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The Third Wish



Estimated reading time — < 1 minute

An elderly man was sitting alone on a dark path. He wasn’t sure of which direction to go, and he’d forgotten both where he was traveling to…and who he was.

He’d sat down for a moment to rest his weary legs, and suddenly looked up to see an elderly woman before him.

She grinned toothlessly and with a cackle, spoke: “Now your third wish. What will it be?”

“Third wish?” The man was baffled. “How can it be a third wish if I haven’t had a first and second wish?”

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“You’ve had two wishes already,” the hag said, “but your second wish was for me to return everything to the way it was before you had made your first wish. That’s why you remember nothing; because everything is the way it was before you made any wishes.” She cackled at the poor man. “So it is that you have one wish left.”

“All right,” he said hesitantly, “I don’t believe this, but there’s no harm in trying. I wish to know who I am.”

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“Funny,” said the old woman as she granted his wish and disappeared forever. “That was your first wish…”

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103 thoughts on “The Third Wish”

  1. Yes, this was taken from the game Planescape: Torment. In the game, you play a character called The Nameless One, who returns to life every time he dies, but with some or all of his memories missing. Though it is not directly stated, it is natural to infer that this wish story is about TNO himself. Some of his past ‘lives’ were quite evil, but over the course of many deaths, have been forgotten. Ravel Puzzlewell, the hag (magical creature, not just an old human) who gave him this cursed immortality, apparently showed up while he was living a wandering, confused life, and gave him three wishes. TNO wished to know who he was, and was horrified to have all of the terrible experiences and actions of all of his previous lives revealed to him all at once. In the grip of this horror, he used his second wish to undo the first. Then, not knowing what he was doing, he used his final wish to bring the horrible knowledge back again.
    I assume that he then killed himself until he again forgot who he was, which may be the point at which The Nameless One wakes up in a mortuary., and the player takes control of the story in the beginning of the game. Honestly, though we call it a ‘game’, I would say Planescape: Torment is really more like ‘interactive literature’ dealing with philosophical questions of identity and the nature of being. If you play it, create your character so that your mental stats are all fairly high (16) and don’t worry too much about strength or constitution. A well-developed mind helps you discover all of the story, and the combats aren’t very hard.

  2. Jesus H. Christ people this is ripped off from Planescape: Torment.

    The character who tells the story (Morte) is actually foreshadowing information you figure out later in the game when telling this story in front of you (the Nameless One).

    This is just a taste of Torment. If even this peaked your interest I highly recommend going to GoG and downloading it for your PC. If the combat is too difficult there are plenty of character editors out there (doesn’t take much beyond a stat boast to make the game more playable).

  3. You see, what really happened is that this old man had three wishes BEFORE the old woman, where he
    1: forgets
    2: remembers
    3: forgets.
    So when he got the three wishes from her as well, he wishes he could
    1: remember
    2: forget
    3: remember.

  4. wish you had written when the first and second wish happened and ended with this, it would have been better

  5. His first wish was to know who he was.
    Being shocked at who he was, his second wish was to forget who he was.
    His third wish was again to find out who he was.

  6. This story is from Planescape: Torment. Considering its a small throwaway bit, it really highlights the fantastic writing in the game.

  7. He probably didn’t want to understand who he was because he’s done some very regrettable things in his life and is now wanted by somebody or is haunted forever by what he’s done.

  8. I love the fact that he didn’t ask what his other wishes were first :) makes it a little more twisted

    IT’S A MEMORY PARADOX!
    He wished that he would forget because he wanted to remember because he forgot.

    DELICIOSA PASTA!

  9. Jeremiah Brown

    WOW! Short, but ABSOLUTELY AWESOME! Just the implications of it. Excellent work! Would love to see more like this.

  10. i think i got it: 1st wish: who am i? upon granting this wish, he is horrified at who he is, and asks to forget everything (2nd). the rest is history :D

    p.s. WHO WAS OLD WOMAN?

  11. Honestly, what person wouldn’t go and ask, “Well, what did I wish for already? After all, I don\’t want to make a repeat wish!’’

    She did tell him his second wish, after all, so she has no rules against asking

    Also, fucking site keeps putting crap where I put quotes and apostrophes. Maybe this will do the trick >.>

  12. This is excellence. A series of surprising twists all packed into a few paragraphs. And it’s food for thought. BUT WHO WAS MAN’S REAL IDENTITY?

  13. I like this one. Makes you wonder who he was or what he did that was so horrible he wished to not be able to remember anything about it.

    1. Miroslav Hlad O'Mor Martinovič

      Planescape: Torment, the game which this story is originally from, has all the answers for you ;)

  14. For those who were wondering if they were sanity was going down the drain, because of the familiarity of this story, have no fear (which is actually not the intent of this site) because here is the link to the where it was posted:

    http://creepypasta.tumblr.com/

  15. @ 19, 28
    You read it wrong. He must’ve had some sort of trauma and forgot who he was, met this witch who gave him three wishes. He wanted to remember who he was was his first wish. Who he was scared him or something, and his second wish was for it to be like he never made his first wish. So, he forgot everything back to before he made his first wish. A creepypasta indeed, and a very good one at that. It really makes you think.

    1. Miroslav Hlad O'Mor Martinovič

      Nope, you read it wrong. The original context for this is Planescape: Torment, where it not only makes shiveringly perfect sense, but addresses all the questions and concerns I’ve seen here in comments even before you get to this specific story in-game.

      Edit: okay, you read it much less wrong than most people here, but you’re still missing the context to see the real depth of the story ;)

  16. LOL the man got told what his second wish was, did it not occur to him to ask about his first…or would that have been a wish o_0

    1. Miroslav Hlad O'Mor Martinovič

      No, it would not have been a wish.
      And no, it did not occur to him. In the original context (which seems to be Planescape: Torment, at least for this form of the story), not asking what the first question was, is… a major point, part of the overall story.

  17. i get up at mdnight to go home

    wow he must have been really bad too forget himself, in a way its kind of a sad story but very clever :D

    1. Miroslav Hlad O'Mor Martinovič

      I wasn’t sure, but it really seems this story, or at least in this form, is originally from Planescape: Torment. In its context, it not only makes perfect sense (and answers your concern before you even get to the part where the story is told), but fits so perfectly, and hammers the point so well that it gave me goosebumps.
      If you like clever and kind of mindfuck-y stories, I recommend playing the game, it’s chock-full of similar ones, both in the main story and the stories people in that world tell you ;)

  18. shortys roc my sox

    wishes
    1. to know who i am
    2. to forget who i am
    3. to remember who i am

    ok if you were you, you would already know who you are right?

  19. i read this when it first came out on this site.

    i just realized what had happened in it at about 9:30 pm last night.

    g’damn.

  20. I liked it too but Its almost a word for word copy of something that happened in the Planescaoe campaign setting. The nameless one has that exact conversation with a witch. the onyl difference is that the witch doesnt disappear forever. she just leaves.

    1. No, that is not right. The nameless one reads the story on a sphere, in a museum like place. It hints at the character of the story being the nameless one, but it doesnt happen. It might have happened. wow, now I want to play Torment again.

      1. Miroslav Hlad O'Mor Martinovič

        Not right either. The story is there multiple times. I don’t remember it in the museum (or just vaguely), but also Morte can tell the story in Brothel, when you’re exchanging stories with one of the girls there. Or she can tell the story first, or if morte is not in your party. And then Ravel tells it at some point. It’s kind of logical, as both the story and the game basically have the same central theme ;)

    2. Miroslav Hlad O'Mor Martinovič

      Nope, never actually “happens” in the game, there’s just about 3 places Nameless one comes across the story. See my response to rafael below ;)

      btw, the witch you meant is probably Ravel, and she certainly doesn’t just leave :-D
      Neither does the girl in Brothel.

  21. Re: P4inkiller:
    He wanted to know who he was, not forget. Until of course, he found who he was and hated it or was scared by it and wished to forget it.

  22. I read this on some other creepypasta site, but not this one.

    Anyhow, I really like this. Again, it’s vague, but has a wonderful story behind it…

    1. Miroslav Hlad O'Mor Martinovič

      First time I’ve read this was in Planescape: Torment and the text seems to be directly ripped out of the game, only piece of editing in there is that some “y’know?” and other “slangy” interjections (that the character who said the story in the game was using) were removed.

    1. Miroslav Hlad O'Mor Martinovič

      I know this story in a larger context: I’ve read it in Planescape: Torment, which is an awesome game, by the way, and its whole story revolves around an immortal amnesiac who’s trying to find out who he is and such. The story appears somewhere mid-way through the game, and at that moment everything you’ve gone through in the game has built up together in such a way that for me, the moment of reading this story was… well, strong. I laughed and got goosebumps and shed some tears, and to this day, when I read the story, or remember it, the goosebumps are back. I highly recommend the game, btw, it has much more moments like that.

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