Mixtape For The End of the World

3. Amber dies on Amber Wallace: Consulting Detective.

3. Amber dies on Amber Wallace: Consulting Detective.

I winced as the tattoo artist's needle pierced my skin, and I looked toward Gabe, who was grinning maniacally next to me. Pain shot through my leg while I questioned why the hell I was doing this in the first place, but then again, how could I have possibly known that Amber Wallace would die on the TV show that bore her name?

Somehow, Gabe had known, and now, he was making me pay for it. "Is this almost done?" I asked as I considered the pros and cons of breathing.

"You know, you weren't this much of a chicken last Thursday," Gabe commented.

"It also hurt a lot less last Thursday," I said. I had gotten my first tattoo at this same tattoo parlor - the only one in the area - on my eighteenth birthday, after several unsuccessful attempts to get one using Gabe's fake ID. Brendon and Gabe had paid for it as a birthday present, and it had hardly hurt at all, in stark contrast to today.

When I watched a serial killer brutally murder Amber the night before, I knew that I was screwed. I nearly backed out of the bet when I saw the tattoo that Gabe had designed for me the next morning - a picture of his face with the words "Gabey Baby Made Me Go Bad" underneath. "I'm not getting that," I told him.

"Oh, come on, Pete," Gabe said. "I restrained myself. You know that I could come up with something much worse if I wanted to."

He was right, and in the end, I relented. I was a man of my word, after all.

The tattoo artist gave me a strange look when I showed her what I wanted, but she understood once I explained that I had lost a bet. Once she started working, she thankfully didn't ask too many questions.

Eventually, the pain abated, and I passed the time by chatting with Gabe. "Even if Amber hadn't died, that episode would have been completely insane," I said.

"No kidding," Gabe said. "I totally didn't see it coming that Amber's sidekick was really the killer in disguise."

"Really?" I said. "I knew that something was up with him from the start of the episode."

"I didn't," Gabe said.

"Aren't you a psychic or something now that those visions of yours are coming true?" I said. "How did you not know about that?"

"I only saw Amber dying in the vision," Gabe said. "I didn't see anything from the rest of the episode." He looked down at my leg and said, "That tattoo's coming along nicely."

"I don't think I can see it from here," I said, leaning over to try to look at the tattoo. I could only see a few lines across my leg - without moving, I couldn't see the whole thing properly.

"Well, I'm here to let you know that it's beautiful so far," Gabe said.

I rolled my eyes and asked, "Is the tattoo almost done? I'm going to be late for work if this takes much longer."

"My face is just about done, and as I said, it looks amazing," Gabe said. "The words aren't quite there yet."

I looked toward the clock - my shift was supposed to start in twenty minutes. "Don't you have something to do other than sitting here and watching me get a tattoo?" I asked.

"I was going to get a haircut this afternoon, but I canceled that because I knew that I would win the bet," Gabe said. "The visions haven't been wrong yet, which is really starting to scare me."

"Yeah, me too," I said. Knowing that Gabe's visions were coming true only made me more worried about him.

Fifteen minutes passed by before the tattoo artist finally said, "Your tattoo is done." I moved my leg to see, and I was surprised by how much my new tattoo really did resemble Gabe. The tattoo artist had done a great job of recreating his face, and I couldn't help but smile when I looked at the tattoo, even if I had only gotten it because I lost a bet.