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The wind is trying to knock Ann down. She doesn't even remember why she decided to walk out of her apartment and down the streets of London, but whatever the idea was, it was definitely not worth it. It was far too early, far too cold and the air around her was damp from rain the night before. But here she was on the side of the street,with all of her focus on not falling over.
Finally the wind slows just enough that she can look around and see how far away from her apartment she is. After a few seconds, she figured that she was just a few minutes away from her building. When she was looking around she had noticed this small book shore, she couldn't really tell why but something about the shop called her to it. The shop seemed like an amazing place to stop for a bit and read.
Looking around the small shop, Ann couldn't figure out what to think of it. It wasn't messy per say, but she would never think to call it neat , the books seemed to be placed where ever they could, they were placed on top a the selves, on other books, on stakes on the floor, there weren’t any decorations that Ann could see from the door, not to mention, no one was there, walking around the shop there want not a single person at all.
But no matter, Ann just needed to pass the time, and this place is as good as any place for reading.
As she looked around the small store, she was imminently drawn to the rather large horror section. One because Ann happened to love horror, but also because it would be hard not to go over it, the section took up almost a third of the store.
Ann was walking by the books half-mindedly grabbing some that she had been meaning to read but never got around to, when she spotted this odd book laying flat on the top of the tall shelf almost as if someone was trying to hide it. Odd probably isn't the best word to describe the book, but it's the only word that came to Ann’s mind when looking at it. It was an old leather bond book that has seen better days, that's not to say it was damaged but it was clear to ann that the previous owners didn't care about the book, it was bigger than it looked, picking it up felt more like picking up an old family bible than it did picking up a regular old novel, it also didn't have a title on the cover, and when Ann opened it to the first page instead of a title page or any information about the book, there was a printed line, “Life is a current which cannot be fought. It is a march with one destination. You cannot cease your step nor move your course to one that skirts the journey’s termination” and underneath that was the text "you've already read too much” written in scratchy blue ink.
Something about it both scared and intrigued Ann, she had never seen anything like it before, so Ann immediately went to go check it out, not bothering to read a page more before rushing over to the counter.
When the librarian came out of the back to meet her he didn't stop for a second to talk or even look at her, before turning to her books and started messily scribbling down the book titles on a page, but when he got to the leather-bond one he stopped for a second and just stared at it. If he wasn't so tired looking it would have looked like he was just remembering what it was called. When he finally turned back to the page he was scribbling on he wrote in clear, slow, letters ‘Book’ then handed them to her, keeping his eyes on the desk in front of him.
When she got back to her apartment she immediately got the book out of her bag before sitting on her couch and started reading. It was still pretty early in the morning, and Ann had nothing planned so she could spend as much time as she wanted just reading.
‘Life is a current which cannot be fought. It is a march with one destination. You cannot cease your step nor move your course to one that skirts the journey’s termination’
But when she turned to the next page her excitement started to die. “Latin…” she sighed, annoyance rubbing on her words.
The entire page was in latin, and even if Ann could read latin fluently, it was hand written, and with horrendous hand writing. She was able to pick out two words,‘scream’ and ‘death’.
Death had been written down several times about once every three or so lines, which could be concerning but it was supposed to be a ‘scary book’ so it wasn't that weird.
The next few pages were mostly the same, as the pages went on it got closer and closer to English.
The first page Ann was actually able to read was…. Disturbing, to say the least. It told the story of how a man named William died in the early mornings of January of 1578, at the age of 33.
Apparently his foot had gotten tangled in the lead of his horse. The horse got spooked and ran off with William getting dragged across the icy roads, eventually his horse stopped, and stomped his face in repeatedly. It had described in graphic detail how it felt to have your skull crack open, and how it took till the third impact for him to lose consciousness.
Ann stared at the last words on the page for a few seconds before she moved her hand to turn the page, and continued reading. She could never tell why she kept reading, she couldn't even tell if there were ever any thoughts in her head besides that book.
So she kept reading, and reading, and reading. She read about theodor, who suffocated in a panic after waking up in his coffin, spring of 1802. She read about Agnus, a nurse who died of infection on the battlefield, Autumn of 1915. She read of Sasha, who was eaten alive after falling into the pigs pen on her uncle's farm in 1989.
They were all in disturbing detail, and each death was only 10 to 20 years apart. Ann didn't stop once in her reading, the thought of stopping never even came to mind, all that mattered was reading this horrible book.
She thought she got to the end for a second as the last guy died in 2014 but there was still a page left.
When she got to the last page she stopped for a short second, just to confirm the name she saw at the top of the page, ‘Annabel’
But that didn't stop her from reading, so she read how ‘Annabel’ would be walking by ‘River Itchen’ while visiting family when a car would nearly hit her, causing her to fall into the river and drown in 2044.
‘It’s just a coincidence’ Ann reassured herself as she closed the book. She looked around at the dark apartment trying to calm her panic, she didn't turn the lights on when she came home, she didn't have to, the sun was just starting to come through her windows.
‘When did it turn back to night?‘
‘How was I reading in this light?’
“No. No no no, it's fine,” she said, speaking to the emptiness in her black apartment “why is it fine? You might ask” she questioned as she turned to the kichen, “beacuse!... because the book is messing with me” Ann declared “Annable is not an uncommon name and several people have family hampshire”
Even if it was real, Ann hasn't gone to Hampshire in years she just wont go, and if she does it wont be in 2044
Instead of acknowledging her fear Ann decided to go to sleep, it was apparently late, her eyes hurt from reading all day, and nothing in the book was real, so sleep was the logical thing to do. She could deal with the book tomorrow.
Not that she had to ‘deal’ with it, as it is only a book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ann kept losing her staring contest with the dark-leather book that was sitting on her couch. Since books can't blink
“Its just a book” she kept telling herself “its not like a book can hurt you”
But no matter how much she told herself ‘it's just some weird commentary about how sudden death can be’ her mind kept going back to the page with her name on it.
‘No. It isn't MY name it is just a name that you happen to share with that character’ she assured herself, finally walking away from the book, to make herself breakfast. Ann doesn't usually eat breakfast, but she needs to do something to keep her mind off everything. Off that book.
She ended up making it all the way to ten o’clock before she went over to the book again, she didn't open it immediately, instead she tried to study the book, but all she got from that was more questions. The book was clearly old and the pages looked just as old as the cover except the pages seemed to get newer and newer as the book continued, yet all the pages were tied into the book in the same way and presumably at the same time, at least from what she could tell.
Ann flipped to the last page just to see it again. It was late the last time she saw it so maybe it wasn't even that close to her life, and it was just her brain messing with her after reading all of those terrible stories.
‘Annabel’
Right. So it was her name on the page. That's fine, people can have the same names as characters.
But when Ann started reading the page again she realized that it was completely different from how she remembered it.
The book told the tale on how Ann had been staying in an older hotel in Oxford. This hotel happened to have a carbon monoxide leak in her room, so when Ann turned on the stove, the gas caught fire, and exploded. Ann was left with burns covering her entire body, and died in antagonizing pain in a hospital 6 hours later, 2046.
Ann closed the book as fast as she could the second she stopped reading.
‘2039’ the page said, 2039. When she first read it, her page said 2044, why is the date clouser.
“It's different b-because you misremembered it, r-right!” she stuttered out, trying to calm her beating heart. “I-I, you -um- know it, it was late, s-so it, it just was. Not remembered, c-corectly”
But Ann knew that that wasn't the story that she read the night before, in fact Ann could recall every signal detail that was in every single page, in this god forsaken book.
She starts scratching at her arms in a panic. White lines forming and fading, on shaking skin.
“It’s-it, it’s fine.” Ann forces the lies out, barely able to hear them over the loud beating in her chest. “I-I-I have a-a good -uh- bit of time to-to-to prepare, and -uh- and not go to hotels. Right, you-you have a nice, a nice-uh-place, n-nice place here, s-so there -uh- is no, no need, to stay, else where. So no-no, um no dying.”
The small bit of hope she gets from her decision, disappears the moment she spots the book again.
“Proof” thats what she need, all Ann need to stop this, is to find proof, that shows that this is all fake,
Ann reaches out to open the book again but then stops. She doesn't need to read it again. Ann Knows what all of the stories are, she can just look them up with what she remembers.
Trying to find anything on these stories is difficult. A lot of the stories are from before the internet was a thing, and none of them had last names, some of them were just told by nicknames, but after a few hours she found a story that matched.
According to the book, in 1959 a man named Scott had his house broken into, the robber got startled by Sccot and his wife waking up and sliced his throat, then running off. According to CNN in 1959, three homes were robbed, leaving four people injured and two dead, one Jane Willson, and one Scott Willson.
The stories were real. Right, this should be more shocking to Ann, but she has so much fear rolling off of her that she can’t feel anymore fear if she tried
“I need to get rid of that book,” she said, reaching for the book. She wouldn't be able to tell anyone what her plan was when she grabbed it, but Ann knew for certain that she was not planning on opening the book and re-reading her page
This time her page was about how she would get shoved causing her to fall onto the train tracks, 2035
The page kept bringing up her fear and panic as the train could be heard getting closer and closer.
The second ann stopped reading she grabbed the book with shaky hands and threw it into her oven turning the heat to the max, and letting it sit there, burning.
After a long few hours of staring at the oven door she turned it off and left. She needed to think or clear her head or something, something that was far from that Book.
She walked, of course she did, she didn't own a car and there was no chance she was going to take the subway. No, and besides walking is much better for clearing her head anyway, which Ann decided is what she is doing, so walking was the best thing to do.
Ann knows that nothing would happen to her. She knew that for sure, the last date she saw was still several years away, even if the book did change again, she would still be safe to walk around today.
But no matter what she told herself, no matter where she went or what she tried to do, Ann kept looking around trying to find…. Something, there had to be something that she was trying to find but just wasn't.
All she wanted to do was go back to her apartment, something kept drawing her attention to go back. But she couldn't go back, the Book was there.
Ann did end up going back home she couldn’t walk forever and the sun was starting to set,
Ann could feel the dread pouring off of her as she unlocked her door. Looking around she couldn’t find anything out of place, until she looked towards her kitchen.
“No” she cried “why”
Staring at her from across the room was the open oven door with unburnt dark leather with undamaged white paper sitting in a pile of dark ash.
Time stopped as Ann stared unmoving and silent in the kitchen. She knew that if she were to step any closer to the oven, she would pick up the damn book and read it again.
Everything in her was yelling not to get the book, but there was something that kept her mide on reading it again, maybe it was her curiosity, some twisted part of herself wanting to see what would happen next.
After what felt like horse, Ann turned around and walked back to the front door despite to leave.
Where would she go?
Ann was already tired.
She didn’t have anywhere to spend the night, other than the apartment where the book is.
So… Ann slowly made her way away from the door, deeper into a building that wasn't a home anymore than it was the place the book was stored.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ann didn't remember falling asleep. She remembered sitting on the couch, then waking up. Waking up, holding an old leather bond book firmly in her hand.
She was going to throw it away, even if she knew that nothing would happen to it, she knew that no matter what, that horrid book would make its way back to her, and she would read it.
So when Ann moved her hands in order to throw the book across the room, she wasn’t shocked when instead she opened her page and read her new death, with its new date.
2031
Ann should be panicking, her mind should be rasing to find a way to stop herself from dying before her time, Ann should at least be disgusted by what she read.
Ann doesn't feel anything,
She can't find the energy to be scared of this book anymore.
The book will kill her, and there is just nothing she can do about it.
Ann stands up, and she walks out the door. She doesn't even care where she's going, or why she left. Ann walks to the train station, the thought of her fear tries to claw into her mind but Ann pays it no mind, as she sits down on the almost empty train.
Ann looks down, toward her hands, toward the book that she's holding.
She doesn't even pretend that she won't open the book.
Her new death is in 2028. She falls off of a roller coaster.
When she finishes reading, she gets off the train, leaving the book behind. There's no need to hold it if it keeps appearing near her anyway.
Ann walks for what feels like hours, the cold wind pushing against her making it hard to walk, but there's no need to change where she's walking, no need to go back to an old building, with nothing to do but read.
She looks over to the river that she was walking next to, and throws the book that she was apparently holding into the river, it's a pretty river. Ann crouches down next to the fast waters, watching the book get taken away from view.
She takes a deep breath, feeling the winter air in her lungs, turning to the river one last time, Ann slumps over until she's no longer on the rocks that line the water, but is a part of the river that will carry her away.
Ann doesn't swim, doesn't try to breathe, doesn't try to stop running into rocks and litter the water.
She just floats down the river bed.
Finally at peace.
Finally away from that book.