Tony, at his finest moments, was a nobody.
Sure, he had ‘friends’ here and there. But all that really meant was that some people knew his name. Outside of that, he was completely invisible. And that was the way it had been for almost 18 years.
He wanted things to change, maybe just a little, but nothing to come close to his personal fantasies and dreams of reality.
On Tony’s average walk home from school, he passed by a number of stores. The local convenience store of course, a comic book shop he liked to browse every once in a while, even a salon he’d catch a lot of the popular girls in.
But this day was different. As he walked home, past the repeating shops and stores, he noticed a completely different store. A store he’d never seen before. Was it new? It looked old… how could he have never seen it.
His curiosity got the best of him, he decided to divert from his walk and take a look inside the little shop.
As he entered, he heard a classic bell chime. He looked to the counter, not seeing anybody working there, he walked past and looked at the shelves. The shop seemed to be a lot deeper than the outside let on. He saw little gadgets, trinkets, even some board games here and there. Nothing that particularly peaked his interest, but easy to admire.
Without paying much attention, Tony suddenly bumped into someone.
“Oh!” The person yelped, dropping their broomstick, managing to quickly reach down and grab it, “sorry about that!” The person said cheerfully, looking right at Tony.
A girl. Stood in front of him. Talking to him. Tony blushed suddenly.
She was pretty. She had brown eyes, freckles on her nose and cheeks, and bright ginger hair. She had her hair tied in a messy bun to keep out of the way, and she was wearing a brown apron over a white button shirt along with jeans and brown boots. She clearly worked in the shop.
“Are you okay?” She asked Tony, seeing his flustered expression, “did I startle you that bad?” She asked, a little concerned,
“I- um-!” Tony stuttered and stammered, unsure of what to say. This girl seemed to work it out fairly quickly,
“Not much of a talker, I get it,” she said, “I used to be like you,” she over shared, “let me get out of your way,” she said, shifting herself between two shelves. In the process she accidentally knocked a glass ball, causing it to roll right off the shelf. Tony, out of pure reflex, managed to catch it before it smashed on the ground.
“S-sorry!” Tony said, looking right at the girl, holding the ball for her to put back,
“Why are you apologising? That was awesome!” She said, looking genuinely amazed. Tony couldn’t help but blush again. She took the ball out of his hand and placed it back on the shelf, taking out a cloth and polishing it a little.
Tony wasn’t really sure what to do, he wasn’t used to getting so much attention, let alone from a girl. And a pretty girl as well!
“Hey, Tony, right?” She asked. He blushed even harder. How did she even know his name!? She was smiling at him, trying to get his attention. He hadn’t noticed until now but she had braces as well.
“Y-yeah…” he said, his voice almost cracking,
“I was gonna say, for helping me out, I have a couple of these spare,” she said, pulling out a small card from her breast pocket, “we only have a couple left, and I’m sure my boss won’t mind me lending one of these out,” she said, handing it to Tony. He took it very awkwardly, “just as a little… token of my appreciation. He’d fire me if I broke that orb, so you kinda saved my butt right there…” she stopped, giving an odd expression, “I’m talking too much… I’ll stop, don’t worry,” she said, grabbing her broom again, “feel free to just… peruse the store a little more, but I think you’ve got more than enough right there,” she said, tapping the card he was holding, “just don’t make too much of a mess… in all sense of the word,” she said, winking at Tony as she walked around the shelf, obscured from Tony’s view.
His heart was racing. He’d never had so much interaction with such an attractive girl who seemed to be around his age! He was actually struggling to breathe a little, it was starting to become embarrassing.
Tony did what he usually did when he didn’t know what to do. He immediately went to leave. As much as he appreciated this girls gratitude, he had absolutely no way of thanking her without crumbling to dust. So he made him way out quickly.
As he looked back to see if he could get one last glance at the girl, she was completely missing. He looked closely, surely she was next to one of these shelves… there’s no way she just disappeared.
It didn’t matter. Tony opened the door, hearing the bell chime again, and walked right out.
— — —
Tony arrived home later that hour. The entire rest of the journey home he held that little card in his hand. He really did not want to lose it. He realised that after all of that, he’d never once looked at the card. As he closed his bedroom door, setting his backpack on the ground, he held the small card up to his face and read it,
‘Change One Word, Reality is Your Oyster!’
‘Download Code : XXX XXX XXX XXX’
Tony was a little surprised to see a download code within a shop that looked like it barely knew how to use computers. All that aside, Tony thought that he might as well download the app now while he remembered.
Within a few moments of him entering the code, the app was installed onto his phone. He instinctively opened it, seeing the general gist of the app. Pick a person, the app makes a sentence, change one word in that sentence, change reality. So it was some kind of weird word game…
Tony was actually pretty disappointed. He didn’t really have much time to mess around with an app tonight, he had a history essay to finish. So Tony didn’t open the app again that night.
He finished his essay, saved it, and decided to go to sleep.
In his dream, Tony saw that girl again. She was accompanied by an old man… they were talking. But they weren’t talking to him, it was like they were talking about him… it was like they were watching him, discussing him. It was surreal.
So surreal, that he almost missed the bus!