It wasn't often that I thought about urban legends. In fact, I would say that until today I had never really paid attention to them. They were a waste of time in my opinion, and I didn't get why people liked them so much.
People like the two airheads sitting in front of me who were chatting away before class like always. I groaned as I barely kept up with their rapid pace.
"So did you hear about…?"
"Oh, you mean the TV thing?"
"Yeah, I tried it and it didn't work,"
"Whoa, so did you see anything?"
"Not a thing,"
"Why do you sound so disappointed. I never knew you were into that kind of occult stuff,"
I grumbled as I tried to concentrate on the book that I was reading. It was getting to a good part and I wanted to at least try to finish the chapter by the time class started.
"What can I say, I'm a romantic,"
"How is knowing how you're going to die romantic?"
"What are you talking about? You're supposed to see…"
I tuned them out as I guessed how the conversation was going to go from there. It felt like that particular urban legend was everywhere these days. Normally I would just ignore it like all the rest, but there was just something… weird about it.
Because there didn't seem to be one urban legend that was going around town. Instead there were a ton of variations of the same urban legend going around town. That was inspite of how new it was.
Oh, they all started the same. Turn on your TV at exactly 1:23 AM and then turn to channel 4. Not on your cable or satellite whatever, local stations only. Go up a channel while counting up to match the channel number until you reach channel 10. If you do it right, then whatever channel 10 normally is gets replaced with something different.
The variations were all basically what the 'something different' was.
The first version I heard was that you would see your soul mate. The next was that it showed you your own death. From the little that I could hear from the airheads, those were the versions those two had heard. They were also the most common, at least among the people who I overhead talking about it.
But those weren't the only ones. Aside from those, channel 10 could be a pirate radio show, a live broadcast of a man playing the violin in an empty room, a recording of an actual murder, and most terrifying of all a live feed of the room you were in at that very moment.
I tried not to think about that last one too hard.
Soon enough the teacher walked in and the two airheads quieted down. I put down my book and placed it back in my bag. As I zipped it shut, I realized that I hadn't I never made it to the end of the chapter.
I spent the rest of the day coasting by, just kind of waiting for it to be over. It wasn't hard, the thing with the airheads had been almost at the end of the day. So when the final bell rand just two hours later, I got out my chair and started walking to the front gates.
Is I made my way down the stairs of the school building, I already knew where I was going. Right in front of my house, there was a small, almost abandoned park. It was nestled in among the buildings, so I didn't have to worry about the wind, which made it the perfect spot to finish reading my book.
I reached the bottom of the stairs with my destination decided when I was stopped by a certain someone.
"Oh hey Rita," A familiar voice called out to me from down the hall. I looked up and almost found myself blinded by a shining sentinent smile that was walking towards me.
I pretended to hiss and cover my eyes as Robby approached, getting a laugh out of my old… would he be called a friend?
The only reason I knew him was because our moms had been best friends in college, and they had ended up living in the same apartment building after that. So whenever one of them was busy, they had sent us over to the other's apartment to be watched. And if it wasn't for that, I honestly think that Robby and I would never have talked to each other in our entire lives.
But I had ended up talking to him and that meant that I had to deal with this walking ball of sunshine.
"Hey Robby," I said back as I ignored the weird looks a few people gave us. The two of us didn't look the kind of pair you would expect. Robby was tall, blond, physically fit, and always wore bright colors and a smile. I was kind of short, pale with black hair, and I was pretty sure the politest term I had heard used about myself had been 'gloomy'.
Not that I cared, hoodies and sweat pants were comfortable and there was no force on earth that was going to convince me give them up.
"So," Robby said, bringing me out of my thoughts. "Have you heard about this new TV legend thing?"
I groaned as I put my hand over my face and massaged my temples.
"Oh not you too," I grumbled before putting my hand down. "Okay so what version of the thing did you hear?"
"Version?" He asked sounding bewildered. I quickly explained what I had noticed about every version starting the same but then having different things at the end.
"Personally the worst one I've heard is that you turn the channel to 10 and it shows you in the room your standing in, like there's someone in the room with you recording," I told him as I noticed a shiver go down his spine.
"That's creepy," He said as he tried to play off the shiver my shuffling his shoulder. "No, I heard the version where it shows you the future,"
I tilted my head to the side as I searched my memory.
"Not sure I've heard that one before," I said as I came up empty. Robby perked up as he heard me say those words. "How does this one go?"
"Well," He started saying with way too much pride in his voice. "The version I heard was that if turned the channel to 10, you'll see a news show that talks about what's going to happen tomorrow,"
I took in what he said and weighed it against what I had already heard.
"Have to say," I told him as I came to a decision. "My favorite version had been the pirate radio show, but I think I like that one more,"
"Yeah, but the guy who told me that one didn't say what kind of stuff gets revealed about the future so who knows how useful it would be," He said with a shrug before flinching back. "Or right I almost forgot,"
"Everything okay?" I asked as he waved my concern away.
"My mom called me earlier," He started explaining. "She said to remind you that our parents are going to that college meetup thing,"
"What? I remembered that," I lied as I realized that I would have to stop by the convenience store on the way home. No mom or dad to drive me out at the last minute when we realized that we had forgotten something for dinner. "They're going to be gone all night and come back tomorrow morning right?"
"That's right," He said. "I wonder if they'll still be there by the time we get home?"
"I'm pretty sure they are, the meetup is in a hotel downtown so it shouldn't take them that long to get there," I pointed out.
"Yeah, but are either of us going straight home?" He counter pointed out before I looked over his shoulder. Behind Robby were a few of his boys. I wasn't really sure what they all did after school, and I didn't really care.
As for the other way around, Robby knew that I went somewhere after school to read and relax, but I was pretty sure he didn't know where.
"That is true," I told him as I gave him the win on this one. "Well I won't keep you from your boys, go on and do… whatever it is that you do," I said as I shooed him away.
"Got it," He said holding back a laugh. He started walking back to his friends when he turned back around one last time. "Oh one last thing?"
"Sure what is it?" I told him as he came back. I watched his mouth as he said 9 words that were going to drive me crazy for the rest of the day.
"Are you planning on trying out the TV thing?" He asked as I just kind of shrugged my shoulders.
"Not really seems kind of dumb," I told him, believing myself at the time.
He took me at my word before dashing away back to his boys.
Fun fact, Robby's boys hated that I called them Robby's boys. Learning this was all the reason I needed to keep calling them that forever.
I headed out of the school, catching the free local city bus to my usual stop. And by my usual stop, I meant the stop right in front of the convenience store three blocks away from my house.
I walked into the store and ignored the people talking until I heard one particular guy talk about what else but the TV legend. That thing was just everywhere, wasn't it?
I grabbed the few things I needed, mostly a small container of mustard, a jar of peanuts, a small orange juice for me to drink at breakfast tomorrow, and a candy bar because why not.
As I walked out of the store with everything paid for and in a bag, I found myself looking between the bus stop and the direction of my house.
I hadn't bought that much stuff, and three blocks weren't that far to carry it. I could totally just walk the rest of the way instead of waiting for the bus.
No, I really could. Ignore the skinny noodle arms hidden under my hoody, I had the strength of a lion.
After what felt like hours I finally made to the park.
"Finally," I said as I flopped down on the bench next to the entrance like the proud lion I was. I took deep breaths as I noticed the city bus pass by.
The city bus that passed by every half an hour…
I tried not to think about how I could have just waited for the bus and instead set the stuff I bought to the side and got my book out.
I sat back and relaxed as I got through the rest of the chapter as well as all of the next. It was a pretty good read, a fun fantasy story about a trio of werewolves going on a grand adventure to save their clan's land from your typical dark lord. Eril, the main werewolf, had just found a mystical 'lunar stone' that allowed him to transform whenever he wanted. It was also maybe making him crazy so there was that.
I closed the book just as the chapter ended on Eril maybe about to hand the lunar stone to his love interest…
"Does it count as a love interest if they're already dating before the story even starts?" I asked myself aloud as I looked at the book. I shrugged my shoulder and put the book away and made my way to the building.
As I walked up the stairs, Robby's words started playing again in my head. About trying out the legend. I couldn't lie to myself about this, I wanted to know. After hearing so many versions of the same story, I wanted to know which one it was.
I opened the door to silence. A lack of loud music or blaring TV filled the air of the apartment. My parents had already left for their meetup. I set my bag down on the couch and headed into the kitchen to start putting away the stuff I had bought at the store.
I closed the door of the fridge when I heard my phone ring. "Let's see, Robby, Mom, Dad?" I asked myself as I unlocked my phone and saw that it was from choice number 1. Robby wanted to meet up tomorrow morning for pancakes.
I liked food, and Robby was a surprisingly good cook so I said yes without hesitation.
I spent the rest of the night in relative peace. I sat down to read some more and to my surprise, Eril didn't hand over the stone. A worrying sign for sure
I finished a few more chapters of the book before setting it down for a movie that I had been planning to watch for a while now. Halfway through I got up to heat up the food that my parents had left me to eat.
As I sat on the sofa, a plate of pasta in front of me and movie playing in front of me, I realized that I could really get used to this whole 'living alone' thing.
Of course like all things in life, the movie had to come to an end. I got up to clean the plate that had held the pasta when the next movie came on.
I raised my eyebrow. It was another one that I'd been planning on seeing for a while now. I set down the plate for a second and opened up the channel guide.
It looked like they were having a miny marathon of a bunch of movies that I had been planning to see. And it also looked like the marathon was ending at 1 in the morning…
Just 23 minutes before the show started.
I shook my head and took the plate to the sink before sitting back down on the couch.
I made it through the rest of the movies until 1 AM finally came.
"I guess this is it," I mumbled as I watched clock start ticking towards 1:23. I made sure that the TV was on channel 3 before turning it off. I spent most of the remaining time trying to think of a way to pass the time. Of course, by the time I realized that I could have sneaked in an episode of one of my shows, it was time.
"Alright, let's do this," I told myself as I turned the TV on as the clock struck 1:23. My fingers clutched the buttons on the side of the TV, the kind I needed to switch between the local channels. I flipped the channel to four, counting up as I kept going.
"4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10," I said as I stepped back and watched the screen.
I knew my local channels. I knew what channel 10 would have at this time of night. Channel 10 would be playing infomercials.
What I was looking at was not an infomercial.
It looked like a live feed of a room I knew all too well.
Many years ago when I was little, my parents had taken me to my grandfather's house. He was old and didn't have much time left, so they decided that I needed to at least meet the man even if he and mom didn't get along.
He was a bit creepy, I remembered that much. Always watching everyone with that big old eye of his. And looking back, he had a ton of occult and shifty stuff in his house. But none of that mattered.
Because my grandfather owned the biggest library I had ever seen.
The thing was so tall that it was on two floors, with its own staircase inside. The walls and shelves were filled to the brim with books of all kinds, collected over the course of a lifetime according to my grandfather. And in the very center of the room, there was a big open area with a compass painted on the floor. Above that was a working moving model of the solar system that hung overhead.
I had almost lived in that room during my stay at my grandfather's house. Pouring over the books that he would pluck from the shelves and place in front of the table that I was sitting at. He was always great at guessing what kind of thing I would like to read too.
By the time we left, I was pretty sure I was heartbroken about having to leave that place behind.
And now here I was, standing in front of the TV looking at that very room. Specifically, the view from someone standing on the second-floor railing looking down at the compass floor.
"How, and why?" I asked myself before I noticed something moving around on the screen. My eyes darted to the edge of the screen as a figure walked out into the compass floor. She was a teenage girl with messy black hair, blue eyes, and a pointy nose, wearing black sweatpants and a gray hoodie with a big purple heart in the center. It was someone who I had seen before, every time I looked in the mirror.
It was me standing there in the center of the room.
"What am I doing there?" I asked as I leaned in towards the TV. My copy was just sort of standing still, looking ahead with an emotionless face. I watched them carefully as they slowly looked up right at the camera.
Right at me.
I gulped as the copy lifted their arm up and smiled while waving me over.
"Don't know how you plan for me to do that," I mumbled to myself as I brought my hand up to the TV screen. "You're in there and I'm out here,"
I flicked the TV screen to make a point only for my fingers to get stuck inside. I covered my mouth before I could let out a scream. I hyperventilated as I tried to pull my fingers out, only for them to be stuck. I looked back at the screen, to my copy, but she was gone. Instead, the screen was filled with static. Static that was slowly crawling up my fingers and taking over my hand.
"Oh no," I whispered as I started tugging my arm as hard as I could. My limb screamed as I felt like I was about to just rip the whole thing off. And the whole time, the static just kept going up past my hand and into my arm.
It was getting faster too. Every time I looked back, the static was further and further along. I looked down, it had already reached my neck. I closed my eyes as I swept up over my face.
I felt something pulling me forward, and then something else squeezing me like I was going through a tube, and then nothing.