"What? What are you doing?" said Rick as his girlfriend suddenly let go of his arm and reached into the soil of a potted palm tree.
"Hang on, I think I..." said Emily, digging a bit in the earth and pulling out something small and golden in color. "Ta-da! I knew I saw something!"
Rick sighed. He loved Emily, sure, but sometimes her short attention span got on his nerves. "Yes, that's very nice, you found some garbage".
Emily pouted. "It's not garbage!" She dusted off the object and inspected it more closely. "Look, it's gold in color! And it feels too heavy to be plastic!"
"Yeah, I'm sure people find gold nuggets in malls all the time". Rick crossed his arms smugly. At 21 years of age, he stood a full 6'2'' in height, with a tanned, athletic build that he liked to show off with tight, sleeveless shirts. He had messy short brown hair, brilliant blue eyes, and a handsome, rugged face with a day's worth of stubble. And what his clothes concealed from the public was nothing to complain about either, far from it...
"Yeah, it's probably pyrite or something", sighed Emily, rubbing it on her shirt. Also 21 and a whole foot shorter than her boyfriend at 5'2'', Emily sometimes wondered why he had gone with her. While she saw him as her Adonis of the football field, she looked at herself in the mirror and saw only a short, skinny, pale, nerdy girl. She had long straight black hair and brown eyes with glasses over them, and a completely average, unremarkable body. Well, on the skinny side too, and her hoodie obscured it even more. Rick could have dated any other girl, but instead he was with her. This made her proud sometimes and insecure other times. Why, he could be going out with-
"Lexie! What are you doing here?" said Rick.
"Hiya Ricky", cooed Lexie, and then merely acknowledged Emily's existence with a quick nod before turning back to fawn over Rick. She was 5'11, long-legged and statuesque, with perfectly styled natural blonde hair and big green eyes. And a figure that looked like it had been pumped up with air. Her top was about as small as it could be without getting her arrested for indecent exposure. "What are you doing here?"
"Nothing much, just hanging out with Emily. My girlfriend", he added meaningfully. "You've met before".
"Hi Lexie", said Emily timidly.
Lexie didn't even look in her direction. "Me and the other girls were thinking of throwing a party this Friday. Think you can make it?" She said, bending slightly to make sure Rick could see down her ample cleavage.
"I already had plans, Emily and I were going to-"
"Alright, I'll give you time to think about it", purred Lexie, putting her hand on Rick's arm for far too long. "I guarantee you'll have a better time with us..."
Rick looked at Emily helplessly, and she looked away, embarrassed. Why did this have to happen to her? She looked out into the courtyard of the mall as Lexie continued sweet-talked Rick.
She recognized some of the people hanging out there, her next-door neighbors. There were Mr. and Mrs. Hogan and their sons, the older Mike and the younger Jake, and the grouchy, elderly Kyle Harrison and his friendly old wife June Harrison. There was a fat woman standing awkwardly to the side and looking at her phone, a security guard eating a donut with his service dog by his side, and a couple in their thirties, the wife visibly pregnant.
Emily gripped the stone she had found tightly as she looked back at Lexie and Rick, who were still talking. That stuck-up pneumatic bitch. Without knowing it, she started to think of something, and the Transfer Stone responded...