Chapter Text
Characters (so far):
Avalon Benat
Zayden
I woke up with a strange sense that something was missing but i couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It’s like it was dancing tauntingly on the tip of my tongue, but i couldn’t figure out what it was exactly. Did i forget to call a friend? Maybe i forgot to go to work today? I pushed myself up lazily from the plushness of the blankets that cocooned me and padded my way to my apartment’s kitchen to check my work schedule, the coolness of my wooden floors chilling my bare feet. This week’s schedule mostly read the word “ off “ because i had requested no hours due to exhaustion from college and to no surprise, i had no work today either. What was i missing?
And as if that wasn’t weird enough, there was a sudden dull ache in my wrist. Peeling back the fuzzy sleeve of my pajama shirt from my skin, i found thick black lines being etched into my skin by the second. I stood there in horror, watching my skin being drawn on like a canvas. And let me tell you, it didn’t feel pretty. It was an indescribable pain, really. Finally, after about ten seconds of pure agony as i rubbed and scraped at my burning skin, the drawing was complete leaving me with a scratchy drawing of a “30” carved into my wrist like a tattoo. What the hell is this supposed to mean? What the hell is going on?
Cautiously running my fingers along the numbers on my wrist, i rushed into my room to throw on some clothes that were haphazardly tossed on my bedroom floor. New York City is getting weirder and weirder. I figured my friend might know more about this since he’s into magic and wizards and crap that would normally bore me to death.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up !” I urged through clenched teeth after the phone in my hand rang for the third time as i headed out my front door. “Pick up, you son of a-”
“Hey, Avalon, what’s up?”
“Oh, thank god you answered.” I almost sounded relieved, which i was, infact. “I’m coming over to your place, i’ll be there in five.” I didn’t even give my friend, Zayden, time to respond before hanging up my phone and making my trek through the crowded streets of a huge city i call my home. There’s two good things about having a friend who was more into books than actual people. One, He’s always home so i can come over whenever i want. Two, he can- hopefully- help me out in odd situations like this.
Swerving through mobs of people scuttling through the streets as quickly as possible to get out of the rain, i hopped over many puddles so i could stay as dry as possible. The sky above me was one dark, ominous cloud. Now if this was anything like those damn books that Zayden reads, you’d know that something bad was going to happen, but this is real life. The horribly real reality. So the worst thing that could probably happen is that i get splashed by a taxi passing by.
“Thirty days…” An old haggard lady chuckled maniacally from the cracked and beaten down bucket that she sat on, situated at the side of a grimy store that sold discounted items. From the looks of it, she was missing all but one tooth that hung crookedly from her blackened gums. I only offered her a sympathetic smile. “Thirty days and then it’s over…” She pointed to the handwritten numbers on my wrist, her baggy, hole-ridden coat slouching away from her bony arm. Then she continued to laugh like a hyena, her eyes moving around wildly. Self consciously, i rolled my sleeve back over the ink seared into my skin and continued walking to Zayden’s apartment downtown, faster this time, though.
Snatching the spare key from atop Zayden’s door frame, i took the liberty to let myself into his place by myself. “Zayden, get the hell down here!” I plopped down on his sumptuous couch that sat sturdily along the far wall of his living room. Upstairs i could see the light beaming out dully from underneath his door to his room where he must have been hiding out. Like i said, he doesn’t get out much. He ‘ prefers the secure comfort that a book offers along with endless knowledge ’, which, in my opinion, is a lame excuse for him to stay home all day.
“What’s gotten you in such a hurry?” He swung the door to his bedroom open, stepping out in only sweatpants, leaving his toned torso bare until he pulled a simple t shirt over himself.This was a common thing for us since we’ve been friends since we were like three. “Ohh damn you look nice today.” He winked at me sarcastically.
“Why are you checking me out, i thought you were gay.” I laughed jokingly.
“I’m bisexual , don’t be such an imbecile.” He sat down beside me. “So why are you here?” He looked at me impatiently as if he really had anything better to do.
“Because of this…” I rolled down my sleeve and showed him the mark.
“You came all the way here to show me that you got a tattoo?” He looked unimpressed. “ ‘ thirty ’? What is that supposed to mean anyways?”
“That’s what i’m trying to figure out, jackass.” I rolled my eyes. “And it’s not a tattoo, i woke up this morning and all of a sudden this thing started to appear. It’s like some voodoo shit or something.”
“Ohh, magic, maybe i can finally help you with something!” Zayden got all giddy. “Well, in a lot of the books i’ve read, a number in a prophecy usually represents a length of time. So, like, thirty seconds or thirty minutes, or thirty days…” He continued to ramble and i began to zone out.
“Wait, thirty days ?”
“Uhh, yeah, that’s what i said.” He looked at me oddly. “Why?”
“On the way here, some old homeless lady pointed at me and said ‘Thirty days and then it’s over’. What’s that supposed to mean?” I racked my brain for any valuable information but came up empty handed.
“You have thirty days to do something.” Zayden shrugged.
“Yeah, but thirty days to do what exactly?”