social media.

I wasn’t ready to die. I knew that much. Maybe that’s all I ever knew, because there is no way in hell I could have told you one week ago that this is where I would fucking be. I’m not going to ‘take you back to where it all began’, but I will tell you one thing. If you find the book, or the book finds you, DO NOT TRUST IT. DO NOT OPEN IT. The book doesn’t care what colour your hair is, how many times you’ve fallen in love, the lullabies your mother used to sing when you were young, or if you even had parents at all. The book only cares that you drink it, letting the words trickle down your throat until they catch in your chest and flood your lungs leaving you gasping for more of the very thing that is causing you to drown. The book will submerge you, and you can only sink and wish you had heeded my warning, and not opened that goddamn book. Fuck it. No way in hell are you gonna put down the book now that I’ve hooked your curiosity. What’s that old saying? Curiosity killed the cat. You’re damn right. So, let me take you back to where it all began. What a joke.

Her name was Lara. She gave me the book. She was one of those girls that walked into a room and the whole thing went silent, as if some invisible mist had gathered in the air, causing all that breathed it in to be rendered mute as their gaze fell entranced wherever Lara moved. She was one of those girls so beautiful, she could ask a man to jump from a cliff and with a bite of her lip he would do so. You could tell from her dancing eyes and the expectant way she glanced around the room that her power delighted her. She was pure and utter trouble. Lara was the book in human form. Lara had no mercy. That’s why she didn’t burn the book, that’s why she grinned when she placed it into my hands. She loved power, and the book gave it to her. The book gave her the one thing she didn’t have yet. The book didn’t drown Lara, but Lara flooded it. Lara opened its pages and wrote of her own beauty, her heart and how large it was, how deep her soul was and how enchanting her mind. Lara lied, but the book couldn’t tell and if it could, it didn’t care. The reader won’t either. Not until it’s too late. When I met Lara, I was 19, and I was just like her. I knew I was hot. It was obvious because all the prettiest girls in school wanted my hand to hold. When Valentines Day came around, I sent roses to every girl in my class and took my pick from the herd when they inevitably flocked my way. Only the finest came through the gate, the rest cried, heartbroken, hoping for the day I allowed them into my room. The day I met Lara, it was no different.

I was sitting in my favourite bar when in she swept, brown hair overflowing down her back like melting chocolate, and a white dress that licked her ankles with every step she took. Like a fine thoroughbred, she trotted in, drinking in her surroundings with excitement.

“Ahaaaa shotgun.” I growled through a grin, swinging myself towards my mates. “Watch an’ learn boys. Fresh meat on the market and I am hungry.” They didn’t respond. They were far too captivated by Lara’s presence to manage even the slightest stutter. That was what saved them. Some people say that the eye of the storm is the most peacefully dangerous part. In its silent beauty it surrounds you, assuring you that the worst is over. You’re safe now. Like a silent scorpion it embraces you in its arms, holding you tight until you close your eyes and sigh with relief; and that is when the tail strikes. You know you’re fucked before you die. The venom kills you slowly, enough time to turn and crawl away until the lightening looms over you with its thunderous laughter, and the last thing you see before it all goes black is the moment you went wrong as the whole world turns its back on you. I tried to warn you. Lara was a hurricane, terrifying to meet and impossible to escape. Once Lara had you in her arms, you thought you were safe. Your ignorant, love struck mind allowed you to gaze up at her in wonder, safe in the eye of the storm, completely unaware that the lightening is coming.

I left with Lara that night, I left with Lara and I ate until I was full.

As we lay beside each other in silent awe of our combined beauty, she turned away from me to reach into her bedside table and return with a little black book. It was small, with a line of gold cursive on the cover that I couldn’t quite read. The pages were black too, giving the book an illusion of being something else entirely. I had no interest in the book, but Lara’s lips curled at the edges as she placed the book in my hands, ignoring my grunts of disapproval. What the fuck would I want her book f-

Wait. Surely that wasn’t my name in gold cursive on the cover? I looked harder, struggling to focus.

“Tell me your name.,” the words purred from the book straight into my head. The sound didn’t pass through my ears, the book communicated as if it were already in my head; as if the words were my own thought that I hadn’t noticed before.

“Harley,” I murmured, my eyes flicking up as I heard a delighted sound chirp from Lara’s lips.

“Harley.” And I opened the book.

Two hands shot from the pages and wrapped around my chest, expanding and flowing from the book until the arms were long enough to completely surround me; the hands clasped together in front of me. I pulled back, hearing a shriek that was so loud it couldn’t possibly be mine, could it? The arms were made of marble, one white and one black, both laced with streaks of lightening gold that rippled as they moved. Terrified, I blew out my chest and tried to break free but it was no use. The grip was unbreakable, and the arms were so beautiful. Why was I upset with these arms for holding me? I loved beautiful things. I couldn’t imagine something so beautiful would want to harm me, right?

“Haaaarley,” I heard the book whisper. The book wanted me, this beautiful book wanted me and I wanted it. The more I stared into its midnight pages, the more I felt drawn in. The pages unfolded for the arms to reach me and I could see images of Lara hidden inside. God she looked like something from a dream. She was laughing, dancing, standing in a dress or nothing at all, and it was all so beautiful. The arms began to pull back into the book, slowly at first and then cascading through the pages, still holding me tight. I fell into the book willingly, hearing my name whispered over and over while I soared head first into Lara, or head first into the book? I couldn’t quite tell the difference any more.

In the book I met many people.

I managed to observe two different groups, those that bring people in, and those that watch. Those that bring people in are influenced by money, and by fame. They receive $20, 000 for each person they bring into the book. They are like Lara, beautiful and cunning. The watchers do just that; they watch. Completely entranced by the beauty before them they allow the book into their mind, and like a parasite it sinks in its teeth and it feeds. The book feeds off the watchers, and the book feeds them. See, that’s the thing about the book. The book knows you better than you know yourself. The book knows what you want in the shallowest part of your heart, and the book uses it to feed you until you are no longer hungry. The book feeds you until the world inside it is tastier than the one outside. The book feeds you so that every time you climb out, like a stray with no home you inevitably come crawling back. Hungry. Pitiful. Alone.

The book is a magician with a beautiful girl by its side; with a flash of her dazzling smile, he betrays all your senses right before your very eyes. And the people inside, they give the book all its power. If you feed them what they want, they’ll always be wanting more. The book feeds its people, and they feed the book. Blind. Barely existing. A shadow of what their life could have been, wasted watching the lies on the screen.

My name is Harley. I escaped the book. I can't tell you how because I can hear them coming, they're already in my mind. I hear their footsteps like an echo, as if they had already passed and I were simply looking back.The book knows my thoughts before I know them myself, and its my fault because I let it in, I TOLD IT MY NAME.

Do not trust it. Do not open it.