Samuel finds the book, as well as its contents, very disturbing.
The book is technically small, yet Samuel has been reading for a long time without straying from the first third of the pages. How many could they be? A hundred pages?
Samuel stops reading to count them, but he doesn’t need to. They are numbered. Curious, because until a moment ago the numbers weren’t there.
He opens the book directly to the last page, white and empty as when he opened it in the library, and notes that that is the page number 103.
He goes back to where he left the bookmark and… wait? When had he put the bookmark? Samuel does not ask himself this question though, perhaps he has not noticed it. The fact is that he uses the bookmark that appeared out of nowhere to return to the page he was reading, the page number 17.
Beyond page seventeen there is nothing. In the previous pages it is full of writings though. Writings that change. They don’t move or seem to change, but each time Samuel blinks the letters are different, and so are the words.
The reason Samuel finds the book troubling, however, is its actual content. His whole life is written there.
He read about how and when he was born in the book’s prologue, and on the first page he read about how he spent his first year of life. They’re all minimal information, numbers and dates rather than writing, so they looked like a doctor’s notes … but then he blinked and the page changed again. The numbers disappeared and the letters became more relaxing, covered more events, spoke in a more informal and descriptive way.
Samuel read about pets he never knew he had at the age of one and two. He has read about relatives he hasn’t heard from for centuries, about childhood friends lost since the end of kindergarten, about distant cousins ​​whose name he barely remembers … everything the book says is true, however. His life is described to perfection and from every single point of view.
By blinking, Samuel can change the content of the pages based on the information he wants to know. If he wants to know the medical conditions he had at the age of two, he can have them by going to page number two and blinking once: at that point the page will be filled with data such as weight, temperature, number of diseases contracted, duration of any conditions of illness, heart rate and other things like that.
If desired, the book can also be more specific. And in these cases the book performs actions that to say paranormal is an understatement.
In fact, Samuel wonders who cousin Malcom is, just mentioned on page seven. He doesn’t remember him. Blinking the page changes, and now he has before his eyes a metric description of the child in question: height, length of the limbs, hair color, skin and eyes …
Samuel barely remembers, so that’s not enough. He blinks almost unwittingly, after all it is an action that is often done without even realizing it, and the writing has changed again. Indeed, they are no longer there.
There is a drawing now. A disgustingly realistic color drawing of Malcolm. So realistic it looks like a photo.
Now Samuel remembers.
And now he’s even more afraid than before.