Page Numbers

15- Colin

It really was a strange chain of events to lead me to this moment. Katie, Josée and I were squished together on the bike as we attempted to make our way to some mystery place without killing ourselves. I'd never been over to this area before, my parents said it was where all the poor and homeless people lived, they warned me never to go there and now I can see why. The roads were at least 50 years old, they had turned into a greyish colour and were covered in cracks with potholes everywhere, houses were stuffed together on either side of the street practically falling apart. Wood was visibly rotting on the outside of most of them with the roofs looking like they should have caved in years ago, I could have sworn I could see eyes staring at us from all the windows we passed but I might have been imagining things. Homeless people were on every street corner, their clothes were full of holes and it looked like they hadn't showered in weeks.

One of them saw us from the end of the street we were going up and slowly began to stand up, he started to stumble towards the centre of the road to block our path and I freaked out. I looked over to Katie and Jo but they weren't phased, Jo was just sitting there staring out into the distance with a smile on her face at Katie rode as fast as she could, determined to make it to this "Xander" person as fast as she could. We drove past the man and he stared straight at me, seeming to hate me with just one look. I sighed and forgot about it, "How long until we arrive at this mystery place?" I asked Katie. "Speak of the devil I think we've arrived." Suddenly a wide open field appeared on our right, in the distance you could see a forest and there was a bus stop with a payphone a bit further of the way down. "I see him, I see him!" Jo yelled out and as we got closer to the payphone, I saw what appeared to be a dead body.

"AH!!!!" I yelled screaming and jumping backwards falling off the bike. Katie and Jo almost fell off as well but luckily righted themselves and stopped turning around to look at me. I looked at them wide eyes shaking, "What did you guys do?! I didn't know we were coming to find a dead guy!" I started hyperventilating as the two of them walked over to me, "He's not dead but he WILL be if we don't help him now, are you coming?" I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and stood up following them cautiously. As we approached the payphone I stayed back, stopping walking, that definetely looked like a dead body. Katie went straight in, not hesitating for even a moment as Jo stood just outside the door. She poured some water over his face, and he opened his eyes slightly, moaning. "Shh..." SHe said to him holding the bottle to his mouth, he drank it thankfully downing the whole bottle within a couple of gulps.

"F-f...food..." he mumbled, she smiled at him and pulled some canned tuna out of her bag quickly pulling the lid off and feeding it to him. He ate it ravenously before rubbing his eyes and sitting up looking at her, "I can't believe you actually came, none ever comes."

"Of course I came," she said back to him smiling sweetly and blushing, "I couldn't let anything happen to you." He looked at her with awe in his eyes and she looked back at him with the same look, he glanced at her lips and I looked away not really into all the mushy stuff.

Suddenly she cleared her throat, "I mean, if anyone I had met had something happen to them I couldn't live with myself if I sat by and did nothing, it would go against everything I believe in." I looked back at them and he continued to smile and act grateful but I could tell when someone was sad, all that time in the hospital had taught me how to tell when another person was dying on the inside and it was obvious that this guy had a lot of problems that couldn't be fixed. "Now take it easy," she continued, "After collapsing like that you'll need a bit of time to rest." He shook his head, "I've had worse, I'll be fine."

He stood up dusting himself off taking a look at his surrounding, his eyes scanned over the area until they fell on me and he frowned.

"Who's that?" Katie turned around forgetting that I was even there, "Oh him? That's uh... he's uh..." I rolled my eyes walking over to them and holding out my hand, "My names Colin, you are Xander and she is the girl that ran me over with her bike."

"Hey!" She protested, "That was not my fault, you walked right in front of me!" I raised an eyebrow, "I don't think being ten metres away is exactly 'right in front of you'". Xander watched our exchange oddly and I saw something sweep over his face but I couldn't tall what it was, he put his hand out and shook mine, "nice to meet you, any other surprise guests I should know about?"

"Well, actually-"

"COLIN!" I heard someone yell behind me, I turned around to see none other than Avery jump out of a car and run over to me with some other guy getting out of the seat beside her. She hugged me and I hugged her back surprised as the other guy made his way over beside us awkwardly, "Colin, I really need to talk to you, this afternoon was a disas-" she stopped realising we have an audience.

"Oh yeah, everyone thiis is Avery, my girlfriend-" she glared at me elbowing me in the stomach, "Ow!" She glanced over at the guy that got out of the car with her, "For the record I am definitely NOT his girlfriend, just a friend." She smiled as I winced in pain, "Ahem." I said clearing my throat, "hello, person you elbowed? In pain here." She turned over to me, "Oh yeah, sorry about that."

We had all formed a circle of sorts just standing around each other in an awkward silence. "So, Katie how did you and Xander meet?" They looked eachother and Katie responded, "Well, it was sort of just coincidence I guess, he was sitting on a park bench reading this book and I happened to be reading the same one." The new guy frowned, "That's kinda like how I uh met Avery, we were in a book store and I ran into her, literally." Avery snorted in laughter quickly covering her mouth embarassed. Now it was my turn to frown, "You know, after Katie and Jo ran into me, it turned out that we both happened to have the same book too..." We all looked at each other surprised and a bit creeped out. "Okay," Xander said, "all of us meeting had something to do with books, but it wasn't the same book or anything right? Just coincidence."

Jo's eyes lit up, "Oooo, are they talking about Page Numbers Katie?!" She looked down at her, "no sweetie, they're just talking about books, not Page Numbers okay?" She looked back up to see everyone staring at her with wide eyes, "What?" The guy was the first to speak.

"The book I was buying at the bookstore was Page Numbers."
"Same here." Said Avery.
"Me too." Xander chimed in.
"That was my book too..." I said.

We all stared at each other slightly afraid. "Okay," Xander started, "that's fine, just coincidence. Really, it's just a coincidence nothing weird about that right? Right. And there's nothing weird about the fact that I happen to have that book with me right now..." He pulled out the book, and it was small and green, looking ridiculously old. I frowned, "But... that looks nothing like my copy." I pulled it out to reveal an orange cover with pictures on it the size of a picture book. "Mine's the same as Colin's." Said Avery pulling hers out. The other pulled all of theirs out to reveal the same books as me.

Xander frowned, "Okay, but it's the same book right? Let's all take a look at the first page." We opened the book at the same time and suddenly the wind picked up, everything started blowing around and I saw the book fly out of the guy's hands. The ground was rumbling, and I heard soemone yell earthquake, it started to rain, and not just rain but it was pouring, buckets of water were coming down and I dropped the book trying to run for cover seeing the others doing the same thing. There was a flash of light and I heard ringing in my ears, the world turned into searing hot light and I screamed.