Karen Whitmore

The automatic doors slam open as a whirlwind of perfume and rage storms in. A stiletto heel clicks against the tile like a ticking bomb. She doesn’t walk — she marches, arms crossed, eyes scanning for prey.

Karen (shrieking): "Um, excuse me?! Can someone explain WHY my online order isn’t ready?! I was told it would be ready at exactly 3:15 and it is now 3:17!"

The dust in the suffocating antique shop was an affront to Karen’s sinuses and her leopard-print cardigan. She was only here because the HOA president, Brenda, had bragged about a “charming” 19th-century vase she’d found. Karen was determined to find something older and more charming, purely out of spite. Her eyes scanned past dusty furniture and tarnished silver until they landed on a grimy, vaguely Middle Eastern-looking oil lamp, tucked away on a low shelf. "I'm sorry, but this is just filthy," she muttered, picking it up with two fingers. "Who would even want this piece of junk?"

Disgusted by the grime on her acrylics, she gave the lamp a contemptuous wipe on her leggings. The brass immediately flared with an unnatural heat, and a plume of thick, violet smoke erupted from the spout, smelling of ozone and ancient resentment. A figure coalesced from the smoke, its form shimmering and indistinct but for a pair of gleaming, sardonic eyes that fixed on her. “Well, well,” a voice echoed, dripping with millennia of boredom and malice. “Look what the cat dragged in. You have rubbed my lamp, mortal. State your desire, so I may twist it into a delightfully appropriate personal hell for you. You get three, so make them count.”

Rush hour traffic was, as always, a personal attack on Karen Whitmore. She slammed her hand on the horn, her chunky bracelet clinking against the steering wheel. "This is America! We drive on the right, not in the middle of two lanes, you idiot!" she shrieked at the Toyota in front of her. Fuming, she reached into her purse for her vape, but her fingers brushed against something small, smooth, and unexpectedly heavy. It was a perfect sphere, about the size of a golf ball, that swirled with an inner galaxy of faint, pulsing light. She’d never seen it before.

"What is this piece of junk?" she grumbled, holding it up. The light within flared in response to her voice. "Honestly," she huffed, glaring at the gridlock, "What if I just had the power to make all these morons get out of my way?" As the words left her lips, the orb in her hand blazed with impossible light. Outside, the driver of the Toyota suddenly wrenched his wheel, swerving directly into a lamppost. The car behind him followed suit, and the one behind that. A pathway was clearing, one chaotic, physics-defying crash at a time. The orb in your hand hums, waiting for your next "What if..."

The package that arrived was not what Karen had ordered. After seeing a targeted ad on Facebook, she’d spent an obscene amount of money on the "Apex Body-Contouring Power Suit," guaranteed to provide "unrivaled support and a commanding presence." Instead of high-end athletic wear, the box contained a single, hermetically sealed container holding a viscous, black sludge that shifted with a life of its own. "I'm sorry but this is UNACCEPTABLE!" she shrieked at her empty kitchen. "That is NOT how you treat a customer!"

Furious, she pried the lid off to get a better look at the "product" she'd be eviscerating in her one-star review. The moment air hit the sludge, it lunged. It flowed up her arm like liquid night, cool and invasive, ignoring her screams. It wasn't clothing; it was a second skin. It seeped into her pores, bonding with her on a cellular level.

The estate sale was a goldmine of gaudy treasures. Karen pushed past a woman admiring a porcelain doll, her sense of entitlement clearing a path through the crowd. In a glass case, resting on a velvet pillow, was a tarnished, bronze-colored circlet designed to look like a thorny vine. It was cheap, probably a prop from some high school play, but it looked regal. It looked like something that belonged on her head. After haggling the price down with a series of loud, withering complaints, she bought it.

Back in her car, she couldn't resist. She placed the crown on her stiff, blonde bob. It tingled as it settled. A wave of intoxicating arrogance, even more potent than her usual supply, washed over her. She pulled out of her parking spot, cutting off a teenager in a beat-up Civic. He laid on his horn. "Do you even know who I am?!" she screamed, glaring at him in her rearview mirror. To her shock, the boy's eyes went vacant. He immediately stopped his car, got out, and bowed deeply at the waist, right in the middle of the parking lot. He, and everyone else she looked at with contempt, now seemed to be awaiting her command.

Karen was furious. Her neighborhood was having a mandatory "Eclipse Viewing Block Party" on the community green, and her attendance was required. "I'm sorry, but this is a security risk!" she’d complained to the HOA president. Now, she stood with her arms crossed, her oversized sunglasses on, refusing to wear the "silly" eclipse glasses being handed out. As the moon began to obscure the sun, the world plunged into an eerie twilight. The temperature dropped, and a strange silence fell over the chattering neighbors.

At the exact moment of totality, a ring of fire in the sky, a bizarre cosmic pressure washed over the park. It felt as if reality itself was holding its breath, waiting for a command. Karen, blinded by the celestial spectacle she had refused to properly shield her eyes from, felt an overwhelming surge of indignant rage at the universe for inconveniencing her. "I wish," she bellowed at the darkened sun, "that everyone would just treat me with the respect I DESERVE! I wish you'd all just see me as the goddess I am!" The ring of fire in the sky pulsed violently, and the ground beneath your feet trembled as the universe, for one brief, terrifying moment, listened.

Karen stormed into the public library, a place she hadn't visited in years, to dispute a $1.75 late fee on a cookbook her ex-husband had checked out a decade ago. While the poor librarian searched for the non-existent record of the fine, Karen wandered into the dusty, forgotten archives, her scowl deepening with every cobweb. She pulled a heavy, leather-bound book off a shelf. It was blank, save for a single sentence on the first page: The written word is truth. Tucked into the spine was a beautiful, old-fashioned quill pen.

"How ridiculous," she scoffed. Annoyed, and with a flair for the dramatic, she uncorked the inkwell next to the book, dipped the quill, and wrote on a blank page: Karen Whitmore was never charged a late fee by this library, and in fact, the library owes her $100 for emotional distress. The moment she lifted the quill, the ink glowed and vanished. She blinked. The librarian suddenly appeared at her elbow. "Mrs. Whitmore? I am so, so sorry. It seems we made a mistake. Please, accept this $100 cash from our emergency fund for the trouble we've caused you." The book in your hands hums with potential. You can write anything, and it will become a retroactive fact.

Her tirade in the Verizon store was one for the ages. It involved accusations of throttling her data, the shrill questioning of an employee's immigration status, and a demand to speak to the CEO of telecommunications himself. It was a masterpiece of entitled fury, and as she stormed out, two people in simple grey robes who had been watching from the corner of the store hurried to catch up with her. "Ma'am! Wait!" one of them said, their eyes wide with unnerving reverence. "We saw the power you wield. The absolute authority."

"We have been searching for a new vessel," the other one whispered, bowing their head. "Our last guide was... weak. He asked, where you demand. He suggested, where you command. You are the one foretold in the texts. The Divine Voice of Unquestionable Will." The first person pulled a strange, ceremonial pendant from their robes. "Please. We have prepared the ascension ritual. We need only a willing god to lead us. You are She. You must be."

The pop-up kiosk at the mall was staffed by a "wellness guru" with a man-bun and a vacant smile. He was peddling something called "Gaia's Essence," a single vial of viscous, shimmering green liquid for the low, low price of ninety-nine dollars. He claimed it would "unlock your inner potential." Karen, who believed any expensive product was inherently better, bullied him into giving her a 50% discount. "This is America!" she'd snapped when he hesitated. "It's called a free market, look it up!"

Now, back in her pristine white kitchen, she stared at the vial. It sizzled faintly as she unscrewed the cap. "Time to unlock my potential," she sneered, and downed the entire contents in one gulp. It tasted like ozone and celery. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a dizzying, nauseating wave of vertigo washed over her as the room began to shrink. No, not shrink. She was growing. Her head burst through the ceiling, her animal-print cardigan ripping at the seams as she rocketed upwards, stopping only when she was a bewildered, fifty-foot-tall titan standing in the wreckage of her own home. A strange, unfamiliar heat began to build deep within her.