They tell you in school and on TV and in old school specials on TV from the halcyon days where wild CRTs roamed free not to give into peer pressure. You won't be cool, you know? They're just using you. If everyone else jumped off a bridge would you do it too? You look around the room and realize that yeah, you probably would. Peer pressure's a hell of a thing after all, otherwise they wouldn't have to warn you about it. "Fine." you grunt and head out to your truck. You come back in and drop your backpack onto the floor in front of where you had been sitting before.
"So tell me, Prescott," says Charles as he eyes the backpack, "this book: does it have subjects in it? Perhaps of a mathematical or scientific persuasion? Tell me, are you trying to get us to do your homework for you?"
"Charles." comes the calm-yet-stern voice of Jelena.
"Oh Yell, don't you see?" he opines, "He lures us in with promises of spooky ghost books but he was just using us for our minds. To debase ourselves intellectually... filthy!"
"Charles!" this time it's Andrea in a not-as-calm tone of voice.
"Oh fine." Charles relents as he flops his head down into Andrea's lap, and for a moment you envy him, "You know I could never go against my better half."
"I'm honestly shocked you're all so interested in it." you say as you dig through the books and old school papers, probably too old, to find the book.
"More like curious." Jelena shrugs, "It's something to do; a conversation starter. Maybe it'll lead us on some pretty interesting tangents."
You finally locate the book at the very bottom, or back really, of the backpack and pull it plopping it down right in the middle of the floor. "There, you happy?" you ask. You're actually a bit surprised looking at it and you notice that no more does the cover seem to be shifting or messy. It's still intricate sure but nowhere to the point of unreadability that it had when you saw it at the book shop. Definitely weird.
"Pretty fancy looking book." Sienna states as she eyes it, "How much you drop on it?"
"Two bucks." you state simply, "The pages are glued shut or something." You open it up and try to turn past the warnings page but can't. "See what I mean?"
"So you bought a fancy doorstop." says Andrea and you wilt a bit at that. So far in your brief time here she's come off as fairly cool and you're not sure if she's just stuck-up or good at keeping a poker face. Maybe a bit of both, you determine, as the middle is usually where the answer lies.
"Well it was two dollars, it's not like I was gonna get anything for it anyway." you state, "Actually it's kind of weird. And this is gonna sound like a load of shit and a great way to make a first impression but it's the truth. I tried translating this thing a few nights ago and I couldn't write anything down. Literally I'd press a pen against the paper and nothing. Word processor would crash. It's probably coincidence but that was... I don't know. So I had to translate this, with rudimentary Latin knowledge that I barely remember, and that's when those words showed up on the inside cover." You then flip back to it.
"Claim me with money; possess me with blood." Fatima reads.
You take another look at it. It certainly wasn't in English before. That's definitely strange; did it change because of you getting the translation or...? You brush it off. "That's what I meant by bleed on it." you state.
"Bleed on... shit." is all Sienna can say.
"So bleed on it." Jelena chimes in and everyone turns to her in shock. "Why not? Think of it like a a more edgy Ouija board."
You grumble, "I don't think a Ouija board asks me to cut my thumb." you reply. "And you seem awfully into it for someone who's not into it."
"We've got band-aids. I think." she replies.
"Well then why don't you cut your thumb?" you challenge, "Or why not Andrea, or Sienna, or Hartlein, or Dane, or..." You stop to look around the room. They're not serious about it and yet they are. It's an odd group, you think. Would you and Keith and James and them do this? They seem to like taking things as they come and going with the flow, even if that apparently means minor self-mutilation on your end.
"My hands are too valuable." Jelena deadpans, "I've got the best ones since Ray McKigney."
You narrow your eyes at her and then your mental vision narrows albeit in another way: Andrea Varnsworth, Jelena Petrovic, Fatima Zahedi, Sienna Goldman. Four girls, each attractive in their own way. Maybe if you do this they'll be impressed. Look at the balls on you, able to embrace and move beyond pain like that for some fun and experimentation! Or maybe they'll think you're a lunatic and a weirdo. Still... they're all eyeing you. They're waiting for you to make a decision.
"Don't worry, Prescott, I'll kiss your boo boo to make it better." Charles shoots in sarcastically.
"You don't have to do it." Fatima says as she turns shoot a quick glare in Jelena's direction, "She's just messing with you."
At this point your desire to look "brave" and try to impress these girls has overwhelmed your logic however so you shrug. "It's fine, not like I haven't hurt myself worse." you say thinking back to that rather nasty compound fracture you got in 7th grade during a pick-up game of basketball during gym class. You pull out your trusty pocket knife and steel yourself as you press your thumb to the edge and then make a quick slice.
"FUCK!" you exclaim as it hurt more than you realized.
"Jesus Christ, what hell are you doing?!" Andrea exclaims, "You didn't have to..." She then turns to glare at Jelena and Hartlein, "You two go get some paper towels or something, I don't need him bleeding out all over my carpet." The two of them beat feet to the kitchen.
You're not in the mood to do that either so you look down at book and quickly place your thumb onto the thumb print. Nothing seems to happen.
"That's pretty hardcore, man, but also pretty retarded. You don't need to let those two egg you on like that." Sienna states. "Shit, I don't even think anything happened."
You're inclined to agree and you start absentmindedly flipping through the pages when suddenly the page with the warnings flips as well. "Um, what..." is all you can mutter.
"Wasn't that page glued shut?" Fatima asks as she eyes the book, "I mean you tried opening it and..."
"I know, I know, I... don't know!" you exclaim.
Suddenly the others crowd around you, including a freshly returned Jelena and Charles. They begin looking at the new page with you. "What the fuck is this shit?" asks one voice, Sienna. "I think that's latin." comes Fatima's voice, as best as you can make out in the overlapping murmurs and chatters at least. "Hey, turn the page!", Hartlein this time. So you do as he suggests and turn it. It won't turn. You try again and no luck. On more time and... nope.
"Stop messing with us." says Andrea, "Turn the page."
"I can't!" you exclaim as you try a few more times.
In frustration you shove the book towards her and let her try. After a few times she appears visibly frustrated and then sheepishly pushes the book back towards you. "This is..." she starts as she eyes both it and you, "You turned the other page right?"
"I couldn't before, I already showed you!" you say defensively, "It only turned after... after..." you stop as realization hits you. "Okay so I got this warning page after I translated the page before it. When I translated the warning page that's when the thumb print showed up. Now the warning page turns after I put my bloody thumb on that print."
"So you're saying... what? That you have to do things to turn the pages? That this is real?" Andrea asks.
Your eyes go wide and you shake your head. "I don't know what the fuck I'm saying or even what the fuck is going on. I mean... it's fucking magic! That stuff is for nerds like... like those guys who play Dungeons & Dragons."
"It certainly seems real." Jelena states plainly, "Or at least convincing enough to make you think it seems real." She looks down at the book and is silent for a moment. Then she grabs it and flips through to the first page and then the warning page, then to the new page with the theater mask on it. "It's a book about mask and disguises and changing your form." she then places it back down and looks up, "I say we keep going with it."
"You don't believe this shit, do you Yell?" Sienna asks increduously, "It's just a dumb book. It's not like this shit is real."
"Maybe it is or maybe it isn't. Either way it'll be an interesting project, right? Something we can all share in as a group." She looks around at everyone that's gathered, "So I say we keep going."
"Me too!" Charles chimes in, "Not that I think it's real but hey, could be fun." He then turns to Andrea with a smirk, "Hey Drea, if it is think I could use it to charm my way into Patterson's pants?"
Andrea makes a gagging motion while Sienna speaks. "It's. A. Stupid. Fucking. Book. This is retarded." She says.
"And creepy. I vote no if we're doing that." Fatima says.
"Yeah, it's givin' me bad vibes." Dane chimes in. You'd almost forgotten he was here.
Andrea looks at everyone, back and forth between yourself, the Yays, the Nays, and the book. "Jelena and Charles are my best friends so I have to side with them, sorry."
And suddenly all eyes fall on you. You made the decision to cut your finger and now you have to make a much bigger decision. What the Nays said is right, of course, but what the Yays said... you're definitely intrigued by the book. As intrigued as you are scared.
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author