Chrono Codex (in sickness and in health)

03:00 -KIT

Thursday 24th May

Shortly after the newfound book started fluttering, I tread cautiously, inching my hand towards the book's spine. I found the closer I got, the more alive it became, like a parasite in desperate need of a vessel. The less attention I put towards it, the more unpredictable the book was. It was awakened within my reach, yet wildered on its own. One moment it rested shut, looking blander than any other book in my room, the next I could've almost fallen for it growing a pair of wings. A deep breath travelled through me, as I closed my eyes and made no provision to pluck the book from its spontaneous flight. My brow creased in scepticism as I discerned the still fully empty book in my hand, watching as it subtly, but surely began to send forth an unnatural glow. A fiery tinge of orange outlined the book gradually as I silently inspected it from the outside. In just the moment I felt the urge to pinch myself for clarification, it seemed the book had done it for me, cover to cover pinching my arm. I shuddered, being taken aback and, easily disturbed that it looked like a random minimalistic, blank paged void for a book just knew my very thought process.
"What the..." I grumbled under my breath. At that moment I just allowed the book to act on its own free will - controlling it myself probably would have lit me up an aneurysm.
Watching it gravitate into the infinity that is plain air, I was met with an element of astoundment as the book SLAMMED into my face.
"OW?!"
Now the thing was pissing me off. Grunting, I shoved it into my desk drawer - locking it so I wasn't in need of experiencing that again. I despised anything paranormal.
But the paranormal clearly clung to me like a magnet because it took just under a minute for the beast of a book to slash its way into freedom and halfway knock me out once more.
Reluctantly, I groaned at the realisation of my last resort, not my dad, but Will.

"Kit!! Y' called?" He cheered from outside my window as the clock struck seven (not long after I had changed out of my school uniform),standing with a graffitied skateboard beneath his feet, his ear-to-ear smile annoyingly visible from a mile away knowing he caused me to open a window and lift a blind, and knowing I'd do that in incredulity.
I snickered, "You do know there's a door you can knock on, yeah?"
"It's fun this w-"
"Just get to the door."
I was unexpectedly now seeing Will and my other friends, Miles and Logan at my doorstep. Well, they were more Will's friends than mine. I kept to myself that initially I didn't invite the two, but at the end of the day, I knew they wouldn't be the bearers of chaos.
I choked on my words trying to seriously explain that I'd just bickered with a floating glowing book, increasingly sweating as the story quickly became someone's average fever dream.
"I'll just- Let me show you."

Will's bright eyes widened at the event, "Is this-"
"Don't mistake it for a dream, I kid you not, the thing bites more than it pinches."
Perhaps I'd disclaimed that too late, since the other boys were quick to wince in surprise at the book being weirdly, playfully violent.
"I might've seen this before." Will mumbled.
Something had then fallen from Will's trouser pocket, what appeared to be a wax seal stamp with a smooth looking wood carved handle and a clean cut copper stamp - I couldn't quite determine the exact engraved design. Either way, it wasn't the type of thing I'd ever expected to flee Will's pocket. I registered him noticing my confused expression, tucking it back into the pocket of his cargo trousers.
"Oh it's for-"
"Does it want something?" Asked Miles, referring back to the book.
"Exactly what we're figuring out." I returned blankly. We all sat on the floor of my bedroom, scrutinising the book in turns and as a group, until its witty persona wound up settling down on its own terms. Collectively, we all flinched as the book opened itself before us, rays of something close enough to sunlight, violently gushing out of the pages and into the volume of my regularly dark bedroom.
The guys did admittedly shriek a bit at the sight, except it only escalated more as the now cursed book levitated and flickered revealing dark, bold lettering on the pages - Every turning page revealing a word.
CHOOSE,  A,   SUPER,    POWER,    ANY,      THING,       YOU, CAN, IMAGINE.

"TIME TRAV–"
"WILL!!!!" The rest of us yelped.
Unfortunately the half-arsed shriek of Will was enough for the book to agree with him. I just couldn't grasp that out of every other possible superpower, his instinct was to choose the most rule driven, dangerous one to grapple with - a major loss if you'd asked me. Before either of us could tackle Will about it, it was evident the book wanted to 'speak' again by its harsh glow of the pages.
Pretty humbling how an object, now animate, had a strange compelling power over us. The pages flicked into giving us the task of choosing someone to have access to time travel. I straight away pointed at Will, yet to my surprise I was the singled out 'one' in three against one. All my mates fingers directly pointed at me, making me only perceive them as sheep-like, seeing as two were so quick to follow will.

"No, you can't be seri-" I cut my sentence off with a grunt, accepting I was likely about to get mauled alive by the book.
"If my dad asks, just say I fled the country or something." I announced with pure irritation, ignoring the external pulling force, almost dragging the skin off my bones.
"And just so you know, I truly dislike the three of you."

I was then un-consensually wrenched into the coarse pages of the book. For clarification, this is not what I meant when I previously mentioned filling the book's blank void. NOT with my physical self!!!!
While being uncomfortably heaved through the seemingly seventh dimension, where everything was a fiery yellow-orange tunnel of pain and agony. I could hear the distant echoes of my migraine-inducing 'friends' having a pleasant laugh, "Find out what happened to the old Rich lady, will ya?"
I groaned upon hearing the request. Why was I now responsible for solving a case I had no care in the world for, when it was a constant conversation prompt between those three. There was nothing in it for me either - therefore, my plan was to formulate some sort of lie, and get back to my present day bedroom. Anything I needed to do to return to MY bedroom in the right time was an alright plan, no matter how low.

The excruciating time-travel journey was torture compared to what movies always portrayed - there were no fun cars or small simple devices, it was so painful i nearly felt myself snap to pieces in the process. I could barely grasp how any of this was real, how in a science driven world, time travel made the space-time-continuum look like a cute joke. And what then? If humans could get whirled into book pages did that mean walking through walls was a universal thing anyone could do with no effort? What else was new?
I crashed flat on my face (luckily unnoticed) into a spacious area as if I'd been blown straight through a glass door. I desperately longed for it to be a simulation - yet the unblurring of my eyes proved to me the crystal clarity of the situation I was placed in. From outside, the sky was vaguely brighter in comparison to when I'd previously looked out my window to see Will earlier.
A music store? I wondered.