BINARY FORFEIT

Ah sh*t, here we go again.

*cue the super annoying iPhone alarm tone*

I attempt to wake up reluctantly as my alarm goes off, filling the otherwise silent room with a blasphemous cacophony. 

It's 5 AM.

I almost successfully lifted my upper body from the bed, but then flopped right back on the comfortable mattress. Mmm heaven.

What was I thinking? I can never be a morning person.

I looked over to the wall on the right. There were 12 small post-it notes stuck on it. Each had a single to-do activity hand-written on it that would help me turn around my 'not-so-productive' life.

Right in the center was the note that said wake up at 5 AM. *eye-roll*

The activity on the note next to it was Go for a short walk.

"No, thanks", I said to myself. I picked up my phone from the table next to my bed and logged into Instagram. Clicked on reels and began the timeless scrolling. 5 mins turned into 10, then into an hour and when I took a small break to check the time, it was half-past nine!

"Great!" I thought to myself, "New day, same shit". 

I finally get off the bed and walked towards the kitchen. I poured some water into the kettle and set it to a boil. Moving over to the washed dishes rack, I picked my favorite coffee mug and set it on the counter. I put some instant roasted coffee in the mug and waited for the water to boil.

Coffee brings me back to life. A caffeine dose within the first hour of waking up is a M-U-S-T.

Once the water had boiled, I poured some into the mug, grabbed a small cookie packet, and submerged myself back into the comfortable bed. 

I picked my phone up to resume the remaining movie from last night and watch it while sipping my delicious mug of coffee. 

The phone flashed a message notification. The sender's contact was 9 6 1 6 9. That's it. A five digit contact number. 

My right eyebrow raised subconsciously, agreeing to the suspicion in my head. 

Could it be spam? The ones which shouldn't even be clicked on as they may a virus or something. 

But something about that message was pulling me in, to open it and read the content. After deliberating for a good 5 mins, I clicked on the notification.

The phone unlocked and displayed the full message. 

ᚣᚩᚢ  ᚪᚱᛖ  ᛁᚾ

The message contained exactly three words, guessing from the spacing between them. They were cryptic characters, runes to be specific. I had a sense of who could have sent this message, but I needed to confirm before jumping to any conclusion. 

I quickly ruffled through my notes, searching for the runes codes. I pulled out a fresh post-it note and began de-coding.

YOU  ARE  IN

"You are in" I said out loud. 

I was in. I was bloody in. In goddammit. In. In. In!

Amidst celebrating my victory, what I failed to foresee was how literal those three words were about to be. Those words were about to change my life monumentally more than those 12 post-its ever could.