I kept going. I couldn’t believe the paw actually worked. Its power was really awe-inspiring. It took me a while to accept what had just happened, but I did warn them. By 3am, after following the road for quite some time, I was able to get some reception on my phone and then sent an anonymous tip about the mayor to the provincial popos.

I scrolled through my contacts, looking for an old friend from uni, good ol Berny. I rang his number and waited through the rings, no answer. Then my phone buzzed. A text.

B: You know I don’t like phone calls. Wassup?

R: need your help with something, let's meet up. Where you at?

B: Nouveau City but aint that far from your place?

R: kk omw, send the whole address too

B: Will do

I got a Duber to pick me up and take me to Nouveau City. It was pretty far from where I was now but I knew there would be a lot of rich people there to sell wishes to. I gave the driver 5 stars and a tip for being quiet the whole ride. The rest of the way I had to walk since it was in the seedy part of town. I reached the apartment building, noticing the man sleeping in front of the doors. I carefully stepped over him and got inside the building, texting Berny to buzz me in.

When I heard a  bzzz I pushed the door open and got inside the elevator after a huge crowd exited it on their way to work. Xiz had already ditched me and was probably checking out the apartment. When the elevator dinged and the doors slid open on Berny’s floor I steped out with my foot getting caught on the carpet and stumbled into the hallway.

I made my way to Berny’s apartment, knocking on the door. It swung open to reveal Berny, tall and chubbier than the last time I saw him. “Hey man, long time no see!” he said happily, giving me a bear hug.

“Good to see you too bro” I struggled to say while being squeezed. He let go of me and we walked into the apartment. The place was a mess, just like his dorm room used to be. Empty bottles here, cup noodles there, and a pile of unfolded laundry in the corner. I sat down on the couch and he brought some snacks over.

“Well, what brings you all the way to my neck of the woods?” he asked, so I told him what happened before, about how I found some mysterious shop and bought the paw, even how the first wish I used to alleviate a drought ended up flooding a town. He stared at me for a moment, as if waiting for a punchline. “Haha, you’re so funny. I don’t get why you made up all that stuff but I’m not falling for it.”

“I’m serious, see” I yanked out the paw from my bag and showed him. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands.

“So you bought some hyper realistic severed monkey hand, so what?” he said while poking it. “Damn, how much did this cost? This feels so real.”

I sighed, leaning back into my seat. “It is real, I’m not kidding. What, you want proof?”

He placed the paw onto the coffee table in front of us, moving some of the empty chip bags into the corner. “Hmm, I’m worried about getting involved if this is real but sure, what proof you got? Is the demon in the paw here?”

“Yeah, Xiz is here. Could you show yourself to him?” I said while turning to him, who was sitting beside me.

“What, are you schizo now?” asked Berny, “There’s no one beside you. I’m not falling for this.”

“You sure about this?” Xiz asked hesitantly while staring at Berny.

“Yeah, Bern’s an old friend, we can trust him.”

He shrugged his shoulders and said “if you say so.”

Suddenly, Berny started yelling. “What the hell is that!?” He climbed over his seat backwards while looking at us and then fell backwards onto the ground. “AHHHHH!!” he screamed in terror while trying to run out of the room.

“Woah woah woah, chill Berny” said Xiz, reaching for Berny while seated, his arms stretching like snakes after their prey. This terrified Berny even more, making him scream louder and try to get out. Xiz snapped his fingers, making all the open doors slam shut. He struggled with the door handles to no avail, panicking more.

Xiz kept stretching his arms after him, chasing where he was running to then finally catching him. One hand covered his mouth, muffling his shrieks while the other wrapped around him, lifting him up off the ground and back to his seat, a third forked out of his left hand to pull the chair in behind him while a fourth forked out of his right hand, grabbing a glass of water from the kitchen.

After he realized Xiz wasn’t killing, he calmed down, no longer shrieking, just taking in what had just happened. Xiz gave him the cup of water and then patted his head. “Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yeah... yeah kinda” Berny answered, taking a sip from his cup, eyes suddenly growing wide then he suddenly spat the water out. “This is pure vinegar.”

“Hahaha” Xiz laughed. I thought it was kind of funny too and so did Berny, we all laughed a bit.

“So you were telling the truth. A real demon, amazing” Berny said in wonder, looking at Xiz then the paw. “What was the name of the town again?”

“Emerald Fields” Xiz and I said in unison. “Jinx”

Berny tapped away on his phone then turned to me. “Yo, there’re articles on it, a bunch. This one even says a witness claimed a guy came to town offering to fix the drought.”

“What!? I hope they didn’t say my name in it.” I searched online for the same article on my phone. “I don’t see your article. ‘From Barren to Bay: Emerald Fields Experiences Worst Drought in its History Right After its Worst Drought’, right?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve got open right now,” answered Berny.

“Nope, don’t see it.”

“What do you mean? Woah, it just closed on my phone.”

“Go to your history and open it again.” Berny showed me his phone. ‘404, page not found’. “That’s odd. Maybe there’s a glitch?”

“Probs…” Berny continued messing with his phone. “It says in this other article that almost half the buildings were destroyed.”

“Huh, that was the amount of people that voted for it. Does that mean the people who voted against it didn’t get affected?” I asked, turning to Xiz.

“Well yeah, don’t wanna hurt innocents, y’know?” answered Xiz while flipping through Berny’s mangas.

Berny put down his phone and asked the million dollar question “Well what are you gonna do with the money? Can’t put it all at once in a bank, they’ll think you robbed someone.”

“Yeah, that’s what I need your expertise in. You still into crypto stuff?”

“You know it. Hmmm, so you want me to help you with cleaning your money then?”

“Yeah, I know you did a lot of stuff with it back in the day and kept telling everyone to get into it. You gotta be a millionaire by now. You were also the plug, hooking everyone up with whatever pirated stuff anyone needed from pdf textbooks, solutions, and even previous/current/future exam solutions somehow. Did you ever get into crypto laundering?”

“...Yeah, yeah I did. Others have come to me asking for the kind of help you’re asking. Fine, I’ll help you out. Anything for my old friend.” Berny took out his laptop and placed it onto the coffee table, moving the snacks aside. He went to his room and grabbed his stylus with a digital drawing pad as well. He did some clicking and then spun the laptop around to me revealing a drawing app. "Okay, I need you to just draw something."

"Hmm... Weird but sure." I drew a stick figure with a sword and shield. "Done" I said after I shoved the laptop over to Berny.

"Great! Now I'll make up some backgrounds, add different colors, some outfits... And done! This program has now made multiple pictures of your first drawing with minor changes."

Xiz scratched his head as he looked over Berny's shoulder. "What is this?"

"Excellent question, Xiz. We've made some NFTs with this script I've made. Next steps are to just put them online, sell'em to my multiple accounts for varying prices, and then the money is all yours! You'll have the proof you made'em and sold'em. Boom, your money's gonna be clean then."

Xiz held my phone, looking up these NFTs online. "Wow, these are worth thousands for some pics."

"People are weird but whatever, works for me" I said while scratching my neck. "When will all this be done?"

"End of day. I'll put most in a digital wallet you can send more coins to and the rest of the money will go into your bank account. We're gonna use untraceable coins so if you get more of these we can clean it again and then you can use it."

"How can I repay you for this?"

"You know for others I usually take 2% for the help but since your my buddy, 1%"

"That's fair" I said with shrug of my shoulders.  "Works for me, thanks for the help bro."

"Any time. What's the plan now?"

"We need a place to crash to sell the next wish."

"Sure, you guys can take the guest room. Make yourself at home."

"I appreciate the assist" I graciously said. I went over to the room, putting on my PJs, and then sunk into bed, my heavy eyes slowly closing, sinking deeper and deeper into sleep...

***

Finally, I woke up in the afternoon. I splashed some water onto my face to wake up then went back to the living room, Xiz and Berny both gone.

I checked my phone and saw the text Berny left me. He wrote 'Xiz went out to explore the city and I have some  business to attend to. Take the spare key if you decide to go out.'

I raided the fridge, grabbed a bowl of cereal, and then plopped myself in front of the TV. I started flipping through the channels, in shock that someone still has cable in this day and age. I watched some GrungeBob while munching on my breakfast. When it was done I put down the bowl and continued flipping through until I saw a place that seemed familiar. Emerald fields was on the news.

A news caster stood in front of the camera, a massive storm still wreaking havoc behind them. The wind stole the umbrella out of her hand, flying higher and higher into the sky until lightning struck it midair. She put her hood up as she said "Thanks Bobby, I'm here live at the edge of the storm that continues to tear down this small town right after a historic drought. Here with me on the scene is a resident of this small town. Gary, tell us, how is everyone handling this situation?" She pointed the mic to the man standing beside her.

He leaned close to the mic as he said "This small town is full of some tough country folk. We've been through some hard times before and we'll pull through now as well, same way we did before, by working together." He leaned back, eyes shone with pride with his answer then suddenly leaned forward again and said "Oh yeah the military has helped with the search and rescue efforts though, Go'bless."

"Now I was told that your house was one of the unfortunate houses to get taken away by the flood, how are you handling that?"

He leaned forward again, this time pulling the mic closer to himself and almost putting it into his mouth. "Yes, yes, that was very sad. I lost all of my stuff but thank God everyone in my family is fine. We're making arrangements with family outside of town to stay before we find a new house."

The news caster yanked the mic out of his hands and said "I'm so sorry to hear that. How did this storm start off?" She pointed the mic closer to his face, holding it tightly, her hand shaking because of the icy rain.

Gary grabbed the mic, a short tug of war before she let go and then he brought the mic close to his face as he loudly answered "Well this town had the drought going on forever, the forecast didn't show any chance of rain anytime soon. Then, out of the blue, this stranger came into town claimi-". Suddenly the broadcast was cut short, the screen filled with a sign saying technical difficulties while showing a cartoony sketch of lightning hitting a camera.

Huh, that's... Odd. Right when he was mentioning me... I thought to myself. That's enough of TV for today. I opened up Wide Web Movies and started watching the new season of Denny Spectre.

Xiz came back soon after, stating he hadn’t seen a new city in a few decades.

He let me know what he was up to; freaking out guests at a haunted house. He would turn into gruesome monsters he saw in old horror movies and scared the heck out of customers. When the actors dressed up as monsters got confused about the new addition to the crew and confronted him about it, he just melted all of his flesh and bones then disappeared into the ground and traumatizing even more people. He laughed to himself when recounting his tale.

I shut off the TV and turned to him. "Time to work on the next wish, let's go to the biggest cemetery in the city."