Stolen

From the time a baby is born, someone reads their fate. It happens for everyone. Even if their parents can’t pay for it. They just don’t get to know what it is. Which will end up with bizarre things happening that they couldn’t prepare for. Usually, people will have their fate read later on in life if they don’t know it already. 

My parents were able to scrounge up just enough money to know mine. My mother would not have left the hospital without it. Her parents didn’t know her sister's fate. Which caused her to die. Her fate was to have an illness. But they didn’t know that. If they had, they would have looked for it, and the cancer wouldn’t have killed her. 

Stolen and death is your fate. Possibly never seen again. 

Very ominous if you ask my mother. Good thing she was in the hospital still when she fainted from it. Every day I go to karate lessons. Every day I take mace and pepper spray everywhere I go. When I was thirteen, she gave me a knife. She has decided, for herself, that my fate is to be kidnapped and killed. Every mother's worst nightmare. So, she has ensured that my fate will not come true. 

Today is like any other. I’m dropped off at school, knife concealed in my bag with an alarm, it blares loud enough to deafen someone with a light flashes the second the pin is pulled, nestled nicely in my pocket. 

The school day bores me, nothing is interesting, so I draw. I practice the anatomy of animals and humans alike. I didn't realize I had gone morbid in my drawings until my friend, Christina, said so. “Girl, I get the whole ‘I’m probably gonna be kidnapped and killed at some point’ thing, but that doesn’t mean that you have to draw what could happen to you. Like,” She grabs my notebook, showing it to me like I didn’t draw the decapitated human in it. “That probably ain't gonna happen. My cousin was told that something terrible would happen to her when she turned twenty. All that happened was her not getting into her dream college.”

“I know, I know. My mom’s just getting to me, I feel like every year that goes by without something happening she gets more and more paranoid.” I brush it off. But I do enjoy the anatomical drawing. The ones that contain the damage made by human hands are my favorite, they help me see how it would be healed. I want to be a doctor, so I draw what I could experience so I can figure out what would be damaged and how it can be healed. 

Art class is my last class of the day, and of course, it’s my favorite. Ms. Martinez encourages my art, saying that doctors only have photos and descriptions go off at first anyway. 

This time, we work with watercolor. Red and green and brown. I paint a scene that can be taken as nothing special to anyone but me. It is of a girl in a forest, except there is red. A lot of red. 

“Beautiful work Alex!” Ms. Martinez exclaims from behind me, bringing attention to my work. “The red from the sunset is mystical! It’s absolutely wonderful how artistic your mind is!” 

“Thank you, Ms. Martinez,” my voice is quiet, trying to figure out how to paint a sunset in the background to show where the red is coming from. The class empties out with the ring of a bell, causing me to abandon my artwork for just a minute to get a book from my locker before I go home. 

Jeremy and his buddy Jacob are in front of my painting when I get back. Learning at it like it’s an ugly beast. “Well would you look at who it is. The death freak. I wonder if her fate is just because she draws disgusting things all the time.” Jeremy sneers. “How ironic it will be, the girl who draws death dies!” They laugh. 

The notebook full of my drawings is clutched in my arm. I pull it closer, but that was the wrong move. “Look, she’s holding her notebook of death now!” Jacob howls with excitement. 

“Maybe we should go through it,” Jeremy suggests. “Make sure she’s not drawing us or something in there.” 

I don’t have enough time to escape. Jacob yanks the notebook out of my arms while Jeremy slams the art room door shut. Ensuring that no one will see the crimes they plan on committing. 

They go through page after page, remarking at my work. “Look at this one, she drew someone decapitated!” They laugh, “Nobody give her any color other than black, for all we know she’ll go crazy and draw even worse things!”

“Could I have my notebook back? I need to go home so my mom doesn’t start to worry.” All that does is bring them to a new wave of laughter, “Aww! You wanna go home to mommy!” Jeremy mocks while Jacob pretends to cry like a baby. 

“You can go home but first, I say we help Alexandra with her little obsession.” Jeremy tears out a page, and I can’t help the gasp that escapes my throat. A sadistic grin appears on both of their faces. Then my life is torn into pieces. Every page, every drawing is torn from the book and then torn into pieces, I will never have them back. Only once the notebook only has blank pages. I have less than a quarter of my book left over. 

“Maybe to really get our point across, we should take this one too.” Jacob caresses the size of my canvas, still missing its sunset. “No, please that one doesn’t have any death.” I don’t know why it feels like a lie. 

My notebook drops to the floor among the ripped and torn pages. My knees slam against the floor, scooping the dilapidated notebook into my hands. I almost don’t notice them grab the canvas and make a break for it. I stand like I could do anything about it, but I know I can’t. So instead, I sit on the floor, trying to find anything salvageable in the ruin. 

“Alex? What are you doing?” Christina’s voice flutters into the room. “Those jerks decided to ruin my drawings.” I growl out, almost sounding feral. 

She kneels beside me, scooping paper into a trash bin. “Jacob and Jeremy?” I nod, watching as more of my art is thrown away like trash. Though I suppose now it is. 

Grabbing a bigger piece than the others, she looks at it like she hasn't seen any of my drawings before. “Wait, did they steal this from you?” 

“Well duh! What, you think I just handed it over or something?” I ask, exasperated. 

“Alex, they stole your drawings that were related to death.” She stares at me, a smile blooming on her face. 

“Omg you are such an idiot!” She shouts in my face when I don’t understand. “Your fate! Stolen and death, probably never to be seen again! You idiot! They stole your death drawings, and they won't be seen again because they’ll go into the trash! Your fate was literally just about some bullies destroying your art!” 

I can’t help but smile. How dumb of a fate is that. We burst out laughing, “My mom was so paranoid for no reason!” We cackle and hug and laugh about how dumb everything is and was. Maybe fates aren’t always so bad. 

We finish cleaning the room, chuckling and making jokes. “Dude, you have to tell your mom, and you absolutely have to tell me her reaction.”

I roll my eyes as we walk down the street. Wednesdays are the only days my mom allows me to walk home, but it’s because she thinks Christina and her, make believe, boyfriend walk with me. Really, Christina walks with me for a part of the way before leaving me to have a break from everything. 

“She probably won’t believe me for at least a day. I’ll have to explain all my drawings too. Hopefully she’ll understand me doing it to practice for being a doctor.” 

“It’ll be fine. See you tomorrow!” We hug as she goes down a different street. Leaving me to my break from humanity. 

A van screeches to a stop beside me, I’m yanked inside, and a needle goes into my neck before I can even do the bare minimum and pull the pin on my alarm.

Just like that, I’m stolen. 

And just like that I’m staring my old friend death in the face.