The History Book

Character introduction:

MC = Jack

Mom = Carine

Dad = Robert

Sister = Anne

Male friend = Matt

Colombian Friend = Cecilia

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All characters are 18 or older.

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Chapter 1, The golden hand with a bleeding heart inside.

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The day began just like any other for our young loner protagonist, Jack was a tall lanky fella, slim as a stick, glasses wearing, no friends, dimple faced, blond, teenager. Well, not for long really.

Today, although very normal, was his 18th birthday, but he was very uninterested in the day or his age.

You see, Jack had a boring life.

He grew up with a fat boring mother that never cared for him, one fat older sister that never cared for him and a fat sad father that never cared for him, they just provided him with enough resources to go to school and not appear poor.

Jack got up, combed his hair with his hands and put on some clothes, and just like that he was ready for the day.

His mother was smoking a cigarette by the porch and barely acknowledged him as he walked out to school, his sister was already working in a cafe, and his dad left earlier that day.

'Well, at least she said goodbye' he thought about his mother nodding at him as she finished her cigarette and threw the bud at the front yard.

Although his family was not poor, they didn't take care of their house, his yard was a pool of cigarette buds where a few patches of green grass still grew only if to spite his family. The house was not properly painted and truly falling apart. It was a huge contrast with the rest of the cul-de-sac, propagated with happy families with green yards, and pretty houses.

Inside was not much better, a mess of ashtrays overflowing with piles of cigarettes, beer bottles and cans everywhere, and piles of dirty dishes.

His mother, Carine, had at some point given up on taking care of the house and it was a constant subject of strife between her and Robert, Jack's father.

He walked to school like any other day, without breakfast and a good dose of annoyance at the happy faces of the other children attending school with their group of friends. Today Jack did not reach school, his life of inhaling second hand smoke and avoidance of breakfast finally caught up to him, and so he felt light headed and lost his balance.

His hand held him up as he breathed deeply and tried to regain his composure. He looked to the side and saw his hand on the fence of the only abandoned house in the whole neighborhood.

The black, rotting monolith of a previous time spoke with the wind that whistled through the broken windows and falling wood, calling to Jack in a weird, eerie attraction.

As he leaned closer to the house, he felt better than when he got away, therefore Jack felt the house calling to him.

As it was the most interesting thing that happened to him in his whole life, the young man did not hesitate to jump the fence and walk towards it.

Three steps in, his foot got tangled with a root like object and fell to the ground, looking down he saw a book by his foot, but no root or branch, or anything that could have made him trip and fall...

'Odd...' he thought to himself.

Picking the book up by the cover, he took a close glance. A moss green leather exterior, with faded golden letters and first few pages with black ink in a baroque Germanic type fond, clearly stamped in a very old press.

A wavy skeletal figure with a scythe decorated the inner side of the cover, it held a feather in one bony hand, and the teeth of the skull appeared to smile joyfully.

Jack turned to look back at the house, the book in his hand still, but the original attraction was gone. He still decided to get in and investigate. It's amazing what a life of boredom and abandonment from a family can make a nerdy kid do.

The main door wouldn't budge, he decided to try and get in through the window, the book was hard enough to break the remaining glass.

Of course, our nerd of a main protagonist had little to none hand-eye coordination, so the moment he smashed the back of the book against the broken glass he sliced his hand open.

Jack flinched back but the window was now wide open. He climbed with the bloody hand and his backpack over the threshold, the book under the armpit of his bleeding hand, to reduce the bleeding.

Once inside, he saw old furniture scattered sparsely around a hall, covered in white translucent blankets, maybe 3 or four pieces, one sitting by a chimney, that clearly housed bats.

"Hello..." he called to the echo, but none replied. He laughed, 'of course there is no echo, this ain't a cave, not all scary places have echo, man!'

He spied around, and tried the stairs, but they creaked and the middle steps simply fell in a cloud of dust and debris.

'So... not that way.'

Jack was feeling alive, if at least by his heightened heartbeat at doing something wrong. Yet the place quickly lost its magic when he found no demon, or specter, or ghost. It was simply an abandoned building, falling apart due to its age.

He walked to a part of the house that appeared to be a kitchen with a long heavy table.

Jack threw the book over one end and walked to the side, where a window allowed sunlight inside to check on his hand.

The cut wasn't bad, he thought he wouldn't need stitches and that made him happy, he was already dreading his mother's annoyance at his stupid game. Clenching his fist, he stepped back over the book and the light from the kitchen window loomed his shadow over the hardcover.

A glint of rusty, almost forgotten, golden inscribing shone the shape of a hand with a bleeding heart inside. Jack looked at his fist and opened his own hand. The cut was already healing, but it was in the shape of a half circle. Using his finger, he traced a line of blood on his palm into the shape of a heart and with excitement and a good dose of fear, he placed his open palm over the golden hand.

Nothing happened.

'What am I doing? I'm going to get an infection.'

A moment later, the wind whistled through the house again, like the scream of a banshee, or the dismemberment of a living pig. The scare thrusted Jack back.

The wind lasted a second, but it was enough, Jack smiled as he reached for the book, 'it is magical! It must be, please!'

He noticed the ache in his hand was gone and a quick glance showed him a healed palm. This excited him further and he opened the book.

WELCOME!

YOU ARE NOW THE 22TH OWNER OF THE BOOK OF HISTORY

The compact is alive as long as your heart beats

Let it be known, and the compact is dead

Read the rules

Live your life

"Holly fucking shit!" Jack screamed, smiling and laughing like a maniac. The skeleton from before was sitting in a wooden chair with a pipe in its jaw, the scythe resting against a tree behind the figure and it held the feather like a pen over a very familiar book with a hand in one of its sides.

He flipped the page...

The Rules are simple...

The history of anyone is here, right after you write their name on the title. Close the book and open it again, you will be able to read their life, every page is a year.

Cross what you think is wrong, write what you think is right, close the book and open it again. It will be changed.

If you cross something and don't write anything over it, that year will disappear, when you open the book again.

If you cross something, you must write something new, or it will erase that year. That person may disappear.

The book will fill the information after the change, watch out, it will shock your mind with the knowledge that you share or took part in, in this new history.

Last but not least, don't cross anything that may affect your birth, or you will die, the compact will be severed and you will go to hell.

'Whoa!' he thought gleefully and turned to the other page, it read a simple word: Title, in huge black bold letters and underneath was a line.

Jack was a good person, but kind of an idiot, taking a pen from his backpack, the first name he wrote was his own.

He closed the book, opened it again, and turned the page after his name.

Born in 2002, experienced his senses for the first time. Didn't understand what cigarette smoke was, but found it funny to look at and play with his hands.

That's it, that's all it read. 'Is my life that boring?' he questioned and flipped the page, more one liners, more almost blank pages, all that time wasted.

The 8th page, possibly his 8th birthday, it wrote:

He watched 180 hours of television. His mother gave him a cupcake in front of the device on his birthday.

Jack surmised the book showed the highlights and not every little thing and detail but he remembered that, his mother patted his back with something like care and gave him the cupcake, he had almost forgotten.

He was suddenly filled with rage, his mother never cared for him at all.

'My own mother!'

He slammed the book shut, his body shaking in anger, his eyes bloodshot, pen held high.

He opened it, drew a line across his name and wrote his mother's name. Closed and opened the book again, boom!

There she was...

He flipped through the pages looking for something, happy childhood, highschool queen, married the quarterback...

'ok, so mom peaked in highschool... and then had my sister and married Dad... and had me.'

He read the pages in horror as he searched for that moment in which she abandoned life, but could not find it, until when Jack was 2.

She met with a woman she used to bully in highschool, realized how terrible she was, looked at her life and saw herself as a failure, she deserves to die. Husband no longer looks at her, she suspects an affair. She was right.

Jack noticed two things after that page, first that all previous pages had way more info and were packed full of data, up to that point, then they became like his'. And second, that none of his pages had anywhere near as much info as the pages his mother had at the same age.

He felt sorry for his mother, though.

She didn't deserve to lose all meaning in living, then he realized she never stopped being a bully, even when she realized it. He aimed at fixing her life from the time she was in highschool but he froze just as he was about to cross some words when she was 16.

Jack started shaking, he almost committed suicide by magic book.

As I said before, he is kind of an idiot.

Jack then flipped the pages to after he was born, he crossed the first line of that year and closed the book, when he opened it again, the year was gone but not the whole book, he then realized that he just experimented disappearing his own mother, and he thought to himself, 'I'm an idiot.'

After some heavy breaths and a good dose of self reprimand, he wrote:

She realizes that she loves her son, and how horrible she was when young. She promised herself that she will give her son all the love she can give him. She decides to never smoke, and to work hard to give her son a good life and good values so that he never becomes a bully, as a way to redeem her life.

He stops, thinking about what he wrote, unsure and hesitant, he adds one last line...

Her son is the center of her life.

Jack closes the book, and a flash of incandescent light blinds him, gripping the book with all his might he feels his body falling into nothingness.

Memories, flashes and experiences drowned his mind. The life of a doting mother that cared for him, the change giving him new friends and a healthier living standard that rid his face of pimples and acne, he noticed that in these memories he can't see his mother smoking at all. The new fights with his sister about her mother's attention for him, and almost no attention to her, resulted in a better relationship with his sister when they made up. The fights with his father turned away from the now inexistent mess that was the house to the dotting and pamering of their one son. A new life all together flashed before his eyes and he changed from a lanky, nerdy, loner, to a lanky, not so nerdy guy, with two friends.

Jack woke up startled, jumping from the bed. His room was spotless and properly aired, that's the first thing that caught his eyes.

Then, he saw his reflection in a full mirror on the side of his wardrobe, he looked different... same blond hair, same lanky body, but somehow, more full and vigorous.

'The magic is real! And it changed my life!'

He remembered the book and turned so fast he tangled his legs together and fell on the floor, the book was under his bed. The image of a smiling, winking skull on the spine, shining in it's faded gold over the mossy green leather.

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Chapter 2, the love of a mother.

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Carine loved his baby boy, he was the center of her life and she knew it. She saw raising him with love and attention as a way to repent for her broken life and the misery she caused. She loved Jack so much, she cooked his meals, cleaned his room, washed his clothes, and even when he was cranky or annoyed at her hugging and attention, even when he insulted her, or got angry because she walked in on him doing what teenagers do, she took it in stride. Always ready to care for him when a girl rejected him, always there for him at any time.

Sometimes, her eldest daughter accused her of many awful things, and Carine loved her daughter as well... but she couldn't help loving her son more. He was her second chance at life, he was the way to make things right.

Her husband would always get angry at her for pampering Jack so much, but she couldn't help it, he was her perfect little boy, her perfect son. Furthermore, what did he care about the way she raised her son, Robert was having an affair with a hooker and she knew it. He never touched her anymore, never kissed her or treated her right. Plus, she knew he knew about her knowing about the affair... that is to say, she had confronted him in the past about the affair and came to the agreement that they would divorce after Jack turned 18. That was today!

They both knew the divorce papers were in the cabinet of the living room and Robert already had a condo on the other side of town. In a few weeks he would be gone and she would enjoy her life with Jack.

Talking about that handsome devil, it was time for him to wake up, and she would give him a good morning kiss, and another happy birthday kiss, and she would hug him and tell him how much she loves him. She knew he would push her away, and tell her awful things, about how fat and ugly she was, or how needy and kissy she was, but Carine didn't care.

She opened the door in a sing-song "good morning!" And found her son, butt naked, face down on the floor.

"Oh, god honey! What happened? Did you fall?"

Jack was startled by his mom barging into his room, and hit his head on the frame of the bed.

"Ouch, no-yeah! I'm fine, mom..." he replied, rubbing his head and picking himself up to sit on the bed.

"Oh, my poor baby! Here, let mama kiss the hickey away!" She exclaimed and immediately fawned over Jack, kissing his head, hugging him, and kissing his lips in a chaste motherly manner. This level of care took Jack by surprise. His breath got caught in his throat and started crying.

Carine, who thought the moment she touched him, Jack would kick her away from him, was pleasantly surprised when he allowed her to hug him again, after so many years. Then she heard him crying.

"Oh god honey! Are you hurt? Let me get you to the hospital, right now!"

She pulled his arm, but he remained on the bed. He assured her that everything was all right, asked for another hug, which she promptly gave, and they sat together in bed. Jack cries for the love of a mother he never knew and a new life for him to live.

"I know you guys have a special relationship, but I think this is beyond gross..."

Anne had gone to work at the cafe, like always, but she had forgotten her phone back home, so she went back. Once upstairs, she passed by Jack's open door and saw him naked, hugging Carine on the bed and her mother kissing his head. All in all, she was a little surprised.

Carine realized this, but didn't want to let go of the hug, Jack still grabbed his bedsheet and covered his privates.

Jack couldn't help but laugh, and Carine pointed out that they needed to take him to the hospital.

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Once downstairs, Jack was eating breakfast. Enjoying some cereals and a coffee that his mother had made him. He remembered all the breakfasts, and the life in which he had none, but this was the first one he experienced, and he thanked his mother profusely, right after convincing her that he didn't need to go to the hospital. Anne got her phone and left for work, on her way out, Jack saw a scar crossing down her cheek and remembered that she had pushed him away from a falling metal structure when he was 7.

'How amazing that life changes so much with just a few lines...'

The accident happened at a municipal water park, when the family went there to have some fun that summer, Anne had told him to jump in the pool from the tall board that laid on the side of the metal beams and materials. Jack thought that was odd, and noted that for later.

Drinking his last sip of coffee, he appraised his mother for the first time since he wrote the lines on the book. Carine looked positively radiant... well, compared to her past self.

She had had her daughter Anne when she was 18, right at the end of highschool, she had Jack when she was 19. Since she never smoked, her blond hair, skin, and teeth had retained some of their youthfulness. She still had wrinkles, but she was full of energy. Her weight, though...

On a 5'5 frame, she must weigh 190 or 200 pounds. She was a homely woman to say the least. 'Maybe that's one of the reasons Dad had an affair...'

He finished his coffee and picked his stuff to give to his mom, who was cleaning in the kitchen anyways and left it by the sink.

"Oh, honey! How considerate of you, thank you!"

He answered that it was no problem but still felt odd, then he remembered that he always just left everything laying around and his mom would clean after him. 'I became an ingrate little shit! This new me never knew how good he had it, I gotta do something about that later...'

Now, he had more important things to do.

Once back in his room, he saw his mom had left his clothes for the day on the bed. 'She even gets my clothes ready...'

He looked around for the book, then remembered he left it under the bed, picked it up and opened it on the page he had written before. His changes appeared as if it had always been like that. He flipped through the pages and noted how every little achievement he ever had were written on his mother's history as her own, coupled with many adjectives of pride and love.

'How lovely.'

He turned the pages, and looked for when his mother found out about the affair...

'Two years ago... that's much later than in the previous run...'

He read about the agreement his parents made and felt sad. He wanted to experience a full family life. Turning the book around, he went to the title and changed the name for his father's.

When he opened the book again, he started reading...