Drawn by  lunabara. :D

Instructions

So here's how this is gonna work: I'm going to be posting story segments of varying length and after each segment please put how you'd like to respond in the comments. Try to keep it around a sentence. Think of Writing.com's interactive stories. I'm mostly into WG (as you can probably tell by my entire gallery) so things are likely going to move in that direction.

I'll be picking one or more options from the comments for the next section, and then we do it again. :)

There may be more art, we'll have to see how things go. :)

And away we go...
<<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>

---

You're startled awake by a pounding on your front door. Looks like you slept on the couch again. The TV in your fairly sparse living room is showing the standby pattern. You hear a thump outside followed by the sound of retreating footsteps. It must be the mail.

You stretch, your shoulders popping. You try to work out the knots that can only come from napping on a couch before strolling over to the front door and pulling it open. A large beat up brown box is sitting on the porch. Before you even bend over to grab it you can tell the mailing label is mostly ripped off, the only visible part of the address showing what appears to be part of your street name. You look up and down the street for the delivery driver but they've already fled. "Well, guess whatever it is it's mine now," you remark to yourself.

You bend over and pick up the package and carry it inside. It's surprisingly heavy. With little fanfare you cut though the tape with your claws and extract a surprisingly old oil lamp. It's been converted to accept a standard socketed bulb, the old blue glass oil tank appearing completely empty. It is, perhaps, one of the ugliest lamps you've ever seen. You plug the cord into the wall on the far side of the room and set it on the coffee table. You toggle the switch at the base of the lamp a couple of times, but it fails to illuminate.

"Bah, ugly thing doesn't even work," you say as you sit back on the couch. As you lean back and put your feet up on the table you accidentally nudge it, sending the lamp wobbling dangerously. You bolt upright and try to reach for it but before you can lean far enough forward it teeters and crashes to the floor out of view. You shrug. "No big loss," you mutter to yourself.

A faint blue glow catches you attention. You stand once again and move to observe the lamp. You notice that the shade and the bulb holder both have fallen off. Otherwise it still seems to be intact. Oddly enough the old oil tank seems to be the part that's glowing. You pluck it from the floor and set it back on the table and fiddle with the switch at the base. Despite your best switch flipping ability the lamp now fails to turn off. "Must have a short." You peer into the tank but can't make anything out inside except for the cord that used to run to the bulb holder. You can't seem to find the source of the light in the tank, it's almost as if the glass itself is glowing. You peer down the neck of the lamp to get a better view but all you see is darkness. No, wait. You can make out a faint blue spark moving in there. It doesn't look electrical, it almost looks... alive.

Before you can ponder this significance any further a blast of light from within the lamp blinds you and you stagger backwards landing roughly on your butt. You shake your head to clear the spots from your vision and are met nose to nose with a rather chunky chipmunk kneeling directly in front of you.

"Hi," she says.

Your response is a mix between a gurgle and a scream as you try to scoot backwards, meeting the unyielding resistance of the wall.

Her eyes widen and she raises her hands. "Sorry! Didn't mean to startle you." She stands and starts to move around the room, seemingly taking it all in. Her movements are somewhat otherworldly; it's almost as if she didn’t have any mass. "It's been awhile since I've been out of that ugly lamp." She shoots you a rather cold look for a moment as she moves to the window, looking outside.

You take this moment to study her in a little more detail. She's dressed in a green almost harem like outfit, gold highlights bordering the edges. She wouldn't look out of place at the average Halloween party. Her back is exposed, showing off a mixture of black and white stripes running down the middle. A few rolls of back fat on the sides sit above an impressively large posterior. Her muzzle is pressed against the glass as she stares out at the occasional car driving by. You can hear her coo to herself, "Ooh, those are new."

You cough, "Are you..." you stop, feeling kind of silly even saying it out loud. She turns to face you expectantly, her tubby pot belly moving for a moment after she stops. You find yourself blushing, "Are you a genie?"

She grins, "You could call me that I suppose."

You consider this for a moment. "Am I your master then?"

"For the moment." Her grin fades into a more neutral expression. "I suppose you'll want to get started on wishes then?"

"Wishes?"

She smiles and kneels back in front of you. "Everybody gets three. May I recommend we start with a feast perhaps? I haven't eaten anything in some time and I'm feeling a bit peckish." She spreads her arms and small tufts of blue fire begin to float around her. After a moment various pastries seem to emerge from the flames. They continue to bob in the air around her somewhat hypnotically. The smells they're giving off are almost making you drool.

She reaches out and softly boops your nose. "Of course, they're your wishes, you could always pick something else."