Carrie
-Carrie-
I used to be
normal. That changed last spring.
Number twelve.
I don’t want to
die.
I grabbed the
sides of my head.
“Carrie?” I
heard behind me. I froze.
“Carrie? Carrie,
is that you?”
My back went
stiff. Oh. Don’t tell me…
I slowly turned
around. There she was. Uzuki stood on her tiptoes, grinning. I forced myself to
smile.
“Oh, hey!” I
said. It hurts to smile. But it’s all I can do. She wouldn’t understand. No one
would.
“Did you need
something?” I asked.
“Are you okay?”
Uzuki asked.
“Yeah,” I lied.
It’s all I can do. I can’t say that I am dying next year on the First Festival.
She would flip out. For now, I needed to lie.
Naturally, she
doesn’t believe me.
“Okay…” Uzuki
said. We stood there silent for a moment. It’s hurting to smile again. Come on.
Get going already. Sit down! Go away!
“Urameshi!”
someone shouted. Uzuki turned her head.
“Yeah?” she
asked. I could finally breathe when she ran off.
-----------
At least I’m not
alone.
There had to be
others. If I was twelve who were the other eleven? How many others were like me?
I got my answer in an email.
I was on my
computer last night. Not much going on. Just surfing around. Suddenly an email
notification popped up on my screen. Hm? What’s this? Curious, I clicked on the
popup. I ended up in my inbox. One new message waited for me. I narrowed my
eyes. Now usually, I would’ve deleted the message and moved on. But not that
night. For some reason, I had to know.
“What is Your
Number?”
I stared at the
subject line. I couldn’t help myself. With one click, I changed everything.
“My name is
Peter. I am number thirty-three. What is your number?”
I stared at my left shoulder.