A Fate Unwritten

The wind blew into me, snaking into my clothes and bringing a red flush to my cheeks. Yet I smiled. After five days hunched over a desk, the weekend could not have come sooner. I tried to set thoughts of my job aside, but the monotony of my week weighed on me. My current job could not be all there was for me. I only wished someone would tell me what to do.

Shaking my head, I continued my walk to the library. When I reached its doors, I was greeted by the familiar warm embrace of hundreds of books. The contented silence of the people within enveloped me. This was my happy place.

And so I began to walk the shelves, running my hands over thrillers and cookbooks, romance novels and fantasy adventures. I knew this place like the back of my hand. These aisles were my escape.

But as my eyes drifted across the shelves, I saw a book I had not seen before. The fabric spine was wrought in dazzling patterns of white and gold, and I couldn’t help but draw in a breath. Those were my favourite colours. Entranced, I delicately picked up the book and turned the first page.

‘Our story begins in a London hospital room, where a baby was brought into the world. This baby did not have a father, at least not one she would ever know. It would be her mother who raised her, bleeding out funds from her struggling coffee shop to support her and her four siblings. Yet despite a dire childhood, this child would go on to do unimaginable things. She would change the world.’

I do not know for how long I stood there. I consumed the words as if I needed them to live, and a story unravelled itself inside my mind. I read of a girl who was bullied and poor. I read as she spent all her time studying, doing everything she could to bring herself out of the life she hated. I read as she moved away from home and began an office job—a job she grew to despise.

I was reading the story of my life.

Soon, the events of the book caught up to the present. My heart began to race. With shaking fingers, I flipped to the next page. This was the page that would detail my future.

It was blank.

I could not move. My gaze was paralysed on the empty page before me, as if staring at it could bring words into being. ‘I would change the world,’ it had said. I needed to know how. There had to be another copy of this book somewhere, a completed copy that could give me my answers. And so I vowed, then and there, that I would find it.

Yet before I left, I did what I had feared to do. I turned to the front of the book and read the title.

‘Naomi James.’

It was my name.

*          *          *

I took the next week off work, and I scoured the internet for any mention of the book. Food was left uneaten in my fridge, and my small apartment grew messy and unkempt. I called just about every known library on the face of the earth to no avail. Yet as I dangled on the verge of failure, I heard the muffled ping of my computer. An email.

‘Thank you for your inquiry to the Beijing Hidden Library, I believe we have what you seek.’

I did not waste another minute. By morning, I had blindly stuffed a bag and was boarding a plane to Beijing. I had spent my entire savings on this flight, but I did not regret it. This was it; I would finally have my answers.

Once in Beijing, I followed the maze of streets. My heart beat in time with my quickened footsteps, and before long, I was standing outside a grimy restaurant. Dread weaved its way through my gut. I had been duped. This was no library. My life savings were gone, and I was no closer to understanding my future.

Then a woman stepped out from the restaurant. She was small and frail, but her eyes were full of energy. “You must be Naomi,” she accented softly. My heart shuddered to a stop, and I nodded, unable to speak as I followed her into the restaurant.

She led me through the restaurant’s back door, revealing a musty room bathed in grey. I gasped. Piles of books towered around me, reaching like paper skyscrapers to the ceiling. I noticed dust coating their spines, and I wondered if these books had ever been read.

I turned back to the woman behind me and saw she was holding a book of her own. It was tattered and greyed over with dust, but I still recognised it. It was my book.

She handed it to me. My heart leapt to my throat as I returned to the page I had left off at. Gingerly, I flipped it.

It was blank.

I flipped to the next one.

Blank.

Again and again, I turned the pages. All of them were blank. This couldn’t be happening. Tears sprung to my eyes as I hopelessly flicked to the last page. I stopped breathing.

‘On April 1^st, 2023, Naomi James will die.’

My eyes shot to the woman before me. That was today’s date.

Before I could speak, my throat began to constrict. My hands shot to my neck, and within seconds, I was wheezing and choking. I stared wildly at the woman in front of me, but her eyes were pools of calm.

“We are not meant to know our futures, Naomi James,” she said. “That book was a temptation, meant only to test you. You have failed, and now you must die.”

Gasping for breath, I fell to my knees. The book tumbled to the floor. My vision began to blur as death descended upon me. Above, the woman gave a pitying smile.

In the last seconds of my life, something came over me. Without a thought, my hands flew from my neck, instead grabbing the book from the ground. I was desperate; I was dying. This was my last chance.

I ripped the last page from the book—the page foretelling my death. The sound of the tearing paper echoed as a scream about the room. It was the sound of a woman changing her fate, and it was terrifying.

Slowly, my airways began to open. I sat on the ground, panting the life back into myself. Eventually, I made my eyes meet the woman looming above me. Her face was shrouded in the jagged shadows cast by the books around her, but I did not miss the shock in her eyes. Nor the respect.

After many more minutes, she let me leave.

I returned home.

Once I arrived, I quit my job. I was done with waiting for somebody else to tell me my future. I knew now the rest of my story was not for me to find; it was for me to write. So I decided to begin a charity, and I worked on helping young girls empower their future.

I believe I changed the world.