Lexi felt her finger tips running along the camera's intricate design and touched the indents and creases of the camera. For an old antique, it felt so fun to mess around it, even if she wasn't sure what could happen.
Lexi twisted a dial, she remembered something about the clicking noises sounding funny, and she had hoped it would make the camera take quicker photos, but to her dismay it didn't seem to be doing anything visible. The weird words on the dial were all sorts of colors, "U-n-a-w-a-r-e", "A-w-a-r-e", Lexi hadn't seen them before so she assumed they meant how light or dark her pictures would be, not that it really mattered, she was a photographer now... She was going to be a master photo maker!
Meanwhile, as the couple pushed Tina in the stroller, Justin paused briefly as Gloria continued to go on about future plans, entire body freezing as he felt himself seize up and his whole point of view recalibrating. Suddenly the world was far too small, and he was too big and tall... And he was hearing this voice he didn't recall knowing before, Justin looked down at his much larger, rougher hands and began to take stock of his surroundings.
Had he been having one of those growth spurts again? Hair decorated muscular arms as Justin ran his broad fingers across them, flexing his large and plump biceps in his seemingly tight flannel as he found himself in an unknown body. His broad chest was restrained by a tight but sleek v neck, though, it was complemented by generously round shoulders which attested to his brawny physique.
"Dude... What the hell..." He murmured, before quickly patting his face and feeling a trimmed beard.
"Wait- Wait, no, this isn't me. I'm- I'm not old!" He stammered, hands beginning to shiver as memories of his previous self were conflicting with his supposed current self.
"I-I play football... I go to high school... I don't..." He could remember Gavin pushing him to bench harder at the gym, Tom catching movies with him to try and score dates for prom...
He could even remember Alex promising to remember him when he got famous after the Coach put in a good review to a major college scout- But he could also remembering having a driver's license, a wife, two girls... Wait a minute.
"I don't HAVE a wife!" Justin panicked, his old self didn't even have a girlfriend for that matter, much less, he wasn't even into girls!
Gloria overheard him and turned, looking at him concerned as she rolled Tina back to him.
"Justin? Are you okay?" She beckoned, eyes filled with worry. Justin gasped, realizing that the woman in front of him resembled Gavin to such a degree it was as if she was his own mother... But he knew what Gavin's mother was like before... Whatever the hell this was, and this wasn't Mrs. Smith. "I'm... Uh..." Justin looked away from his "wife", unsure of what to do now that his mind was tearing into two. He felt his barrel chest heave and relax, he was so big, the clothes he was wearing were so tight fitting, meant to show off his fuller and robust physique... But this wasn't him, he was 17 just a few minutes ago! This had to be some kind of trick, or some kind of nightmare!
Gloria looked him over, before softly smiling and gently holding his hand, thumbing his voluminous forearms.
"You're alright, Justin. You and I go way back when you flirted with me at the gym, said you were training to be the biggest man in the whole town. We went to high school together, and I laughed at all your dumb jokes." For a moment, Justin breathed deeply, the woman's voice was lulling him into a sense of calm, of relief.
"We have two beautiful daughters, Lexi and Tina, and despite everything we've always been a team-"
Team, Justin's buried memories screamed at him to recall, and things flooded back: He was with his squad in the mall before Emily and her friend came around and took their picture, his heart raced as he remembered the last moment before this whole catastrophe started, Gavin, Tom, Justin, and Alex had all smiled... Alex even had made bunny ears behind his friend's head before...
"Hold that thought, Lexi!" Gloria called, Justin cocked his head as he saw a young girl, maybe around 6 fumbling about with a camera. He instantly snapped to the tiny young girl in the stroller, just before eyeing the back of Gloria's red hair and felt his heart pounding as he realized the truth: This was his team... Gavin became his... Wife, Tod was the baby in their stroller, and Alex was little Lexi... And she had that very same camera Emily and Rhianna had used on them!
"...Now you know what I said about taking people's pictures without permission young lady, I-" Gloria began, pulling the stroller with Tina in it to scold her other daughter.
"NO!" Justin screamed, causing both mother and daughter to gawk at the patriarch of the family. Tina also looked up, woken up by the sudden noise that was her father's baritone voice. Justin felt his face heat up at the attention and looked away for a moment, reclaiming his thoughts. "Ah... Sorry, it's just... Let me hold onto the camera. It's an antique, I don't want it to break or anything. You know how they get." He cleverly said, unsure who he meant by "they", but going along with his instincts.
Gloria processed Justin's response and gestured for Lexi to pass the camera back to her father.
"You're right, if Paul knew we broke the camera, he'd never let you live it down." She chuckled, before brushing her hands together. "Well Lexi, it's a good thing your father saved you when he did, if it were me now..." She went on into a tangent, seemingly all three of his family were unaware of their original forms save Justin... And now he was in possession of the damned thing that caused this whole mess. He could barely hear his wife- Gavin's lecturing, his heart pounding in his ears as he looked over the camera's facets and design.
An intricate tool, with switches, tabs, and buttons he couldn't exactly make heads or tails of it all. If anything, he'd either have to play around with them, or, risk taking another picture with the camera to figure out how to work the damned thing. The question was, what would he do now?
Justin stared at the camera, and-