All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 3: Future's So Bright

Music Tracklist:

Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch

Trocadero Strike Force - Little Box of Sorrow (instrumental)

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David's POV

The next morning when I woke up, I felt a rush of refreshing anticipation sun on my face as my eyes flitted open to the breaking dawn outside my dingy window. Surprise overtook me: I actually looked forward to my day! This feeling was so divorced from my usual run of waking up with a continual sense of dread that it dawned on me exactly how accustomed I had gotten to life sucking ass. You know that horrible sense in your gut that grinds you down as you are waking up and becoming increasingly conscious to the hopelessness of your situation? Realizing that the day ahead is monotonous drudgery? Knowing that you will only be counting down the hours until sleep and scant relief from the hunger and constipation ahead because you've had barely anything to eat for days so your intestinal tract has actually began to shut down and clamp up? (TMI, I know, but those who have been through it know exactly what I'm talking about!).

But this day...this day was the first day I could look forward to something. And that something was: a meal! An actual real live meal! Well, not actually live...the food itself would most likely be a "dead" of something...but "real live" as in a meal that wasn't just a sorry edible wrapper excuse for a quasi-mystical text message. And for once, I didn't have to hunt the meal down myself. I mean... I was just sick of the street food and nonsense, y'know? A sit down restaurant sounded good. And for free? That sounded great.

I sat up and greeted the brightening sky outside my window with a big grin on my face. This was the beginning of something...I could just taste it. Perhaps, this was the beginning of the future. Dared I dream it was really possible my name would go down in history after all? And if my stomach was kept a happy campy in the meantime – well, then that was just gravy. Mmmmm, mouthwatering gravy. My stomach growled at the thought so I petted it: "Soon, boy. Soon."

I stretched out on my futon like a fat cat in the sun, and felt around for my phone-puter to look at the time. I swiped the unlock sequence and the screen opened to the All Your Fates app that I had left open the day before. Encouraged by my newly found optimism, however, somehow the website didn't hold any of the nerve-wracking power it had for me the night before.

I stared at the two unopened fortune cookies on the app, begging to be opened. I wonder why I had ever thought the app was remotely frightening. Dropping my phone like a hot potato! How silly of me. I do not need to fear my fortune being told. The future's so bright, I gotta to wear shades.

I tapped the top fortune and waited impatiently as the following sentence scrolled out,

     Reality manifests the spectrum of herself by passing through the prism of your experiences.

Huh.

That seemed...very...fortune cookie-ee to me, and I'm one who should know. It was precisely that typical new age tripe ambiguous enough to seem meaningful without really saying anything so restaurant staff can distract customers from noticing that they were just overcharged for a meal comprised of rice, breading and saturated fats: "Oh look, a fortune cookie!" My high hopes of an epic fortune began to slowly deflate.

I quickly tapped the bottom fortune before the balloon of hope that had put buoyancy back into my spine could deflate entirely.

     You will find The One.

And there it was. That certain meaningless vague expression to hook fools like me into looking into every crevice, nook and cranny for "The One." The One what? The One remote control that was supposed to service my drone, blender, and roomba (batteries not included)? The One weight-loss solution? The One girl of my dreams I am meant to be with because Hollywood endings insist we are all fated to be with that singular special person for the rest of our lives? I wouldn't find The One if she came along and sat on my face.... Frankly, I wish she would.

I should have known the whole thing was meaningless. Me and my overactive imagination. It was probably just a prank. Or just the machinations of a demented viral ad campaign marketer. Or my mind playing tricks on me after weeks of living on a diet that misses most of the major food groups. Did I really even eat a fortune cookie with my name on it? Think about it, David: you were eating your last certain meal to come in who-knows-when when you cracked opened that fortune. It was now so obvious that the whole thing was simply the desperation talking.

Rolling my shoulders back, I sighed and got ready to go. Face it, David. You are a loser who couldn't finish school or even hold down a dead-end job. No one will ever remember your name.

I threw on my Cons and went out the door, leaving any notions of an epic future behind me. I had to go get a free lunch at Bru's...

***

Emma's POV

I knew I was drunk, but didn't know that it was this bad. Did that guy just walk out of my apartment? I mean seriously? WTF? I stumbled for a second then shook it off. My neck felt tight and cracked and felt good again and I sneezed.

"What is it? A Thursday? I... six shots? Smart, Emma," I slurred my words as I talked to myself while stumbling in the hallway. "Is it even noon, yet?"

I blinked and walked into my place.

The funny thing about panic is that you feel it in a way that your brain doesn't fully comprehend it at first. Your heart races and your muscles tense up and your brain just goes, "Well, there has to be some explanation for all this, it's not like someone else is living in your apartment, you know."

But that was the thing... Someone was... and I think he just walked down the hall in red Converse All Stars... And I didn't even know his name.

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A/N

Hey guys! So excited about Chapter three....you finally get your first glimpse of Emma who is very near and dear to our hearts. Just a small glimpse though...and not at her best!!!

It means so much to us when you guys vote and it only takes a second so please vote!

What do you think of the sketches our artist Hugo Arias did of David when he was bored one day? Hugo is super awesome, and if you like the illustrations he did that you see throughout our account, be sure to check his website out http://www.hugoisaghost.com/. You can even download some of his work as colouring pages for free.

~C

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All Your Fates © 2012 Carrie Cutforth, Jim Martin and Tom Liljeholm. All Rights Reserved.