[WP] Wishes are real. The world exists the way it does today because of someone's wish.

"Hello, Jim, this is Dr. Kantor. Your wife... she has brain cancer."

Jim was a classic family man. He did everything his family needed, and everything he did was for his family. Jim would play with his daughter, even if it meant dress-up or drinking tea, and he would shower his wife in shiny baubles, despite having a tighter financial situation than most.

Jim's wife Sarah was the center of his world, and Dr. Kantor's phone call was like a death sentence to him. He couldn't stand the thought of losing her; without her, all his purpose in the world would diminish. The news left him absolutely devastated, but he remained calm on the surface for Sarah.

"It'll be OK, Jim," Sarah reassured him, "Just go home and be with Bella."

Jim exited the hospital, slunk into his car, and began his drive home. She was starting Chemo today. He couldn't stand the thought of her still young body withering under the strain, her hair falling out, and her skin sagging. Even her current state didn't adequately reflect her inner beauty. It wasn't that the side effects of the chemo disgusted him, but that he found it grossly unfair. The worst things always happen to the innocent.

That night his daughter Bella crawled up into bed beside him. Her petite body was completely enveloped in the adult-sized bed sheets that normally held his wife. Before shutting them, Bella looked into her father's eyes, and he looked back. The deep hazel colour with a rusty brown ribbon throughout looked exactly like Iris of Sarah's eye. He slept assured that, even if Sarah were to pass, he still has a part of her in Bella.

Suddenly Jim was standing, but everything seemed taller than before. Stood before him was a door. It looked familiar. He approached the door and stared at the distorted reflection of his young face as he reached for the door knob. Before even turning it, melancholy filled his mind and heart. He finished turning the knob, and in the dark room his father crouched over something.

"Just give her back to me," he wept quietly, "Please just give me my mom back."

Jim came closer and saw that a young girl was in the center of the room, and on the floor beneath her were imprinted symbols. She was bound by rope, and blood stained her garments.

"Daddy? What are you doing with sissy?"

"Go to your room, Jim," he barked, just now noticing his son's presence, "LEAVE!"

His father grabbed him by the shoulders and set him outside the room, closing the door behind him. Jim saw a glow emanate from under the door and suddenly his view shifted from the door to his daughter sleeping peacefully beside him. It was only a dream.

It was 2 months later, and Sarah's condition was rapidly declining. She now had stage 5 brain cancer, and doctors were going to reattempt surgically removing the tumor. Jim came for another visit before she went under. The sight of her pleased him, but the paleness of her skin and baldness of her head depressed him. She did not deserve this. He held her supple hand in his, and kissed her forehead.

"I'll see you when it's over. I love you."

Jim and his daughter waited for eight hours in the waiting room. Bella was asleep when the doctor came in and gave the news that Sarah had passed away due to complications. Jim didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything. But he did know how to feel, and he felt angry at God as his world crumbled around him. He scooped up Bella, what little left he had in this world, and left the hospital.

The broken family returned home and Jim put Bella to bed. Jim couldn't sleep. He poured himself some scotch and sat in his recliner near the television. Bruce Almighty was on. What was the point of living? He only ever watched comedies because he could hear Sarah's laughter like a waterfall of joy. Without thinking, he got up and went to the garage. He came back out with a can of paint, and began painting the symbols of his dream.

"Daddy, what are you doing?"

"It's okay baby, don't worry."

He picked up Bella from his bed and carried her downstairs. He was in a trance-like state. His arms moved for him, his will took over, and his morality subsided. He placed her, still enveloped in sheets, in the center of the living room, surrounded by the symbols.

"I wish you had never died," he said after awhile.

"I wish I had stayed for one second longer to appreciate the feeling of the skin of your hand caress mine."

Jim froze. He took the knife that he had prepared for his wish and raised it intently.

"I wish I had told you how much I loved you before I left."

Jim brought down the knife on his daughter's small chest. She screamed in agony, but the pounding of Jim s heart in his ear drowned her out.

"I wish there were words adequate enough to express how much I love you!"

Jim repeatedly raised and lowered the knife, ending his Wife's legacy in a matter of seconds.

He crumpled onto the floor and doubled over. He felt sick to his stomach. Jim ran to the kitchen and began vomiting into the trash can, until he saw a light pulsate in the living room. Standing over his daughter's remains stood his wife in perfect health. She began screaming and picked up her child.

Jim's view became blurred and obscured. Her suffering is not what he wished for. He never wanted any of this. In a panic, he picked the knife back up, still drenched in the blood of his only child, and he brought it down on his neck.

"Please just make it stop," wept Jim as he plugged his ears.

As his vision of his wife holding their daughter faded, he heard from the television,

"Be careful what you wish for, punk."

/r/WritingPrompts Thread