THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK

Chapter One: The Stranger

I am writing this in the hope that whoever reads it will make better decisions than I ever did. My name is Brandon Dune, and until one cold November evening, I was an ordinary twenty-seven-year-old man working late shifts at a convenience store three blocks from my apartment. I wasn’t particularly happy with my life, but I wasn’t miserable either. I simply wanted to earn enough money to pay my rent without having to worry about where my next meal would come from.

It was around 10:30 p.m., and I was sitting behind the counter doodling on the back of a receipt when a man burst through the entrance. He was clutching his side, and blood was seeping through his jacket.

“Help me! I’ve been shot!” he screamed.

I immediately reached for the telephone, but he grabbed my wrist. “No police! They know about me. They’ll kill me too!”

I froze. Before I could question him, he pulled a small black book from his jacket and pushed it into my hand. “Destroy it. Whatever you do, don’t let anyone know you have it.”

I offered to drive him to the hospital, but he shook his head. “There’s no time.”

Seconds later, he collapsed. I tried desperately to help him, but he was already dead.

Panic set in. There was a dead man in my workplace, and I was holding something he had apparently been killed for. I knew I had to call the police, but first I hid the book in my backpack and erased the security footage. Our cameras frequently malfunctioned, so I hoped nobody would notice.

The police arrived unusually quickly. Officer Rose, a tall man with an unsettlingly calm manner, introduced himself and his younger colleague, Officer Andrews. I told them an amended version of events, leaving out the book and the stranger’s warning.

“Did he give you anything?” Rose asked.

“No, Officer.”

He studied me for a moment before continuing his questions. Eventually, I was allowed to leave, although Rose requested access to the security footage. I explained that only my manager could authorise it and gave him the contact details.

As I drove home, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Rose had seen straight through my lies.

Chapter Two: Tomorrow’s Secrets

I locked every door and window before finally removing the book from my backpack. It was small, plain and completely unremarkable. For nearly ten minutes, I stared at it, debating whether to honour the stranger’s final request or satisfy my curiosity.

Curiosity won.

Inside were detailed accounts of events that hadn’t happened yet: football results, award winners, scientific discoveries and even incidents involving ordinary people. I wondered whether the stranger had been some sort of conspiracy theorist until I found a football match scheduled for the following afternoon. The book listed the final score, the goalscorers, the exact minutes and every significant foul. I wrote the details down, determined to test them.

The next morning, I woke to knocking at my door. Rose and Andrews had returned, claiming they wanted to know whether I remembered anything else. I invited them inside, offered coffee and repeated my original account. Before leaving, Rose handed me his card.

“If you’re hiding anything, Mr Dune, I suggest you tell us now. We’ll find out eventually.”

Once they were gone, I retrieved the book from beneath my bedroom floorboards and tried to destroy it. I held matches against its cover, placed it over the cooker flame and attempted to cut its pages with a knife. Nothing worked. The book remained completely untouched.

My phone alarm interrupted me. The football match was beginning.

I switched on the television and watched in disbelief as every event unfolded exactly as written. By the final whistle, I was trembling. The book hadn’t predicted the match approximately; it had described it perfectly.

Over the following days, I tested more entries. Every prediction came true. I also discovered that once a day had passed, its pages vanished. The book contained the future but refused to preserve the past.

I wondered whether it could tell me when I would die. I even began searching for my own name before stopping myself. Knowing tomorrow’s football score was one thing. Knowing the date of my death was another.

Some things were better left unknown.

Chapter Three: The Price of Knowing

One evening, while reading through the following day’s events, I came across an article about a seven-year-old boy who would be killed in a road accident outside his primary school. The report was painfully detailed. It described the time, location and the circumstances surrounding his death. His mother was expected to arrive shortly afterwards, only to discover that her son had already been struck.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him. He was only seven. He had barely begun living, and I was sitting in my apartment knowing exactly when his life would end.

The following morning, I went to the school and waited until I recognised the boy and his mother from the information in the book. I approached her nervously.

“Excuse me, I know this is going to sound strange, but I think your son could be in danger this afternoon.”

She frowned and pulled him closer. “What do you mean?”

“There’s going to be an accident outside the school. Please, just make sure he’s nowhere near the road.”

“How do you know anything about my son?”

I couldn’t explain. How could I tell a complete stranger that I owned a book containing tomorrow’s tragedies?

“Please, I’m only trying to help.”

She looked frightened rather than reassured. “I think you should leave us alone.”

I apologised and walked away, feeling foolish. At least I had warned her. Surely she would be more careful now.

But as the afternoon approached, I became increasingly restless. What if she dismissed my warning entirely? What if I could prevent the accident simply by being there?

I made my decision. I would return to the school and save the boy myself.

When I arrived, parents were gathering near the entrance. I spotted the child standing close to the pavement. A car approached the crossing faster than it should have, and suddenly the boy stepped towards the road.

I ran.

I grabbed him around the waist and pulled him backwards. We fell together onto the pavement as the car swept past.

For one wonderful second, I thought I had changed everything.

Then came a sickening impact.

The car had struck a woman a short distance away. People screamed. Someone rushed forward, calling for an ambulance. The boy scrambled out of my arms and began crying.

“Mummy!”

I turned and recognised her immediately.

It was his mother.

She had taken my warning seriously after all. Instead of arriving at her usual time, she had come early to collect him. In the confusion, she had moved towards the road just as the vehicle passed us.

I stood motionless while strangers tried to help her. The boy was screaming, desperately trying to reach her, and I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eyes.

That evening, the news confirmed her death.

I sat in front of the television, struggling to understand what I had done. The boy was alive, just as I had wanted. Yet he had lost his mother because of my intervention.

I rushed to the bedroom and retrieved the black book. When I found the entry, my blood ran cold. The article had changed. It now described the mother’s death instead of the boy’s.

I knew what I had originally read. There was no possibility that I had misunderstood it.

Then I realised the truth. The book hadn’t been wrong. When I first read the prediction, the boy’s death really had been his future. But when I decided to interfere, events changed, and the book changed with them. I simply hadn’t looked again.

I had believed that knowing the future gave me the power to save people. Instead, I had discovered that changing one person’s fate could destroy another’s.

For weeks, I couldn’t stop hearing that little boy calling for his mother.

Chapter Four: Everything I Ever Wanted

After the accident, I promised myself I would leave the book alone. But my financial troubles hadn’t disappeared, and eventually temptation overcame my guilt. I reasoned that using sporting results to make money was different from interfering with someone’s life. I wasn’t trying to prevent deaths or change anyone’s fate. I was simply taking advantage of information I already possessed.

I began with small football bets, then progressed to larger winnings. I even won two lotteries, carefully avoiding the jackpots so I wouldn’t attract unwanted attention. Within months, I had become extraordinarily wealthy.

I left the convenience store, bought a beautiful house and replaced my unreliable car. For the first time, I could travel whenever I wanted and buy things without worrying about their price. Meanwhile, the investigation into the stranger’s death appeared to have gone cold.

Then I met Lauren.

She was beautiful, intelligent, funny and always impeccably dressed. She had a way of making me feel like an ordinary man despite everything I now possessed. She wasn’t particularly impressed by my money, which only made me love her more.

Sometimes I used information from the book to appear knowledgeable about world events, but I never used it to discover her future. After what happened at the school, I couldn’t bear the possibility of reading about something terrible happening to her.

As our relationship grew, I began imagining marriage and a family. I bought an engagement ring and arranged a two-week holiday to Australia, where I planned to propose.

I had everything I ever wanted. Or so I believed.

Chapter Five: The Last Holiday

The afternoon before our departure, I was listening to music in the garden when I heard someone knocking at the front door. I began walking towards the house, but before I could reach the entrance, the door was kicked open.

Armed men dressed in black tactical uniforms flooded my home. They seized me, forced a blindfold over my eyes and dragged me outside.

“Where’s Lauren?” I shouted. “What have you done with my girlfriend?”

Nobody answered.

I was thrown into the back of a vehicle and driven for what felt like hours. Every question I asked was met with silence. I didn’t know whether Lauren had been taken, whether she was hurt or whether I would ever see her again.

Eventually, the vehicle stopped. I was led into a building and forced into a chair.

“Hello, Mr Dune. I’m so glad you could join us.”

I recognised the voice before they removed my blindfold.

Officer Rose.

He stood before me wearing the same calm expression I remembered from the convenience store.

“I gave you plenty of opportunities to tell me the truth, Brandon. Now let’s make this simple. Where is the book?”

My stomach dropped. The stranger had been right about the police.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Rose smiled faintly. “I was hoping you wouldn’t make this difficult.”

He gestured towards the doorway.

“Bring her in.”

Chapter Six: The Last Page

Lauren was dragged into the room, terrified and crying. I struggled against the men holding me, desperate to reach her.

“Please, don’t hurt her!”

Rose drew his gun and pointed it towards her.

“Tell me where the book is, Brandon, and I’ll let you both leave.”

I knew he was lying. If he understood what the book contained, he would never allow us to walk away knowing his secret.

“I don’t know what book you’re talking about,” I insisted.

His expression hardened.

“Last chance.”

“Officer Rose, please, whatever you think I’ve—”

The gunshot interrupted me.

Lauren collapsed.

For a moment, I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Then I screamed her name, fighting desperately to reach her. She didn’t move.

The woman I loved was gone. The woman I had planned to marry would never know about the ring waiting for her. All the money, freedom and luxury I had gained meant absolutely nothing.

Rose approached me.

“Tell me where it is, or you can join her.”

I looked at him through my tears. I had spent months believing I controlled my future, yet I hadn’t been able to protect the only person who truly mattered.

“Shoot me, you pig!” I shouted, spitting in his face.

He wiped his cheek and smiled.

“I’ll find it with or without you.”

He placed the gun against my head and pulled the trigger.

And so my story ended exactly as it began: with a man dying because of a small black book.

I never discovered where it came from or why it couldn’t be destroyed. I only know that my curiosity, greed and selfishness cost me everything. I could have lived an ordinary life, worrying about rent and working late shifts, but at least Lauren might still be alive.

Perhaps someone else will find the book. Perhaps someone already has.

If that person is you, I beg you to learn from my mistakes.

Close the book. Walk away. And whatever you do, never look back.