"Jacob, you have a visitor." Mom called from downstairs.
"I've got like 10 more minutes, send him up!" I shouted back. I was just about done with my homework and we had plans to hang out after dinner.
A moment later there was a knock on my door and much to my surprise it wasn't my 15 year old friend but a full grown adult standing at my doorway. It took me a second to get over my shock, but when I did, I realized it was none other than Axl Robson!
We live in a small town and everyone knows about Axl! Calling him a hometown hero is not strong enough, he is a hometown legend! Just last week he helped an elderly woman get out of her house which was on fire not to mention all her cats, before that he stopped a mugging before anyone got hurt, he is a volunteer fire fighter and in his free time he volunteers at homeless shelters, nursing homes, and he reads books at the local library to children on Saturday mornings. The entire town knows him as the community section of the newspaper has his name and picture in it almost every day. Now he was standing in my room! The school uses him as a model citizen when they talk about community service and this goes back over a decade when he was younger than me!
"Oh my gosh! You're Axl Robson! Hi! You're amazing!" I sputtered as I stood up to shake his hand. After years of hearing about how wonderful he is, this was kind of like the movie star in this years biggest blockbuster just stopping by to have coffee with you and chat.
He smiled warmly and shook my hand. Everything about him seemed perfect. He looked like a young man, but his face held a maturity, He was muscular and looked like he could really do some damage but his friendly demeanor and charm put me right at ease. Even his casual clothes brought an air of authority somehow. "Hi Jacob. Please have a seat." He motioned to my bed. "I have something I need to tell you."
Wow, he knows my name... was the biggest thing that went though my head as I sat on the bed. I was feeling lightheaded.
Axl began, "So Jacob, maybe its wrong of me to seek revenge for things that happened in an alternate reality, but what can I say, I'm petty and you kicked me when I was down. You were the second least popular guy in our class and I was the first, and rather than joining forces, you stepped on me to lift yourself up... I've given it a lot of thought, and since you wanted to identify so strongly with being in a certain group or being seen a certain way I am going to take your identity away."
I could feel something was wrong but couldn't tell what. I felt woozy, and tired, and though I was listening, nothing was making any sense. I laid down on my bed, afraid that if I didn't I would fall onto the floor, the room was spinning. "I feel really sick." I mumbled weakly.
"Ah, yes sorry about that, I had to incapacitate you, so I made you just drunk enough that you can't have coordinated movement. Lie still and you won't be sick, sorry about that. It will wear off as soon as I leave." Axl took a breath. "From now on, when you touch someone, there is a chance that your curse will be triggered. If it is triggered, a quality, trait, habit, role, characteristic, whatever, will be swapped for a month. The world will think everything is normal, you will think everything is mostly normal, but after enough aspects of your life and person are changed you will have a constant sense of nothing making sense, but nothing seems wrong. If the curse is triggered multiple times on the same person, all remaining swap duration's with that person are doubled. Chaos will follow you wherever you go, this is your curse. By this time next week you may be your dad's 3 foot tall, 8 year old, Asian, chain smoking brother who mows lawns for a living, and is named Tiffany. But it won't last. Any structure you try to build in your life, will be taken down. Any refuge you seek, will be stripped from you. Don't worry, only you will remember my visit and you won't remember who I am, only what I said."
Axl turned away and for the first time I saw he had a weird toy gun like thing in his hand. The room was still spinning as I heard him go down the stairs. I took a few deep breaths and passed out.
"Jacob, you have a visitor." Mom called from downstairs.
"Send him up!" I shouted back. I was just about done with my homework but had taken a nap having suddenly felt really sick. It must have been food poisoning I reasoned seeing that I had only lost around 20 minutes. I had the weirdest dream, A shadowy figure was telling me I was cursed and my life was slowly going to turn upside down. Pfft. Dreams. Amiright?