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Starting another school year. Hundreds of kids walked into a small school. Five girls walked together. All smiling, some of them ready to conquer the year, and the others scared of what's to come. Little did they know that the year was going to be harder than they thought. The sun still beat hard on the small little town in Ohio, fields covered land near the school, except for the small town holding a population of 3,000 people.
"I am so freaking excited!" Katie cheered to her friends.
"Sorry, what you said just doesn't make any sense," Jenna said, her pony-tale whipping in the air as she turns to look in front of her.
Katie gave Jenna a weird look, "What do you mean? It makes perfect sense."
Jenna raised her eyebrows, "It doesn't make sense because why would you be excited about school?"
"Because I'm ready to be a High Schooler, duh. Why you gotta put my excited feelings down?"
"Cause your excited feelings don't make sense."
Katie, a little mad says, "You-"
"I am scared." Jessica squeals.
"Why?" Gabby asks.
"Cause...this is the real stuff." She answers quietly.
"What, High School?" Abby questioned.
"Yeah! I'm not ready!"
"Well put on your frickin big girl pants and man up!" Katie said, hair blowing into her face.
Jenna said, "Katie."
"What?" The other girl whined.
"That...you...literally no sense used in what you just said." As the girls got into the school, spreading throughout the school for their first classes.
Lucky Jenna, Gabby, Abby, and Katie all had their first class together, Study Hall.
The four girls met up and began walking together, going into the library where Study Hall took place.
The friends sat at the same table, taking out their books, having nothing else to do or work on.
"Guys, I say we ditch this place. It's been too much for me. I'm having a really bad year so far-"
"Katie...it's only been five minutes." Abby reminded her friend.
"Oh don't remind me!" Katie gasped dramatically, standing from the table.
"And didn't she just said a couple minutes ago of how ready she was for school?" Katie heard Gabby ask Abby.
Jenna's eyes widened, noticing Katie was standing from the table, "What are you doing?"
Katie grinned, "Chill guuurl, I'm only looking for a book."
It's a small library that the school had. Definitely couldn't hold even three small grades. Posters lined the walls, some showing books like Twilight and other popular novels teens preferred to read. Katie, already knowing the library went to her usual area of Young Adult fantasy. While looking around, she found that she had already read most of these books, except for the ones that she read one page of and decided it wasn't worthy of her precious time. Plus she's in ninth grade now, as a Freshman she only has time for the best of the books. Thinking to herself that she should search more throughout the library, still standing in the Adult Fantasy she looks around. Making her decision, she continued walking, the old wooden floor creaking under her feet.
The next was historical fiction, something that didn't interest her, so she still continued until she saw something in the corner of her eye across the library, something she swears she never saw before.
Putting all her focus on it, she looks closer, seeing what must be a new addition to the library. Curious, she began walking to the small almost hidden shelves.
It smelled old. Even though it seemed new, it smelled old, and up close it looked old. With torn yellow covers of old stained fabric designed all the books, the only thing giving evidence that all the books were different were the gold metallic numbers on the spines.
Curiosity getting the best of her, she takes the first book on the top shelf, the one with the Roman numeral one.
When opening the book she was washed with the sour smell of the pages. Coughing, she began skimming through the first page, see if it held any interest to her.
A magnet was her minds reaction to the words. Like two brand new magnets coming together.
She takes the book, and the second and third. Just in case of how fast she finished the first. Satisfied, she goes to sign the books out and goes to sit with her friends, getting a weird look from the librarian.
"What took you so long?" Jenna asked her quietly.
Katie, confused about her question looks at Jenna, focusing on her blue eyes. "What do you mean? It took me five minutes tops." Katie said.
"Have you looked at the time?" Jenna questioned.
Turning to the clock, Katie's eyes widen with surprise. When they walked into the room, it was around eight o'clock, but now it was eight thirty. "How..." Katie mumbled to herself.
"Katie...why did you get a book filled with dad jokes?" She heard Gabby ask, her brown eyes filled with humor and confusion.
Spinning to look at her, she looks back down at her book, not seeing any trace that the book was filled with dad jokes. Picking up the book, she shows her friends, "This isn't a joke book-"
"Is this when you tell us a joke?" Abby asks.
"Are you planning on being a comedian?"
Becoming annoyed, Katie puts down the book in frustration, "No, why would I? I mean yeah I'm the funniest person in the world but I was heading more towards acting or directing you know?"
"Yeah...I think directing really suits you." Jenna says. Having a hurt expression, Katie looks at her.
"What is that supposed to mean?" She asks.
Jenna giving her a look telling her to calm down she sighs, "It means what I just said. That I think you'd be good at directing movies."
Crossing her arms across her chest Katie eyed her friend closely, "You're insulting me."
All the girls at the table looked at her, "No, I was complimenting you, saying that you'd be a good director."
"No Jen, think about this in my gorgeous eyes. I say that my dreams are to be either an actress or a director, right?"
"Right."
"And you said, 'Yeah...I think directing really suits you.' You see what I mean?" She then asked.
The other girl looked at her, "I really don't." Jenna said, breaking eye contact with Katie and looking to the other girls, trying to see if she was missing something.
"It means that you're saying that I wouldn't be good at acting."
"Why are we talking about this-"
"That's not what I was saying," Jenna said, feeling so confused about her friend.
"Can we change the subject?" Gabby requested, giving a smile.
Sighing, Katie picked up her book and began reading. Not only was Katie now addicted to the book, but when she was reading it, it felt like she was reading her life in a long biography. Each page hit her heart, giving her feeling that she'd never felt before, giving her feelings that scared her. The book made no sense when you thought of it from a distance, but then when you got closer everything seemed to blend together. The first hundred pages of the book were written of what the world was hundred to thousands of years ago, all going to the future. Whoever wrote this book wasn't just strange for thinking of all this, but they were practically insane because from the sound of the words in Katie's head it sounded like the author really believed in what they wrote, as though they truly believed all this would happen, as though all that was left was waiting for it to come and hit people like a painful rock and destroy everything.
That's when the characters came in. First, she read of a girl who was smart, incredibly intelligent, one that was described with, brown hair and matching brown eyes. Long noticeable dark lashes. Katie read of the journey the character went through. This book wasn't like others where the story told of the characters journey, and you got to think of what everything looked like, using your mind to put all the pieces together, but this was more like reading a movie. Everything so vivid in her mind, she saw the character, sometimes on top of the world, a smile on her face, and others, the character was staring at the face of death.
Not noticing, she felt someone's hand on her shoulder, snapping her out of her intense reading, her breathing for some reason fast. "Katie?" Looking up, she saw Jenna looking at her with confused eyes. "Are you ok? You're breathing so hard." She said, moving her hand away from her friend's shoulder.
Katie, still coming back to reality, rubs her eyes, and closes the book. "Yeah, I'm fine."