Chapter One: The First Day
Honestly, that day was how it all began. On a Sunday, at 2:32 pm. Yes, I do remember the time of it.
I was sitting at my desk chair, staring at an as of yet uncompleted worksheet. Ugh, math. Probably every person's least favorite subject. I pushed a lock of dark brown hair out of my face and I sighed heavily. I felt so, incredibly, bored. "There's never anything to be bored about!" my overly chirpy aunt would say. So. Incredibly. Untrue.
I glanced at my phone, which was resting against my electric pencil sharpener. My friend had not answered my text in an hour, it seemed like, which was slightly irritating and only added to my boredom. I let out a puff of air and awoke the phone from sleep mode by pushing a button. It wasn't a smart phone. That would have been too much of a miracle for my dull parents. But, whatever. At least I had a phone.
I soon gained a bright idea. Wow, thirteen-year-old brain, this is going to be genius. I could… make a prank phone call to someone! It wasn't as though my parents looked through my call history, though I couldn't say the same thing for my texts.
I tapped a random number into the keyboard.
"438-825-42XXXX000XX"
Wow… I wondered what idiot had this long of a number. This is gonna be hilarious, I thought. I hit the call button.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
A small click could be heard as someone picked up the phone. I felt a rush of adrenaline that was familiar to this pursuit, even though(conveniently) my parents weren't home at the moment and obviously couldn't hear me.
"Ciao!" an overly cheerful, accented voice answered the call.
"Hey, is your refrigerator running?" I chose to pick a classic, which is still hilarious if I do say so myself.
"Oh, it's so thoughtful of you to ask! I need to check with Ludwig!" the person on the other end chirped.
What the heck…? I wondered.
"Doitsu!" the person called in the background. "This kind person wants to know if our refrigerator's running!"
"It's working just fine, why do they need to know?" a gruff voice replied, seeming to be in another room.
"It is running!" the person—wait, are they a guy or a girl? I wondered—said cheerfully. 'Thank you for checking!"
I was too stupefied for a moment to say anything else, but I then broke out of my stupor and replied with, "Then you'd better go catch it!" I hung up before either of us could say anything more. I stared at my phone for a moment before finally putting it down.
Who… was that…? I wondered.