Coffee Stains

Caleb paced the bedroom. It was 9:00 PM. The house felt like a submarine at crushing depth.

Simon was in the shower. The sound of the water running was the only noise in the house.

* I have to get out of here,* Caleb thought. *He’s crazy. He’s actually crazy.*

He needed his keys. He needed to leave.

He crept into Simon’s bedroom. Simon’s duffel bag was on the bed, unzipped. Caleb rummaged through it, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

Clothes. Toiletries. A bottle of scotch (Caleb paused, staring at it, but pushed it aside).

At the bottom of the bag, wrapped in a t-shirt, was the black journal.

Caleb pulled it out. He needed to see it again. He needed to see if there was a way to break the curse, or if it was all just ramblings.

He opened the book to the prophecy page.

He squinted. The light in the room was bright LED. Under the harsh glare, the "antique" parchment looked... wrong.

He touched the page. It was stiff. He brought it to his nose. It didn't smell like mildew. It smelled like French Roast.

He flipped to the back of the book. On the very last page, in tiny print near the binding: *Made in China. 2024.*

Caleb felt the world tilt.

He looked closely at the handwriting. The loops of the ‘y’s. The sharp cross of the ‘t’s. It was disguised, shaky, trying to look archaic. But he recognized it. He had seen it on a thousand architectural mark-ups.

It was Simon’s handwriting.

Caleb flipped back to the beginning. The pages were stained with coffee to look old. The edges had been burned with a lighter.

There was no Seer. There was no prophecy.

Simon had printed this. Simon had put birdseed on the window ledge to lure the crow—Caleb remembered seeing Simon wipe the glass this morning. Simon had loosened the gas valve.

It was a game. A sick, elaborate theater designed to break Caleb down, to make him terrified and dependent, so Simon could step in as the protector.

"He wants me to be a child," Caleb whispered. "He wants me broken."

The shower stopped running.