I Read My Future in the Library’s “Lost and Found”

I Read My Future in the Library’s “Lost and Found”

The first time I opened the “Lost and Found” box at the Maple Street Public Library, I wasn’t looking for anything.

I was there to return a late book—three weeks overdue, my shame wrapped in its frayed paperback cover. The librarian, Mrs. Halloway, was behind the desk, sorting through a stack of returned novels. On the counter sat a small wooden crate with a handwritten sign: LOST & FOUND – Please Claim.

I glanced inside out of idle curiosity. There was a single item: a small, silver hairpin shaped like a swallow in flight. It caught the light like a wink.

I don’t know why, but I picked it up. The moment I touched it, an image bloomed in my mind: me, two days later, standing at a bus stop as a sudden gust of wind whipped my hair into my face. A stranger reached out, gently tucking it back and pinning it in place with the same silver swallow.

I put the hairpin back, unsettled.

Two days later, it happened exactly as I’d seen.

After that, I started visiting the box every week. The items changed constantly—lost scarves, notebooks, gloves, keychains—but each time I picked one up, something flickered inside me. A glimpse. A moment. Always in the order they would happen.

Week two: a dog-eared postcard showing a beach at sunset. The vision: me sitting alone on a park bench, reading the back of that same postcard, my hands shaking.

It happened the following Thursday. The card arrived in my mailbox, unsigned.

Week three: a child’s marble, deep green, swirling with flecks of gold. The vision: me kneeling on the floor of my apartment, the marble rolling away into the shadows under my couch. It was in my pocket the very next night after a neighborhood boy dropped it and ran off before I could return it.

I stopped questioning it.

By week five, I noticed the order of the visions was stretching further ahead—days, sometimes weeks. It was like the box wasn’t just showing me lost things anymore, but a breadcrumb trail into my own life.

The visions became stranger. A single earring shaped like a teardrop gave me an image of myself crying in the rain outside a coffee shop. A crumpled movie ticket revealed me laughing with someone I didn’t recognize.

I started to wonder—if I stopped visiting the box, would my future just… stop?

One rainy Tuesday, I found something that made my breath catch.

It was a folded scrap of paper with my name written on the outside.

My fingers trembled as I touched it. The vision slammed into me—stronger than any before. I was standing in the library, the lights flickering, the box in front of me empty. Mrs. Halloway was gone. The paper was in my hand, and outside the tall glass windows, people were running, their faces twisted in panic.

The moment faded, but my pulse didn’t slow.

I unfolded the paper.

Inside was a single sentence:

When you take the last thing from the box, you can’t return it.

For the next few weeks, I avoided the library. I told myself it was just a coincidence, a trick of the mind. But curiosity is a stubborn creature.

The morning I finally went back, the air felt heavy, as if the library had been holding its breath. Mrs. Halloway wasn’t behind the desk—no one was.

The “Lost and Found” box sat alone on the counter. Inside was one object.

A brass key.

I didn’t want to touch it. My hand hovered over the box, and I swear I could feel a faint hum in the air. But the compulsion was too strong. I picked it up.

The vision came instantly—me, standing at a door I didn’t recognize, the key fitting perfectly into the lock. On the other side, darkness. Not empty, but waiting.

That night, I dreamed of the box. It was larger now, filling the library floor, overflowing with things I hadn’t yet lost. My favorite scarf. My apartment keys. A photograph of me as a child. And at the very top, the brass key.

When I woke, the key was on my nightstand.

I haven’t been back to the library in months. But the key is still with me. I know I’ll use it eventually—just like the box always shows.

And when I do, it will be the last thing I ever take.