked towards the locker rooms.

"Go!" she commanded. "We don't have all day. You there Jason, you've got a chain around your neck."

Jason attempted to hide his necklace in his shirt. "No I don't."

Mrs. Fox walked up the steps to Jason. "Don't make this more difficult for yourself. Take it off now."

"Why is it even a new rule all of a sudden anyway?"

"A girl was jogging and her necklace hit her in the eye. Now her cornea is scratched. So you can either put the necklace away or you can go to the principal's office."

Jason's face got all red and he glared at her with complete hatred. He took his necklace off half-heartedly, and put it in his pocket.

"All that over a necklace?" Ryan whispered to me.

After everyone finished putting their jewelry away, we had to do some laps around the gym. I left Ryan in the dust because he was way out of shape. I ran and ran, and at some point I was behind Jason, thinking about what I could do to piss him off.

And then all of a sudden, it fell out of his pants.

Jason's necklace dolted out of his pocket and onto the floor. Immediately, I picked it up and examined it. It looked like an antique gold coin on a chain. There were words on it written in a language I didn't comprehend. I couldn't quite understand it, but when I held the necklace in my hand, it was almost as if it was speaking to me. Wear me. It was strange. It was clear to see that there was something odd about that necklace.

"Keep it moving, Matthews!" Mrs. Fox yelled out to me.

I realized that I'd been standing in place, and kept jogging. My mind ran around the gym, but the necklace ran around my mind. My thoughts obsessed over it, and no matter how hard I tried to forget it, it called me from my pocket. It knew my name. It promised me all my desires. It gave me hope, which was a feeling I hadn't known in a long time. Just put me on.

I could've contained the urge to put it on, but then again, why would I? I didn't believe in the supernatural, but I felt so strange that I entertained the idea just for that moment. Let's just say that it actually was magic or enchanted or whatever. I knew the risks. It could've been an evil piece of jewelry that would possess me and make me an asshole like Jason. It could've been cursed. I honestly didn't care. The curiosity of what would happen once I put it on was stronger than the necklace itself telling me to wear it. I intended to give it back to Jason once I figured out what it was.

I excused myself to the bathroom and examined the necklace there furthermore. The longer I held it, the stronger its voice was. Finally, I gave in, placed it around my neck, and slowly clasped the hook. The voice telling me to put it on finally stopped, and I stood there in the bathroom, taking in the uneventful atmosphere for minutes at a time. I felt like something had changed, or at least was supposed to change, but I didn't know what.

Could it be that I wanted change so bad that I was delusional enough to believe I'd found an object from Lord of the Rings? That I was going insane from my own numbness, and created significance for this object inside my head in an attempt for my subconscious to restore myself? Maybe. Probably, actually. But at this point a hunch and a delusion was all I had, and the feeling I had when the necklace told me it could change my life was the strongest thing I've felt in a long time. I decided to keep it for just a bit longer to see what would happen, and then I would give it back. I hid it in my shirt.

I'd been in the bathroom with the necklace for too long, because the moment I walked out, the bell rang. I rushed over to the locker room to change, and headed over to my next class.

Jean Wu sat right next to me in History, and it made me incredibly uncomfortable when she kept glancing at me, piercing me with those innocent, baby bunny brown eyes. Something was up. Did she know I stole her boyfriend's necklace?

"What is it?" I finally asked. "Why do you keep on looking at me?"

She blinked at me, silent. Without speaking, she reached into my shirt and found the necklace I stole from Jason. She gasped, her cheeks reddened, and for a moment that seemed to linger on forever, she held the pendant in her hand, passing her eyes back and forth from it and me. Eventually she put it back where she found it and apologized, turning away from me.

Before I could even ask what was going on, or if she was upset I took Jason's necklace, Jason came busting right in the middle of our class. "JEAN!" He panted. "DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE NECKLACE IS? HAVE YOU SEEN IT?"

"Who do you think you are disrupting my lesson all of a sudden?" The teacher asked.

Jason ignored her. "WHERE THE HELL IS IT?"

Jean shook her head. "I don't know where it is, Jason. You should've been more careful with it."

"YOU BITCH!"

The teacher slammed her history book on the desk. "Get out of my class. Now."

Jason went out, slammed the door shut, and shouted so loud you could hear it from the inside. The teacher muttered to herself and went out to scold him again probably, but he was already out of her range. She went back in and continued from where she left off.

"What's happening?" I asked Jean. "Why is Jason so desperate for this necklace? Why did you say you didn't know where it was?" I reached in my shirt and held the pendant. "There is something different about this thing, isn't there?"

Jean's eyes were focused on the desk. She was meekly smiling, but her eyes were full of tears. "I'll-- I'll explain it all later," she said. "Preferably somewhere alone."

After class, school was over. Jean and I went in the hallway together.

"We're alone now, what did you wanna tell me?" I asked her.

Ryan came out of nowhere and immediately grabbed me before she could speak. "Can you just excuse us for one second?" He pulled me away.

I rolled my eyes at him. "What is it?"

"Are you stealing Jason's girlfriend? That's hardcore, man." He placed his fist in front of me expecting me to pound it, but I swiped it away.

"No, she just said she needs to tell me something in private."

"So a pretty girl like Jean needs to tell you something in private."

"It's not like that, it's something else."

"Sure. Hey is that why you weren't there in P.E.? Were you off seducing Jean as your revenge plan?"

At this point I was literally pushing Ryan away and shooed him, to which he promised to give us some alone time and walked away.

I went back to Jean. "Anyway, can you tell me what it was now?"

Jean hugged her books in her arms tight, and focused her attention on the floor. "Actually, there are too many people passing by," she said. "I-- I would prefer we go somewhere where we're truly alone. I only want you to hear this."

A part of me thought oh shit, Ryan was right. If he was right, I wanted no part of this. "Just tell me now, please."

"But--"

"Tell me."

She looked up at me. "I'm a genie," she whispered.

I stopped breathing. My head that was usually full of thoughts was completely empty.

She bowed. "And you're my master."