"The Wedding Spell"

I'd always heard that weddings could be unpredictable, but I never imagined anything like this. One moment, I'm sitting in my apartment thousands of miles away, thumbing through an old, dusty book I found at a thrift store, and the next, I'm standing at the altar in a white dress, a ring on my finger, and my best friend's eyes boring into mine with a mixture of confusion and terror. As if possessed by some unseen force—oh wait, that's literally what happened—I opened my new red-haired mouth and whispered, "I do."

Let me back up a little.

"Keith, you gotta see this," I murmured on the phone, balancing it between my shoulder and cheek as I flipped through the tattered pages.

"C'mon, man, you know I can't. It's my wedding day," Keith's voice crackled through the speaker.

"Yeah, yeah," I waved my hand dismissively as if he could see me. "But this book is wild! It's got spells and..."

"Josiah, please don't tell me you're messing with some hocus-pocus voodoo right now. You'd better not miss my Zoom wedding either," he warned.

"Zoom's for losers! I wouldn't miss it for the world," I snorted, then paused at a page labeled, 'Possession Spell'. "Oh, dude. This one says it lets me possess someone!"

I heard Keith groan. "Josiah, whatever you're thinking, stop it."

"Too late. Abracadabra, yadda yadda yadda," I mumbled the incantation, chuckling. "Let's see what happens. Fo shizzle my nizzle!"

The world spun, and not in a fun, hang-on-to-your-hat way. More like a tilt-a-whirl on steroids. Next thing I knew—poof! There I was in a wedding dress with, um, 'new assets'.

“Oh, no way,” I muttered under my breath, glancing down at—uh, 'my'—chest. “Keith’s gonna freak.”

“Josiah?” I heard a soft, stunned voice say. It was Keith, standing in front of me, looking like he’d seen a ghost. Or rather, looking like he’d seen his best friend magically replace his bride.

"Hey, bro!" I said, grinning widely and giving him a little wave that drew attention to the ring on my—her—finger. "Guess what? I came after all!"

Keith ran a hand through his hair, looking around nervously as the guests whispered amongst themselves. I can only imagine what they thought. "We should probably... leave," he hissed, pulling me to the side, his face as red as the roses in the bouquets.

"What happened, Josiah?" he whispered urgently, once we’d found a quiet corner.

“So, funny story,” I began, trying not to laugh. “Remember that spell book I told you about? Turns out it works! I'm in Annabelle's body.”

"You what?" Keith looked like he was balancing between punching me and passing out. "Undo it! Right now!"

“Uh, funny story number two: I left the book at my place.”

Keith froze, and his face did that twitchy thing it always did when he was about to lose his temper but was trying to be mature about it. “This is supposed to be my wedding day. MY WEDDING DAY!”

“Yeah, I know. I didn't mean to barge in. Just wanted to try it, but hey, looks like I'm here for the ride!” I grinned appreciatively down at my—her—body. “You sure know how to pick 'em, bro.”

***

The rest of the ceremony was an absolute blast—at least for me. Keith, on the other hand, looked like he might need therapy for life.

I couldn’t help but play things up. I mean, what else was I supposed to do? Keith was already catatonic with panic. During the reception, I rapped every verse of "Baby Got Back" perfectly, earning confused claps from the guests.

"Since when does Annabelle know Sir Mix-a-Lot?" Aunt Edna muttered to Uncle Fred. He shrugged, stuffing his face with cake.

And then, of course, came the slow dance.

“You know, you’ve got a surprisingly gentle touch,” I teased Keith as we swayed. “For a big guy, you're all soft hands."

“Will you stop it?” he hissed. "People are starting to notice."

"Fine. But you might want to let go of my butt then," I replied, smirking. Keith jumped back like he'd touched a hot stove, looking incredibly awkward and lost. This was priceless.

By the time the reception was over and we were on our way to the airport, he'd finally relaxed a bit. "So, Hawaii, huh?" I said, stretching Annabelle’s limbs like a happy cat. “Never been! Always wanted to go."

“You... You... What about Annabelle?” He stared at me, wide-eyed.

“I'll find a way to switch back,” I assured him, though, to be honest, I had no idea how long that would take. “Until then, let’s make the most of it. We can catch up on old times!"

Keith groaned, putting his head in his hands. "This is going to be the weirdest honeymoon ever."

I just laughed, giving him a playful nudge. "Look on the bright side, bro! Free drinks, sunshine, and you’ve got my fabulous company. What could go wrong?"

And just like that, we were wheels up, ready to start the most bizarre honeymoon in the history of mankind. Who said weddings had to be by the book?

Except, of course, for that one particular book that caused all this madness in the first place.

This story was generated by user zach3 with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.

Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.

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