They say strange things wash up on the beach after a storm. Most people know better than to pick them up.
But not Malik.
He was wandering the shore, jobless again, frustrated with life, when he spotted it—a shell, unlike anything he’d ever seen. It shimmered like polished metal, its spirals etched with glowing, unfamiliar symbols. At the very center, one phrase pulsed faintly:
“Rub me.”
Malik grinned. “Why not?” he thought.
The moment his fingers brushed the shell’s surface, there was a flash of white light—and suddenly, an extra pair of wireless earphones appeared in his other hand. Same brand. Same scratches. Identical.
“What the…………?”
He rubbed it again.
Poof, another pair.
That’s when it hit him: the shell could multiply anything he touched, by the number of times he rubbed it. One rub? Double. Five rubs? Multiply by five. The math was simple. The power was terrifying.
Malik sprinted home, heart racing. He touched everything he wanted more of, shirts, speakers, even slices of leftover pizza. They all multiplied. His small, broken apartment transformed into a chaotic warehouse of stuff.
But Malik had a problem: stuff wasn’t money. And money… well, he had none. Not even a coin to rub. And without money, he couldn’t get what he really wanted, freedom, power, respect.
That’s when a dangerous idea crawled into his head.
What if I had more hands?
I could take on more jobs.
Work faster. Earn more.
Then multiply the cash…
He looked at his right hand. Then at the shell.
One rub. Poof.
Now he had three hands.
Another rub. Poof.
Four.
He laughed. It worked. It actually worked.
He assigned each hand a task—washing dishes, answering emails, editing resumes. It was chaos, but it was working.
Until it wasn’t.
See, the extra hands had minds of their own. Some were clumsy. Some curious. Some kept reaching for the shell.
And rubbing.
One rub.
Five.
Ten.
Twenty.
Soon Malik wasn’t in control anymore. The hands were growing. Crawling out of his shoulders, his back, his face. Fingers sprouted from his neck. A palm opened on his chest. They rubbed the shell again. Again. Again.
He screamed, but one hand covered his mouth. Another pulled his eyelids open wide.
By the time the neighbors came to check on him, the apartment door was blocked, by a writhing, tangled mass of hands.
And Malik?
They say no one ever found his face again.
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