I found an ordinary notebook in an old drawer, but the first words appeared by themselves... and then the notebook showed me a place I had never seen before.
I found the notebook at the bottom of an old drawer, tucked beneath a broken ruler and a handful of paper clips.
It was plain, with a scratched cover and pages that had gone a little yellow around the edges. Nothing about it looked important. Nothing about it looked strange.
So I carried it to my room, opened it on the first page, and decided to write my name.
I had only just uncapped my pen when a line of words began to form on the paper.
One letter.
Then another.
Then a whole sentence, writing itself in neat, dark ink.
I stared so hard my eyes started to ache.
Hello, I was waiting for you. But we have little time...
My hand went cold. Someone had written to me. In my notebook. In my room.
I swallowed and forced myself to pick up the pen again.
Who are you?
The answer appeared at once, as if the notebook had been holding its breath.
I am you. But from a place you should never be.
I jerked back so fast my chair scraped the floor.
The notebook snapped open to the next page by itself.
There was a drawing there.
It was me.
Not in my bedroom. Not by my desk. Not anywhere I recognised.
I was standing under a sky the colour of bruised silver, in front of a crooked door built into a wall of roots and stone. My reflection in the drawing looked over one shoulder, as if it had heard something coming.
And at the very bottom of the page, in the same uneven ink, one more line was waiting for me:
Don't let it find you first...