Hellbent

Life is what you make of it.

At least that’s what I’ve always been told.

Shit will always happen regardless. But it’s how you deal with it that can make or break you.

Well, that’s easier said than done.

We all know life can be really fucked up for some people. While others will never have to worry about a damn thing in their life. It’s just how it is I guess.

But sometimes I wish I could just catch a break.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said.

Yeah, I heard you say that for the fifth time, I thought to myself.

“Her hospital bills are close to being overdue, and as you know the surgery will cost-”

“How long?” I cut them off asking. “How long does she have?” The doctor looked at me with a concerned expression as they hesitated before answering, “At most two months”.

I felt my stomach churn. As I stood up to quickly leave the office before completely walking out, I stopped and said “I’ll have the money. Just make sure to save my mom”.

Yeah, right I thought to myself as I was leaving the hospital to catch the bus. How in the hell was I supposed to come up with almost $20,000 within a month or less? Sell my organs on the black market? Become a stripper? Get another loan? My credit would be completely fucked.

My mother has always been sick for as long as I can remember. But her health took a turn for the worse when she was diagnosed with colon cancer. In order to help my mom, I started working at the age of sixteen, got a full scholarship to go to university, and worked two jobs to make ends meet. I finished school but because I didn’t have any experience in my field of study hardly any employers wanted me. So now I still work two jobs to try to take care of myself and to pay for my mother’s hospital bills. But things just keep getting worse and worse.

I was so engrossed racking my brain with ideas that I bumped into the back of someone making us both fall in the process.

“Oh my goodness I am so sorry!” I exclaimed. Still, on the ground, I look up to see a boy with shiny black long hair, a skater boy style to him, and a tote messenger bag crossing his body in front of me.

He stands up to lend me a hand and says “No worries, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

Some of our stuff fell out of our bags so we both helped each other pick everything up.

“Thanks,'' I said, as he hands me my wallet.

“It's all good, well then,” he says as he walks off down the stairs to the subway.

As I catch the bus, I wonder if there’s any way to get that much money in time.

When I get in my room I take all my stuff out of my bag to find that my phone is missing. Instead, there is another phone in my bag which more than likely belongs to the guy that I bumped into. Not only that there is something in my bag that’s not mine. I pick it up to see that it is a little black book. The book is kinda worn but overall in good condition. There happens to be no writing on the front or the back, and for some reason, I kept feeling this sudden pressure from the book.

I slowly open the book to see that there is nothing written inside. Only just empty white pages. I flip through the book and in doing so I accidentally get a paper cut. “Ow, that was actually kinda deep” I exclaimed, as I watched my finger dripping blood on the now bloodstained pages.

But I wasn’t ready for what happened next.

To my horror after seconds of my blood soaking the white pages, my blood started to move weirdly on the page. My blood kept moving until it started to spell out the word, “HELLO”.

I screamed as I dropped the book to the floor. What the fuck was that?

I screamed again as the boy's phone rang. I grab the phone to see that the caller id was an obviously unknown number to me still, I answer immediately. “Hell-” was all I could say before he cuts me off yelling, “DON'T OPEN THE BOOK! WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT OPEN THAT BOOK!”. He sounded like he was scared out of his mind.

I slowly look down at the book. “What if I already did?” I asked.

He paused before saying “Then you're fucked”.

“What do you mean I’m fucked?” I screamed at him.

“Listen to me closely, okay. That book is fucking cursed. Don’t listen to it!”

Listen to it? The book??

“The book has a mind of its own. It claims that it will help you, but only for a price. I made the mistake of playing around with it, and ended up in some crazy shit.”

“What do you mean, some crazy shit?” I slowly asked.

“As in my life is ruined and I won’t let what happened to me happen to anyone else… But if you already opened it there’s nothing I can do for you,” he said hesitantly.

“ That book will haunt you until you use up your three wishes”.

At this point, I was starting to hyperventilate. What does he mean the book has a mind of its own? And how the hell did it talk to me? And he says it will haunt me until I make three wishes? This has to be some sort of a prank, right?

“-ey HEY! Calm down! I can help you but you have to tell me where you are!”.

I wasn’t about to tell this random boy that could possibly be playing some cruel joke on me where I live. “I’ll send you an address to meet me okay? You better not be fucking with me,” I said angrily.

“Trust me, I wish this was all just some nightmare”.

As we hung up, I stared at the book as it eerily laid on the floor. I slowly crouched down to pick it up and jammed it in my bag without looking.

Within an hour, I had met the boy that I ran into today at a nearby park.

He was sweating and breathing heavily as he approached me.

“Are you okay?” he asks. I was startled for him to ask me that, so I slowly answer “yes, just fucking scared out of my mind”.

“Yeah I get it. I was too”. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out my phone and hands it to me, and I give him his.

I pull out the book from my bag “Why the fuck would you have a book as dangerous as this with you!” I exclaimed.

“ I thought keeping it with me was the best option… and I see now it wasn’t,” he says.

He motions for us to sit on a bench to further talk. I hesitantly sit next to him, wondering if I should have brought my taser out of my bag. But he didn’t seem like he was lying. Or he was a good ass liar. He didn’t even seem dangerous to me. Just a scared guy that looked no more than 21.

He looks down at the ground before looking at me. “I got that book a year ago from some store that had a book sale with a friend. The woman at the store was hesitant to sell me the book. She asked me why I would want a book with no pages. I thought why the fuck not? I can journal in it or write my own story in it, I don’t know. Anyway, she said she felt some type of dark presence inside the book. I brushed it off like it was nothing. When I opened the book I immediately cut my finger by accident”.

He looked down at my finger, where I had put a bandaid on the paper cut wound.

“And I see you did too”. He looks at me even more worried now. He sighs before continuing, “after that, my blood turned into lettering and it said “HELLO”. I freaked out but my friend found it cool. They tried talking to it but nothing happened. So I tried talking to it and it answered, “WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU TODAY?”. I thought to myself that maybe it was some kind of big joke so I said I wanted a new car. He paused.

“Well did you get the new car?” I asked.

“Yeah, I did. It showed up in my driveway the next day. I was astonished. The book actually gave me what I asked for. So then I asked for a million dollars, you know why not. Within seconds I checked my bank account and there it was. A million dollars had been deposited.” But things started to get weird. The very next day someone had reported that their car got stolen, and it was the same car that I received from the book. Then there was a report on the news that a hacker was able to get one million dollars from someone's savings. Then I realized that the book takes and gives. Things just don't appear out of nothingness, it all comes from somewhere. I was going to send the book back to the store but before I could do that my friend went behind my back and tried to use the book by cutting his finger on the book”.

I could see that he started to lose the color in his face. “What happened to your friend?”.

“The moment his blood hit the pages he started to have a seizure. I called the paramedics but before they could get to us… he died”.

I gasped in horror.

“The book then said “THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE OWNER UNTIL THREE WISHES HAVE BEEN USED”. I tried to take the book back to the store but when I went there the store was completely abandoned. After making my final wish I swore that I would never let that book mess with anyone else's life”.

He looked at me with great distress, “But I failed. Now you have to be honest with me here, did you open that book back up?”.

“No, I didn’t. But you’re telling me that no matter what I have to make a wish or it will haunt me? How will it haunt me?”

He gulped “I don’t think you want to know”.

I sighed heavily. “Okay well, shit guess I gotta make a wish”. I opened the book with the word “HELLO” in my own blood staring back at me. I slowly turned the page with the book asking me “WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU TODAY?”. If I ask for my mom's cancer to be gone then it will just get transferred to someone else I thought. So I said the only thing that has been on my mind all this time. “I want $20,000”.

“OKAY,” the book spelled slowly.

The boy looked at me like I was stupid.

“What?” I asked.

“I guess I didn’t think the first thing you would ask for was money” he stammered.

“Well, I want this book to be gone as quickly as possible. Hopefully, it takes the funds from some rich person.”

Besides at this point, I was ready for any hell to befall me as long as I could save my mom.

I then hurriedly unlocked my phone to go to my bank account app. The moment I logged in, there it was $20,000 had just been deposited.

“Wow…” I looked at him and saw that he had a hard to read expression on his face.

“Now what?” I asked.