Pages of Fate.

CW: Physical violence, gore or abuse, Mental health

Wednesday, 3/6/96

I didn’t mean to open the book. I only wanted to see if it was real.

It waited on the desk as though it had always been there spine cracked, pages breathing out dust and something far older. The air around it felt heavy, expectant.

Inside the cover was a yellowed slip, stamped in red ink:

THIS SECTION IS OFF LIMITS.

I laughed under my breath the kind of laugh you make when your instincts are screaming and turned the page anyway.

That was the moment everything broke.

The rest of the week passed as it always did. I live by routine. No mistakes. No changes. Perfection keeps things quiet.

5:00 a.m.—wake up.

Breakfast. Shower. School.

Bike straight to the library.

No small talk. No detours. I stayed there until 6:30 p.m. on the dot, when my mom called to say dinner was ready.

Until Friday.

Friday was warm—unnaturally warm for North Carolina in early March. Winter had left scars behind: snapped trees, sagging power lines, patches of stubborn snow. But the sun was out, and for the first time in months, I didn’t need a heavy coat.

All I wanted was to sit outside the library and read.

That’s when I saw the sign on the door:

Permanently Closed.

Mrs. Smith was carrying a box of books to her car. I asked her what was happening. She didn’t meet my eyes.

“I’m sorry, Mac,” she said, her voice thin with fear, and drove away.

I sat at the picnic tables with a book my English teacher had given me, trying to read. It was my only quiet place my only escape from the noise of home.

An hour passed.

Then I saw Mr. Whitlock heading toward the back of the building.

“Mr. Whitlock!” I called.

He didn’t turn. I followed him, my pulse picking up, until I froze.

His son Sergeant Thomas Whitlock was leaning against his police car, jaw tight, hands clenched.

“How could you lose it?” he hissed. “Why would you keep it in the library?”

Mr. Whitlock broke down, sobbing as he begged his son to forgive him. I had never seen him cry. He was always cruel, always sharp especially to Mrs. Smith.

“You know what that book did to Mom,” Sergeant Thomas snapped.

Then he drove off.

Mr. Whitlock disappeared back into the library.

I returned to the picnic tables, unable to read—a book. A single book is powerful enough to shatter a family.

I checked the time—7:00 p.m.

My phone died in my hand.

Panic set in. Mom hadn’t called. Dinner should’ve been ready.

I biked home as fast as I could.

The house was dark. Silent. No food. No voices. Dad wouldn’t be home on Friday meetings always ran late.

I went to my room and plugged in my phone.

When I turned around, my stomach dropped.

The book was on my bed.

That’s when I understood.

The Whitlocks weren’t looking for a book.

They were looking for mine.

I just stared at it, frightened.

I had left the book on the desk.

How did it get there i thought, i slowly picked it up and started to read.. as i read i realized it was describing every event that had happened since I checked it out on Wednesday, my routine, the library closing, even when I fell off my bike on the way to school yesterday morning.

I started to cry.

WEDNESDAY, 5/8/96

Mom never came home.

It had been nine weeks since she disappeared.

The book continued to document every single event.

Mom was not coming home from work nine weeks ago. The search parties organized by the local police station were organized to look for her. The casseroles, flowers, and cookies people sent to us.

Everything.

It didn’t miss a single detail.

Dad is a wreck. My sister won’t leave her room. My brothers went to stay with Grandma. And I—

I can’t help but feel like this is all my fault, but I wouldn’t dare say that out loud. If my dad knew I might have something to do with Mom’s disappearance, he’d kill me.

My best friend Max came over almost every day with a big bowl of homemade dinner her mom sent, knowing that with Mom gone, we weren’t eating.

After some time, I told Max everything about the book. She looked at me like I couldn’t be serious, so I picked it up and showed her how it explained everything that had happened.

The rest of the pages were blank.

She looked frightened.

“Do you ever feel like someone else is… behind this?” Max asked softly.

I nodded, running my fingers over the leather cover. “Like a group, a secret society. Someone is making sure the book ends up in the right hands.”

Max shivered. “And maybe… they chose us.”

“Mac, you have to show this to the police,” she whispered.

I shut the book and rolled my eyes.

“No.”

She didn’t say another word. We both lay down on my bed in silence.

“Hey, Mac,” she said quietly.

“Yeah?” I replied.

“It isn’t your fault.”

I didn’t answer.

Deep down, I knew it was.

Two weeks passed before my dad got the call from Sergeant Whitlock.

They found my mother’s remains.

Just two miles from our house.

The autopsy came back.

My mother

had been murdered.

I didn’t cry.

I just went to my room and locked the door.

I looked at that stupid book and threw it.

I stared at it on the ground.

I picked it up.

slowly opened the cover and turned the page.

The inks are still wet.

Cause of death: Blunt Force Trau-

no. no. no. no. no.

The clock clicked loudly in the silence.

A knock at the door..

“Mac”.. Dad’s voice, broken, empty. “Can I come in?”

I look down at the book.

Another line had appeared

“…”

I quickly shut the book and shoved it in my desk drawer and unlocked the door.

My dad looked defeated.

My sister was at work and my brothers are at Grandma's again. The only person I had to grieve with was my sweet dad.

The guilt overwhelmingly hit me. This was quite literally all my fault.

My dad didn’t say a word just hugged me.

Sunday 5/12/96

4 days had passed.

Officer Luke Bennet has gone missing.

The same officer who found my mom’s remains? Missing?

I called Max, but she hadn’t come over in a couple of days.

She came over.

Max sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor, poking the book with the corner of her notebook.

“You don’t have to carry all of this alone, you know” she said softly.

I looked down at my hands. “I don’t..” I took a deep breath “I don’t want to drag you into this Max”

“You already did” she said shrugging “but I’m not going anywhere”

I swallowed. For the first time in weeks i felt a little lighter.

She stood up and sat next to me on the bed, and nudged her shoulder against mine and I froze.

“Thanks. I said nervously.

“Anytime” she replied. Then, after a pause: “Mac… You okay?”

I nodded, even though my chest was still tight. “Yeah. With you here.. I’m okay.”

We didn’t need to say more. That was it. Just the two of us, in the quiet, surviving the chaos together.

Someway, somehow. That was enough.

We sat in silence for a while, the quiet heavy but comforting. We decided to open the book again.

Fresh ink.. “Next event: Danger”

I froze. chest tightening. “Max..” I whispered

She shook her head. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just words.”

“I can’t ignore this” I told her.

She took my hand “Then we figure it out together.”

We spent the afternoon going over every detail the book had recorded, trying to see a pattern, trying to understand what it wanted. The more we read, the heavier the air felt, the more I felt the weight of every choice I had made that week.

By the time the sun started to dip behind the trees, the new page had appeared:

Do not go outside tonight.

I swallowed hard. “We stay here,” I said quietly.

Max nodded. “We stay. Together.”

And for the first time since Mom disappeared, I felt a little less afraid not because the danger was gone, but because we weren’t facing it alone.

The book had power. It could predict, record, and warn. But it couldn’t stop us from choosing to act.

I didn’t know if that would be enough.

MONDAY 5/14/96

The book hadn’t added anything new all morning. I thought maybe it had run out of warnings. Maybe I could breathe for a few hours.

Then my phone rang.

It was Max. Her voice was sharp, trembling. “Mac… there’s been an accident.”

I froze. “What kind of accident?”

“There’s… a fire at the diner. I think someone got hurt. Mac your dad said it’s near the old Miller place.”

I felt my stomach drop. My heart hammered in my chest. That diner… that’s where I had been yesterday after school, with Max, trying to forget the book for a little while.

I grabbed the book. My hands shook as I opened it.

And there it was.

Next event: someone you care about will be in danger tonight.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. The words were there, written. And now… they were real.

Max arrived a few minutes later, eyes wide. She looked at me, then at the book. “Mac… It’s happening. Right now.”

I didn’t know what to say. I grabbed her hand. “We have to go.”

As we arrived, fire trucks arrived, sirens screaming. I could hear the chaos outside the crackling of flames, shouting, the frantic rush of people trying to help. My chest tightened with every second.

Then a scream.

Max and I ran to the window. Flames licked the walls of the diner. Smoke poured into the sky, thick and black. And there moving through the chaos was my little brother. He had wandered too close, curious, unaware of the danger.

“Connor!” I screamed.

Max grabbed my arm. “Mac… think. The book—it said someone you care about. That’s him!”

I didn’t have a choice. Ignoring the warning wouldn’t save him. I grabbed a coat and bolted into the night. Max followed, holding my hand tightly.

We reached him just as the fire spread closer. I scooped him up, and Max pulled him back toward safety. Smoke stung my eyes, and I could feel the heat on my face. My lungs burned with every breath, but we made it—just barely.

When we were safe, huddled on the curb with sirens all around us, Max turned to me.

“Mac… the book… It’s predicting events. But it doesn’t have to control you. We can survive this if we work together.”

I nodded, chest heaving, my mind spinning. The danger was real. The book was real. And now I understand this wasn’t just a warning. It was a challenge.

And for the first time, I felt… ready.

FINAL CHAPTER

THURSDAY, 5/16/96

The book sat on the desk, leather cracked and waiting, almost humming with menace.

Max and I stared at it, hands brushing nervously, hearts hammering. The warnings had stopped being mere words they were now commands, tests. Every page a gauntlet. Every prediction a trap.

“Mac… it’s back,” Max whispered.

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. The last warning had been real. Connor had almost died in the diner fire. But… we hadn’t known the worst was coming.

We opened the book together. Fresh ink bled across the page.

Next event: Loss is inevitable. You cannot save everyone.

I froze. My stomach twisted. My mind screamed not him, not Connor… please no.

Max gripped my arm. “Whatever it says, we go in together. We fight this. We survive.”

I wanted to believe her. I needed to.

Hours later, we were outside the old Whitlock warehouse. The streets were eerily quiet, the air thick with the smell of smoke and decay. Every instinct screamed danger. Every memory of my mom’s death clawed at me.

“This is it,” Max said, pulling her jacket tight. “We stick together. Watch each other. No mistakes.”

I nodded, gripping the book tightly.

Inside, shadows moved like living things. A voice deep, low, taunting echoed off the walls.

“You think you can stop it?”

I recognized it instantly. Mr. Whitlock. Or maybe the book itself. The lines had blurred. Reality and the pages had merged.

We moved through the warehouse, every step a calculated risk. And then we saw him Connor.

Had the book predicted this, hadn’t it? My chest squeezed as I ran toward him. But before I could reach him, the floor collapsed beneath my feet.

Connor was caught in the rubble. I screamed, yanking at the debris. Max helped, pulling with all her strength. Dust choked the air. My heart raced as I finally pried him free but he wasn’t moving.

“No… no… no!” I shook him, tears blinding me. Max’s hands shook on my shoulders.

a book, lying on a shelf nearby, The title:

You can’t save everyone.

The words were a punch to the gut. I crumpled to my knees, feeling the helplessness I had fought so hard to avoid. Connor’s little body was still. My world tilted.

Max knelt beside me, sobbing. “Mac… he… he’s gone.”

I wanted to scream, to fight the inevitability, but the truth was carved into my soul. Some losses were unavoidable.

“We’re done letting it control us,” I whispered through tears.

The rest of the night was chaos. Fires, collapsing structures, the echoes of the book’s warnings but Max and I moved as one, saving lives where we could, guiding people to safety. Every prediction it had tried to throw at us, we outmaneuvered together.

By dawn, the city was bruised but standing. Max and I were exhausted, dirty, broken but alive. And we had survived the challenge.

The book lay open one final time, the last line written in bold, deliberate ink:

Challenge complete. You have learned.

We stared at each other. Silent, weary, but triumphant.

⸻

TEN YEARS LATER — LOS ANGELES, 2006

The city glittered beneath us as we overlooked the streets from our apartment balcony. The skyline was a reminder of everything we’d endured, everything we had survived.

Connor’s loss was a wound that never fully healed—but it had forged us. Hardened us. Made us unstoppable.

Max sipped her coffee, leaning against me. “I can’t believe we made it here,” she said, smiling softly.

I wrapped an arm around her, kissing the top of her head. “We did it together. Always together.”

And we had.

Ten years of cases, of mysteries solved, of danger faced side by side. The best detectives in Los Angeles—and life partners. The book was gone, burned long ago, but the lessons it forced upon us remained.

We had learned that some losses were inevitable—but the courage to keep fighting, to protect the people we loved, that was ours to choose.

Max grinned. “You ready for today’s case, Detective Mac?”

I smiled, feeling the weight of the past finally ease. “Always,” I said.

And together, we stepped into the city, into the chaos and light of a world we could face—because we faced it together.