"Is this Jake Smith?"
"Yeah, Who's this?" he didn't recognize the guy's voice, but it sounded too high in pitch to be anyone he'd ever talk to.
"Kyle Perkins," the voice answered. "Do you know who I am?"
"No! You sound like a fag!"
He tried to say something else, but he cut him off. "Look loser, I'm already totally late, and I can't find my jock or my other sock, so why don't you just get to
the point, okay?"
"Actually, I just wanted to let you know that I'm the freshman you and your friends pants last week at school, before I ask you a question."
He laughed, remembering. "Yeah? And what's that?"
"Transform or Dare?"
Jake's heart froze in his chest. "W-what did you say?"
The line was cold. He could only hear faint breathing coming from the other end.
This couldn't be real, could it? Of course not. He didn't believe in hocus pocus mumbo jumbo. That was stupid. Stupid or not, though, one thing his friend told him
rang through his mind, "If you don't choose one or the other in less then a minute, you have to take both!"
And that was the town curse. Someone had laid it out for him at a party once when he was fourteen. It was a game, started who knows how long ago, by
who knows who? Yes, a game. But unlike its weaker counter part 'Truth or Dare,' this game had power! Whoever's turn it was could ask anybody, anyone, the
question: "Transform or Dare," the question Jake himself had just been asked. Then they had to choose, "One or the other, or you get both!" Dare was relatively
simple, once selected the person asking could dare you to do anything and you had to do it! The magic, the curse, made you, no matter how much you don't want
to. Transform was even weirder. It effected your being; the thing that you are rather than your immediate actions. If you pick that one, the person asking gets to
turn you into anything they want. They can change small things, like aspects of your personality, or the whole package, such as turning you into a toad. Or so the
theory went. The actual limits of the curse was highly debated among the local residents who believed in its power. In any case, after the choice is made and the
spell completed, it becomes the next person's turn. So, suddenly, the one who was cursed becomes the one who wields the magic, allowing the cycle to continue
endlessly, with the power passing on from one person to the next, resting only occasionally when someone chooses not to take their turn.
But that was all nonsense, wasn't it? Jake glanced up at the clock. His minute was almost up. Nervous, he took a deep breath and said...