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There was an unwritten rule in Djinnology. You don't try and make a wish.

See, despite the fact that genies could be tracked and found, there had never been a single recorded wish of any size that had come out the way you expected. The bigger the wish, the more disastrous the consequences.

So it had always been rule number one. No matter how much we studied, we were never going to try. You learned that on the first day of class, it got hammered home during your apprenticeship, and you finally taught it once you were a professor.

That wasn't to say that nobody tried making wishes. It was just that those greedy enough, with enough hubris, were the ones that tried and failed. They were the ones who changed the course of history by accidentally erasing themselves—just another statistic to add to the list of dictators.

For a while, the study had considered that maybe, the Genies understood that anyone who would try wasn't pure of heart and, or didn't meet a character parameter they'd expected, and that was why they turned wishes into disasters. There had been attempts to confirm this, but setting someone pure up for failure was scientifically unviable.

Which was why I was here in the first place.

Many got into Djinnology because they had a wish they thought they needed. Over time they understood that magic wouldn't solve their problems. I wasn't any different, but I was done with that wish. Time healed all wounds; there was no bringing them back.

But no- that was it - the fact that I didn't have a wish was what had convinced me that I would be our experiment. A person who wanted for nothing could walk up and summon the genie to get something- anything- that they weren't desperate for.

Thought I supposed that meant I couldn't wish for answers, but what do you do?

One more deep breath.

Was it hubris to think that I was the person who would crack the secret of the genies? Probably. Was it further hubris to believe that our laboratory's running hypothesis was correct and that the key was the translation?

Absolutely, but it was hard to do anything but admire Icarus.

Another deep breath. Time for answers.

My fingers brushed the side of the lamp, and I felt the sparks. Reports said that they felt different, wrong, and they were right. This wasn't electricity; this was magic.

Reality seemed to stutter for a moment before the threads of fate waved together a being a smoke and dust, an amorphous mass of power that I understood as Djinn.

*I would explain the rules, but you seem to understand our game.*

"I think so."

*Then I won't limit your desires anymore. What is your wish?*

Another deep breath; that was too many now. I unfolded the sheet of paper I'd prepared for this. I'd written my wish in the most ancient version of Arabic we'd translated. A half-dead tongue from a tribe assimilated centuries ago.

I spoke.

The genie was a formless mass of smoke, but it seemed to take a moment to consider the request. That was progress compared to the classical 'it is done' that would follow most wish attempts.

I folded the paper and stared at the genie.

It didn't have eyes, but it stared back.

Then-

*It will not be done.*

"Pardon?"

*You ask for my power in the tongue of my captors. I may be prisoner, but I am no slave.*

Reality seemed to stutter for a second as if a memory had replaced my vision, and then I was alone in the lab with the blaring alarm.

The lamp in my hand was now a rusted corpse, a horrid crack running down the side.

I placed the lamp back in its safety chamber. Dr. Michaels would fire me for this, and I deserved it; there was no denying that.

But I had gotten my wish.

What I'd asked for didn't matter. I'd come here tonight for answers. Now I just needed to figure out the questions.

​

/r/Jacksonwrites if you wanna.

\*\*edit - Some typos and character word choice.

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Submitted by Writteninsanity on Sun, Jun 25, 2023 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

Genies don't actually mean to twist people's wishes. They just speak Arabic and have to rely on magical translation to interpret wishes in other languages.