PROSE And here is where the chapter begins. He jolts backward abruptly, heartbeat spiking, coughing. After a few seconds, his breathing goes back to normal, and he closes his eyes, sighing heavily. Just a bad dream. Nothing out of the ordinary. He goes back to staring up at the lines of people waiting to board the plane, the blue lines of the airline logo above the door, the counter next to the door where people’s passports are checked. He stares for a little too long, until the person besides him comments, “It’s almost our time to board the plane.” He turns his head sharply, seeing his friend to his right, grinning at him. He smiles back silently and goes back to staring at the lines of people. Today is the first day of his class trip to New York City — five to six days, give or take. His heartbeat is almost audible and his mouth is completely dry. You’d think he was presenting a class project or something of the sort, with cold, clammy, sweat-covered hands, but he isn’t. Just nervous to be on a trip outside of his state for the first time in a long while. Just nervous. After all, what does he have to be afraid of? The book tells him everything that’s going to happen. He found the book one sunny afternoon, stashed in the back of his closet along with random figurines that haven’t seen the light in years and dust bunnies. He didn’t think too much of the book at first — just asked his parents if the book was theirs. They shrugged. Said they had never seen it. Maybe it belonged to a relative and they accidentally left it at their house and it got shifted into the back of the closet. But when he opened the book in the recluse of his own room, complete with a dust covering and the smell of an old novel, he found detailed diary-like journal entries consisting of descriptions of
23|The penchant||MAY 2021
events. He thought, Wow, whoever wrote this must have been really dedicated. They included very miniscule details that could’ve been easily overlooked. But a strange sinking feeling found its way into his stomach when he realized the actions listed in the book seemed. . . familiar. They were things that he would have done on a daily basis. He flipped back to the beginning to carefully inspect the book. It read, Chapter 1. And here is where the chapter begins. He sits up abruptly in his bed, heartbeat spiking, coughing. After a few seconds, his breathing goes back to normal, and he sits back in his bed, sighing heavily. Just a bad dream. Nothing out of the ordinary. After a few minutes. . . And the list goes on and on, with a word by word description of actions the person in question was doing. Except. . . He had done every single task described. And on the bottom of that page, the list read, He picks up and reads this book.
His eyes widened. Was this a list of all that he was doing? Was someone supervising him this entire time and watching his every move? He instinctively stiffened up and looked around himself cautiously, but no one was in sight. And what piqued his wonder was that when he flipped to the next page, words immediately filled in. The list contained items that he hadn’t done that day yet. He finishes math homework and then proceeds to cry over said homework’s difficulty. His chest heaves, tears hot in his eyes. . . After a while, when he’s calmed down, he brings up his phone to browse Twitter again for half an hour, before he’s called to have dinner. . . And such. And there was another “chapter” on the next page. Chapter 2. And here is where the chapter begins. He sits up abruptly in his bed, heartbeat spiking, coughing. After a few seconds, his breathing goes back to normal, and he sits back in his bed, sighing heavily.
CHAPTER 3 by blue
