To Fix The Future
To the reader, know that I do not write this to vindicate myself. The wrongdoings I have committed are mine to bear. I simply wish that I might be able to prevent the outcome that I’ve found myself in.
I remember walking into that bookstore, as I had many times before. It was just another day of work for me, sitting at the counter and welcoming people who came in. The lo-fi beats came through my computer speakers, and the wax melter filled the store with lavender.
It wasn’t long before a customer walked in. He was a regular, and he came around this same time every day. My gaze followed him lazily as he browsed the shelves, looking for his next new read.
He walked past a book I had never seen before. It’s not unusual for new books to be on display; vendors often come in and showcase new publications. This book was solid black, save for the green lettering that covered it. Something called me to that book. Maybe it was curiosity, but likely it was something darker.
I waited for my regular to find his new material. I checked out his book. “A Guide To Cooking, huh? Looking to try out some new recipes today?” I asked, trying to make my usual attempt at small talk.
“Yeah, I guess so,” was all he said. He was never much of a talker, unless something particularly piqued his interest. He grabbed his book and walked out the door.
“Have a nice day!” I called after him. I heard the bell on the door jingle, and again I was alone in the store. I looked at the book once again. I can see the green text on the cover so vividly in my memory, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it said. I remember that it had no author on the cover. I thought this was weird. Why would the author not want credit for their writing?
I went back to my normal tasks. I wiped down the counters and shelves. I swept the floors and reorganized the books. I scrolled mindlessly on my phone while I waited for customers. My mind kept going back to that plain black book, though. There was something about it that intrigued me.
I decided to go look at it. It felt heavier than it should. And warm. It felt so warm, as if there was an energy emanating from it. The book itself felt… wrong. I don’t know how else to describe it, but a book shouldn’t feel warm to the touch like that.
I quickly put the book down and went back to scrolling on my phone. Another customer walked in shortly. They walked past the book without a glance. Sure, it doesn’t have any catchy cover art or a renowned author's name, but it seems so out of place on display. I started to ask myself if I was the only person who noticed the book.
“Hey, uh… where’s the manga at?” I sighed audibly, looking up from my phone. The kid was maybe thirteen to fifteen, I wasn’t good at gauging ages. “Well?” He asked impatiently.
“It’s in the back left of the store.” I pointed in the general direction. He walked off, and I went back to my phone. A few more customers walked in, the bell alerting me to each one of their presences. I watched each one of them walk past the book on display without even glancing at it.
The kid was back with his stack of mangas, which were clearly meant for a more mature audience. “Hey, kid, are you even allowed to be reading these?” I asked.
“Why don’t you mind your own business, loser. Just ring out my mangas already.” Whatever, I rolled my eyes and took his money. I didn’t get paid enough to moderate what he reads.
As customers came and went, I found myself often drifting back to that book. No one looked at it. No one picked it up and felt its unnatural warmth. Everyone ignored it, and yet I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even now, as I’m writing this, I can feel it calling to me still.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked over and grabbed the book off its display stand. I carried it with me back to my counter, and I opened it, trying to be discreet about it. I opened it to the first page, and I felt the energy flow into my hands. I saw images of creatures flying around, screeching in some alien language. Creatures that now haunt me. The noises they make are unintelligible, and yet, somehow, I can understand them at the same time.
I felt the ground shake beneath me as I gazed into the book, yet no one around me made any indication of feeling the same thing. Everyone continued around me as I read… what did I read? I can’t remember a single word that was on those pages. All I can remember is the feeling.
“Hello? You there? Ground Control to Major Tom.” The voice of a concerned customer pulled me out of the trance I was trapped in. A line of three customers had formed. “You seemed pretty into that book.”
“Yeah, sorry,” I said nervously. How could a book take that much attention from me? That wasn’t me spacing out from getting too involved in something. No less than fifteen minutes had passed by while I was in that trance, and I apparently never even flipped a page.
I quickly rang out the customers, apologizing to each one and thanking them for their patience. “Don’t worry about it,” a girl said, “happens to me all the time. I once burned my dinner so bad it set off the smoke detector and called the fire department for me.”
Once all of the customers were out, I closed up the shop for my lunch break. I pulled out the book again. I felt a sense of dread mixed with morbid curiosity as I opened the book again. The same flow of energy ran into me, pulling me further into the book. I felt words echo in my head, and I unwittingly repeated them in my trance-like state. They felt strangely familiar, as if it were a lullaby I had heard as an infant. I can’t remember now what they were, nor would I write them if I could. I remember that they were strange words, ones that didn’t make sense. Yet I repeated those same foreign but familiar words.
I head breaking glass as soon as I finished them. I jumped up and looked around, and to my horror, I saw a crack. Not in a window, or a mirror, no, I saw the first crack in reality. The bookshelf that had been there was split in two, perfectly bifurcated on either side of it. The crack was thin, but ran the length of my whole field of vision. What lay behind it was incomprehensible.
The crack widened. I heard it before I saw it, but it was growing. Widening. The bookshelf that was on the other side grew further and further apart. It wasn’t blocking the bookshelf; it simply split it. A moving object would go from one side of the crack to the other unphased, as if it weren’t there. As if only I could perceive it. But it was there.
Again, the crack grew, and I could see a full view into the other world. God, the sound the crack made. I saw those winged creatures. At first, they flew by, completely oblivious. But then, they noticed me. One of them stopped, and it stared straight into my soul. I heard it’s screech for the first time. The cracking sound, along with the screeching, was so much that I collapsed to the floor, begging to wake up from this nightmare, but it wouldn’t end.
I saw visions of temples in green skies, the green sun beating down. Then I saw nights with shining stars like holes punched through a purple silk sheet. I saw sacrifices to a god, not in thankfulness but in fear. A god so terrible it would desecrate a civilization in an instant if it were not satiated.
The creature came closer to the crack, which was now spiderwebbing outward. It looked at me with a strange curiosity, as others like it came to gather around. And then, it reached through the crack. It reached through, and it touched me. Its cold grasp grabbed me by the arm and pulled me against the crack. I felt reality straining against the pressure of this creature. I fought it, but it was so strong. I heard the literal fabric of reality groan and creak before shattering as I was pulled through the crack. I watched in a strange horror as the bookstore I once knew fell around me in a rain of glass-like shards, sparkling and shimmering until they dissipated into nothingness.
I saw before me the temple of my nightmares. It was grander than any vision I could have perceived, and the power of its deity emanated from it. I knew already what my fate would be, as the greenish sun was setting on the world. The sky faded to purple as I was forced to enter the tunnel. I was thrown in a cell to wait.
There was a crack inside the cell, and through it I could see a younger version of myself. One from before I ever worked at that cursed bookstore. It wasn’t large enough to escape through, but I could throw a book through, perhaps. So, I wrote this, awaiting to be a sacrifice to an unholy abomination, potentially the incarnation of evil itself, hoping maybe I can change the future for you. Maybe you, another version of myself, can escape from this timeline. Do not ever accept that job at the bookstore. And if you see that black book, for the sake of all of causality, do not touch it. Run, run as if the whole world depends on it. Hopefully, it won’t be too late for you.