I've got this book I read over and over. Not because it's perfect, honestly, some parts are rough as hell but because it's the only thing that makes sense when everything else feels like noise. I carry it on my phone everywhere, read it between classes, on the bus, while waiting for Donghyuk to stop messing around and get to the point.
"Dude, you're doing it again," he says, smacking my shoulder like he always does. We're crossing the street, sun beating down on our backs, and I can already quote the line I'm staring at without looking: [Your fate has been realized.]
I don't know why it sticks with me so hard. Maybe because nothing in real life ever feels that sure.
Then the noise stops. Not the traffic or the people talking – everything. Like someone hit pause on the whole world. I look up, and everyone's staring at the sky, faces blank and weird. Donghyuk's frozen too, and that's when I see it: something small and twisted standing right in the middle of the road, grinning like it knows something we don't.
I know what it is. I've read about things like it a hundred times. But that doesn't make it real.
Until it speaks, and the words are clear as day. Until it moves, and the world goes red. Until a screen pops up in front of my face with rules written on it – rules I've memorized word for word from my book.
My hands start to shake, but not from fear. From something else. Like muscle memory kicking in. When the darkness wells up in my palms, when I shape it into something sharp and solid, it feels like I've done this before. Like I know exactly how heavy it'll be, exactly how it cuts.
Donghyuk's yelling something, but I can't focus on that. All I know is that the words from my book aren't just words anymore. And even though I can't explain why, even though nothing about this makes sense, I know exactly what to do.
Some stories don't stay on the page. Sometimes they pull you in so deep you can't tell where the words end and your life begins.