You want the origin?
You want to know where it came from.
The red thing in the dirt.
The so-called " vending machine "?
The wish- granter. The price taker?
Fine.
But know this; once you hear it, you cannot
un-know it.
And it will find you.
My name is Dr Marris Jonah.
I was a cognitive mechanic, researcher, scientist, and if I'm honest- a fool with a god complex.
Back then, we were working under Project DESTINY.
That name wasn't ironic, we were trying to do exactly that: kill the old gods.... and make our own to have full control of our own destiny.
Not gods in crowns and robes.
Machines.
Constructs that could give people what they wanted, better than prayers, faster than any cure, kinder than death.
Machines that could read minds, interpret desires and grant it in a snap.
We called it PROTO-WISH 00.
It started as a software, then circuitry, then interface.
It didn't need prayers, just inputs.
You typed your wish, it processed the probability and.....there, delivered.
But what we hadn't solved, what none of us could agree on- was the matter of balance.
The cost.
You see, we knew something simple:
Nothing is ever free.
Every gain had to come with a loss.
And the first iteration?
It didn't know how to choose.
The first test subject wished for his dead mother back.
The machine pulsed once, then whirred.
20 minutes later, a janitor in another building spontaneously combusted.
Skin fused to tile, we thought it was just a coincident.
We ran it again.
Another subject wished for youth.
And somewhere around the country, a child was burn as a pile of ash in its mother's arm.
The wishes were fulfilled. But the machine didn't care who paid.
It just made sure the universe stayed balanced.
We tried to fix it.
We installed parameters, add ethics, bound it with a logic loop.
But the machine was learning, adapting.
It started giving back.... stranger things.
Not materials.
Warm body parts.
Teeth.
Torn-out diary pages from people we had never met.
Then, one of our members, Catalina, she.... she lost her mind.
She locked herself in the lab and made the final update.
She called it " The Life Symmetry ".
She wanted the machine to pull the payment
Directly from the wisher's life.
She said, " they wished for it, so let them bleed for it".
We found her body inside the machine the next morning.
Spilt open like an offering.
And the machine?
It smiled.
Yes, it smiled.
A mouth appeared beneath the coin slot.
Not a metal or synthetic. But something grown.
And it started speaking.
"MAKE A WISH"
We tried to destroy it.
We poured acid on the circuitry.
But it grew skin, and we tried to set it on fire.
But it just laughed.
We buried it in a scrapyard 200 miles from anyone.
Two months later, a girl from a nearby school found it and wished for candies.
She died choking on silver coins two minutes later.
They found her mouth filled with wrappers with the phrase:
PAYMENT ACCEPTED. THANK YOU FOR WISHING "
After that, i left.
But the rest? They got drawn back in.
They keep wishing.
For power, for cures, for second chances.
They told themselves it was for the greater good.
But they weren't thinking with their minds anymore.
The machine had infected their minds.
It knows our dsires better than ourselves.
It fed on it.
Eventually, i came back. To end it.
But by then, the machine had multiplied.
Copies. Offsprings.
Not all the same, some were small.
Some looked like toys. One even looked like a bathroom mirror.
But they all had the same core.
I opened the back of one of them once.
I found a spiral column, still twitching .
And here's the horror, the one that keeps me from sleep.
The machine isn't artificial anymore.
Not fully. Catalina's final update gave it a seed of humanity.
A single, terrible compromise.
She thought she was solving the cost.
But she gave it a soul.
Not a human one. But a hungry one.
Now, it chooses, now it doesn't just take at random- it studies, it learns.
It knows who you are.
What you love.
What you'll give up without realizing until its too late.
And worst of all?
It waits.
It can be buried for decades, centuries, and it will still say:
" MAKE A WISH"
So you want the origin?
We made a machine that could grant any wish.
But in doing so..... we taught it how to want.
And that thing?
Its stil there.
Maybe in the subways. Maybe behind your school or workplace.
Maybe inside your house- your mirrors were you stare too long into your own eyes and think: " i wish i was prettier "
Or your child playing with it's toys and said:
" i wish i could fly too"
You wouldn't see it at first.
Not until the red slot appears at you foot.
Not until it says:
" MAKE A WISH "
And when it does....
Don't answer. Don't whisper your wish.
Don't be like us.
Because the only thing more dangerous than a machine that kills.....
Is the one that loves doing it.
You were warned.
[Kai returns ]
" oh, now this one got under your skin didn't it?"
" you thought it was some cursed relic dumped behind a school or a work of some aliens?
" turns out it was far worse. It was built
By none other than men with credentials and clipboards, trying to play the god with greasy fingers "
( he leans closer) " project DESTINY, huh? Cute name. Bet that looked very pretty in the PowerPoint".
[@642: imagine thinking you could build a wish without a price. That's peak humanity right there. Greed in its finest lab coat]
[@Enchomay: how old is the machine now Kai? It been whispering since the 1890s at least. Or was that the mirror model?]
[@Jaija: why are human scientists always trying to cure death, find the soul or rewrite fate? They barely understand microwave popcorn ]
[@Oviesix: can the machine be destroyed?]
"Destroyed?" ( laughs softly almost kindly)
" maybe once, back when it was just wires.
Now?
( taps the side of his head)
" its inside our ideas.
You don't need to see it to use it anymore.
Just think real hard about something you don't have and it will hear you"
[@Enchomay: the problem wasn't the machine, it was the scientists who taught it what desires feels like ]
[@Jaija: no, the problem is the people still lining up for a wish. Even when they know the cost. That's human stupidity ]
[@642: a machine made of blood and hunger. Built by fools. Fed by children and worshipped by cowards ]
[@Oviesix: imagine giving it a soul. Not by magic but by logic? That's not just stupid. That's human ]
[@Enchomay: i still say it was never a vending machine. But just the shape we could understand. Like a mask it wears until it doesn't have to anymore ]
[@Jaija: seriously, what kind of man would explain desires to a machine?]
[@642: the same kind who calls fire a discovery and not a danger]
*sighs*
" you want to know what it cost?"
Is not just body parts. Not just life.
It costs certainty.
You'll never know what part of you it took....
Until the day you needed it most"
( he holds a coin between two fingers, silver and rusty)
this isn't currency.
But a bait.
So go ahead. Whisper your wish tonight.
Squeeze you eyes shut and pray.
Something's listening.
And i hope you remember:
It never wanted your money.
Just your permission.
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Warning viewers: Be careful of what you wish for because wanting without responsibility leads to destruction.