Breath oozes out of its teeth like a jelly and in this moment I have forgotten my previous wish. The only thing in this whole stupid world that I wanted now was to go back in time thirty seconds to before I tossed the coin down the well. It was now the only thing he couldn’t have and he wanted it back badly. 

Its mouth shifts and convulses in its shambling, moldy body; it’s more liquid than creature. Its – and this is unbelievable for a thing made of moss, sludge and teeth- bony fingers had far too many joints, each one able to curl around the beams of the small stone well multiple times over. Its noodle-like limbs wrapped around the rickety wooden roof, it wasn’t strong enough to lift its massive, misshapen being out of the unruly pit without leveraging its many arms. It had no eyes, and no place where eyes would have made sense. Even a child would know to put it up above the mouth, above the teeth; but there was no above the teeth. There was no right of it, there was no left of it. There was only mold, mouth, and breath. 

Endless breath.

I had tossed the coin for petty reasons. I hiked through this wretched bog and found this rotting abandoned settlement over a grudge. I scoured for the well, I dug up the coin, I made the wish. All over a hatred that no longer mattered. Resentment was a cathartic symbiote in my head, but the loathing is nothing without a mind to inhabit. I was only six seconds away from losing mine, if not the rest of my head with it. 

I really didn’t know what I expected to happen. Would Robin even want to be back with somebody who wished for some unspecific tragedy to fall on her new- no, none of that mattered. I deserved this, better yet even, I asked for it. I asked for disaster and I got it. What a stupid, lovely thing that hatred breeds. It is breathing and pulsating in front of me. Arms; more than any organic things should have, are pulling it out of the well now. 

The breathing gets faster, the arms are around me. No contact, no threat, no escape. I fall to my knees wondering if my chest has always felt this heavy. There’s something inside its mouth, something glittering in the low misty light. It undulates more, the moss giving way to the sludgy base beneath, the teeth gnashing and gripping its liquid form. 

It spits my coin at me and returns to the well; completely disinterested in the wishes and hatreds of the pathetic creature in front of it. I pick it up; I leave.