Chapter 1, Number
"You walked yourself into this."
"So get yourself out of this mess as well, idiot!"
His words still wandered through the deepest parts of my mind and left me feeling numb.
Was I dumb to believe I could save someone's life just by chatting with them?
...
-before chaos-
8:27
8:27 am, coffee shop on the west side.
My job at the coffee shop was great.
Meeting people of all ages and nations.
Hearing stories on how good the desserts were back then.
Or helping out kids with their math homework.
But today shouldn't be a day to remember.
"Someone left their phone number here.", I mumbled.
That reminded me of that one time I first started working here, and a creep left his number on the table.
Ew.
Before I could have any more thoughts of the creep, I noticed a red writing on it.
That is, where I should've thrown it away already.
YOU ARE BEING WATCHED
What?!
PLEASE HELP HIM
was the next and last line on the paper.
My mind said I should throw it away.
But my heart says the opposite.
If this is real, then I should at least ask if they're okay.
I grabbed my phone from the table at the back, and started typing the number, written in clean writing.
You
hello?
I waited for a while but there was no answer.
Must be a prank.
8:42
[ping]
I looked at my phone.
[You have one unread message]
Unknown
Hey who is this? How did you get my number?
So it is a real person after all.
You
I just wanted to ask if you're okay. My name is (you).
8:46
[ping]
They immediately answered.
"Hello? Earth to (you)? We have a customer waiting at the front!"
The voice of my boss.
She can get quite angry at some time but she's very generous and respectful to her workers.
"Coming!"
Leaving the phone on the table again, I walked back to the front and saw my friend Wilbur.
As always he wore the same black beanie, round glasses and a grey backpack with probably nothing but his laptop and some sour patch kids sweets in it.
I wonder how he would pass the school semester this year.
"Hey yo. Same as always. How's it going, Employee of the month?", he said with a chuckle.
Wilbur keeps making jokes about me being the employee of the month.
Of course this will never happen.
I'm only working here for the past few weeks and sometimes I am not focused enough on brewing the coffee.
Still got a long way to go.
I ignored him.
"So, Willie boy," I began.
He absolutely hated this nickname that he got from one of our middle school teachers a long time ago.
Since then everyone uses it against him, if he says something stupid.
"How is the apartment hunting going so far?"I continued, while brewing the espresso to-go.
"Oh well, you know, it's stressfull at the moment. With school and some personal stuff."
"Yeah, you are always busy. Can I ask what bothers you?"
"It's just,", he leans forward, then began to sowly whisper the next words. "that my new friend wants to die."
...
