The Kismet Code

Amira had always believed in hard work, not luck. She was a freelance graphic designer living her dream, the vocation she always wanted and had just moved into her new flat in Camden Town, London. Her flat was small, but it gave her the freedom she needed, and hell, it was somewhere to put her stuff, work on her designs, and somewhere to sleep. Finding somewhere in London she could work in her own space without interruptions was never going to be large and cheap as well. You have to go with what you have; she told herself. She wasn’t planning to spend every minute of every day there.

She was always chasing deadlines, dreaming of a break, that dream contract to break her into the big boy's club of designers, the one that never seemed to materialise. Her life was a series of near-misses all the time: not quite attaining that big client, almost giving up the thought of ever finding love, wanting that feeling she belonged in this world she always dreamt of. But "almost, wanting, and not quite attaining," were cruel words, and Amira was getting tired of it. She thought her new flat would improve her circumstances. But nothing had changed. It was just a nicer address to feel dejected in.

Bored with her current assignment, she thought to the hell with it; she needed a break, and even though it was a rainy afternoon, she was going out. While sheltering from a sudden increase in the ferocity of the rain, she ducked into a second-hand bookstore on Charing Cross Road. The shop was a labyrinth of towering shelves, that were crammed with books, dusty, with that smell of age about the place. Amira wasn’t much of a reader. Hell, it had been ages since she had picked up a book to read for the pleasure of it, but the warmth of the shop and the promise of a well-deserved distraction drew her in.

She wandered to the back of the shop; not wanting it to be obvious she was sheltering from the rain. As she half-heartedly browsed the shelves, trying to look interested, she spied something out of place on the shelves. A small, leather-bound journal had caught her eye. It was tucked between two bulky volumes on the shelf marked Miscellaneous. The cover was worn, the edges frayed, but there was something about it, oddly compelling. Something she had to see, and plucked it from the shelf. Opening it to find the pages filled with neat, handwritten entries. Was this even a book or somebody's old diary? She read the first two lines: "Whoever finds this, the world is not as random as it seems, order always prevails."

Intrigued, it was a given. Amira bought the journal for just a few pounds. Eager to read more, she headed home. That night, as she sipped her tea in the dim light of her poky flat, she began to read.

The journal was unlike anything Amira had ever encountered. It was, as she suspected, part diary, but the on the other side it was part puzzle, filled with cryptic notes, symbols and diagrams, along with lists of seemingly random numbers with no explanation. But what struck her most were the entries that seemed to describe, ‘her’ life.

One of the passages read: "Never assume that actions you take are just a decision you make in the moment. Your life is planned. You were meant to find this journal, you were meant to read it, it was always your fate you would be reading these lines, and that you will read more of my words."

Amira couldn’t help herself. This person was right. She had to read more, learn more, but then she hesitated as the words on the page started to mirror her life. She gasped. They were unnervingly accurate. Turning to another page, she found a list of dates and locations. One entry stood out: "November the11^th, 3:25 PM. Camden Market. Look for the red umbrella." That date was tomorrow.

What if she had not gone into that shop until next week? Would the date still be the same, or would it have changed to November the 18^th? “No, that wasn’t possible. I’m not playing this game,” she told herself. “No way,” closing the journal, tossing it onto the desk, and went to bed.

The next day, sat at her desk with every intention of doing some work. She opened her laptop and took a sip of her first cup of tea of the day, while she waited for it to complete the startup procedure, then she looked at the journal. She had no intention of opening it; after all, it would be too weird that this date had referred to today, but she had to check she had not misread it. Just to be sure, she told herself. But there it was, staring her in the face, ‘the 11^th of November.’ But that could be any 11^th of November, she reasoned, hell it could have been a hundred years ago for all she knew. But curiosity won out.

Amira found herself at Camden Market at 3;15, and started scanning the crowd for this elusive red umbrella in the crowds. Feeling foolish, but then she saw it, a bright red umbrella bobbing above the crowd, the only red umbrella in sight. She looked at her phone. 3:25 on the dot. A thirty something man stood beneath, holding a sketchpad. She couldn’t help herself. She approached him, not having a clue what she was going to say. Would she even mention the journal? No, that would sound creepy, she thought. Did she even have the nerve to talk to him? He looked up and smiled.

“You’re Amira, aren’t you?” he said.

She froze. “How do you know my name?”

“I was told you’d come. My name’s Michael. I’m an art director at Lumos Studios. We’ve been looking for a designer with your style. I was hoping you’d let me buy you a coffee and discuss a project.”

Amira was stunned. That can’t be. Lumos Studios was one of the most prestigious design firms in London. It had been months ago she’d applied to them for a design contract they put out on their website, but she hadn’t even heard back from them. And yet, here was Michael, acting as though this meeting had been prearranged.

Over coffee, Michael explained that he had seen her portfolio online and was impressed by her work. Sighting several of her small design contracts over the last year.

So, it was nothing to do with the design contract she had tendered for then; she mused. He had found her online. It had to be just coincidence.

They discussed the project, as he showed her the diagrams he had sketched in his pad, and possible changes she might want to consider. Then, out of the blue, he offered her the freelance contract on the spot. It was the break she’d been hoping for. She could not believe her good fortune.

As she made her way home, she couldn’t shake that feeling that something was off. How had the journal known? Even if it did know. Was it just a lucky guess? Or was there something more to it? Of course not. It had to be just a coincidence that the dates matched? It could not be ordained as the journal hinted at. No, that would be just too weird. Life is not like that. Predicting the future is for Gypsy fortune tellers that tell you what you want to hear.

It was more than two weeks before she looked at the journal again; she had been too busy completing the design project Michael of Lumos Studios had given her and she wanted to give a good impression. If she could get regular work from them the word would get out and she would get work from other prestigious studios.

Paying extra to have a courier bike service to deliver her design to Lumos Studios was expensive, but well worth it. She figured it would give a good impression.

Sitting down now the designs were on their way, she settled back in the chair and reached for the journal without thinking. Opening it to where she had last left it, she read. Dated “December 2nd, 10:00 AM., just two days away. It was marked as Kensington Memorial Park. It stated that she should bring a blue scarf with her.

Amira owned a blue scarf; one she had bought for a friend’s wedding. She had only ever worn it that once. She followed the instructions, finding herself sitting on the bench, in Kensington Memorial Park at ten in the morning, feeling increasingly absurd, wearing jeans, a suede jacket and a bright blue scarf. But then a woman approached, her eyes red from crying.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, “but that scarf… it’s exactly like the one my daughter used to wear. She passed away last year. Seeing it feels like a sign. Almost as if I was meant to meet you here.”

O-k-a-y, Amira thought, dragging out the word in her thoughts. This is… is… she was lost to think what it was, other than a coincidence. The woman sat beside her. uninvited; Amira listened as the woman, named Evelyn, poured out her grief. By the end of their conversation, Evelyn had offered Amira a room in her spacious, plush Notting Hill townhouse at a fraction of the market rate. It was an opportunity Amira couldn’t refuse. Goodbye poky flat, you are now a thing of my past, one I never want to visit again. She thought.

Over the next few weeks, Amira’s life was transformed. The journal led her to a series of seemingly miraculous events: a chance encounter with an old friend who helped her land a major client, a lottery ticket she purchased spurred by something she had read in the journal, that won her just enough money to pay off her debts. Even the stray cat that seemed to know exactly when she needed comfort, when one night, sitting in the back garden feeling tired after an unusually busy day, finishing off another project for the prestigious Lumos Studios, it came and sat on her knee.

As the coincidences started increasing, Amira grew steadily more uneasy. The journal wasn’t just predicting her life; it was actually shaping it. And the more she read, the more she was likely to follow the journals clues that it indicated, making her feel more like a puppet on someone's string.

Her suspicions grew even more the day she noticed patterns in the journal’s entries. It wasn’t even subtle about it. Every event was tied to a specific time, a place, and an action. It was as if someone or something had mapped out her entire life for her in advance, down to the smallest detail, and was now steering her life’s path through the journal.

Determined to uncover more about the journal, Amira began to investigate it on the internet. Her searches finally guided her to a cryptic online forum where users discussed predictions called The Kismet Code, found in a small leather-bound journal, or what some called a diary. It certainly sounded promising. The more she read, the more she knew she had stumbled on to a forum that may actually have some answers she had been looking for. According to the forum, the Code was a secret system used by a shadowy organisation to manipulate chance events in someone's life. The journal, they claimed, was a tool for recruiting new “players” into their macabre game.

Amira read the posts eagerly. The organisation, known only as The Weavers, believed that life was a series of probabilities that could be calculated and controlled by them to enhance their players to achieve their goals. They used the Code to create seemingly miraculous coincidences, but there was always a price.

One user warned: "The Code gives, but it also takes. Every stroke of luck comes at a cost. And once you’re in, there’s no way out without losing everything."

The further she read, the more Amira’s bullshit meter flashed red. How could an organisation do that? The dates started the day she bought the book. No pages before with earlier dates, just snippets that could relate to her earlier life. How would they know when I would walk into that particular bookshop on the day? Not that she had an answer for the dates, or any of it that did not dive into the realms of magic or the paranormal, and that was too fanciful to even consider. None of this made any sense, yet here it was, happening to her.

Amira couldn’t believe it when she got the message from an anonymous sender on her phone. It read: "You’ve been playing the game well, Amira. But the next move is yours. Choose wisely."

What? This can’t be real. She pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming; it felt like a dream, but the pinch also felt real. It hurt. Were the people on the blog telling the truth? That would be madness, something otherworldly. Not something in this reality.

The message included a set of coordinates, a location in the heart of London. She typed it into google maps and dropped the little man icon on the road. A bookshop, or at least behind it. It had to be something to do with a bookshop; she mused. Where else was it likely to be? Amira knew she was being drawn deeper into the Weavers’ web, if that was who it was, but she couldn’t resist. She had to know the truth. She had to know what came next.

The coordinates led her to an abandoned warehouse behind the bookshop, in an alleyway not far from the river Thames. Inside, she found a room filled with many monitors, each displaying live feeds of people going about their uninteresting lives. At the centre of the room was a man in a perfectly tailored suit, with his back to her.

“Welcome, Amira,” he said without turning around. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“Who are you? What is it you want from me?” she demanded.

“Call me the Curator. I oversee the Kismet Code. You’ve been a fascinating subject to watch so far, so willing to believe in the illusion of coincidences.”

The “So far,” bit worried her. Amira’s mind raced. “Why me? What do you actually want from me?”

The Curator smiled. It put a shiver down her spine.

“The Code thrives on balance. For every stroke of luck, there must be a counterbalance. Your good fortune is funded by someone else’s misfortune. Now, it’s your turn to pay the price. Choose one of those people on the screens to fund your continued good fortune.”

He paused when he saw the expression on her face. It was not the first time he had seen that look, so continued. “Amira, you have two options: You can continue to follow the Code, enjoying its benefits but knowing that your good luck came at the expense of others, or you can walk away and forfeit everything you have gained. But please be aware that you may become one of those people on those screens one day if you do walk away. Think of that, especially if you contribute to one of those forums you have been reading, that are meant to be about us.”

Amira thought of the life she’d built, the job, the new home, the sense of belonging. But she also thought of the people who had suffered to make it possible. The weight of the choice had not been easy. She loved her life now; it was everything she had hoped it would be, but the thought of having someone else pay for it, that made the decision easy. She tore off the cover of the journal, then tore it in half and dropped it at the Curator’s feet.

“I’m done playing your game,” she said, turned and left, not looking back. He could not play that way with her life and expect her to accept his rules without weighing the consequences.

Amira walked away from the warehouse with a skip in her step, her life in shambles, yes, but she did it with a smile on her face. The job at Lumos Studios fell through the next day. The day after that, Evelyn asked her to move out, and what little was left in her savings account from the lottery money, had vanished. But for the first time in months, she felt free. She didn’t care what lay ahead. It would happen and she could live with that.

As she walked through the streets of Covent Garden window shopping, jobless, penniless, she noticed a small, leather-bound journal in a shop window of an old-world bookshop, the shop stood out from the other shops on the street, as it looked as if it had been there since the dawn of time, unchanged since it first opened its doors. The journal was identical to the one she’d destroyed all those weeks earlier. A shiver ran down her spine. She could get it all back, but no, she hadn’t changed her view and never would. She kept walking.

Somewhere, the game was still being played. Lives improving at the detriment of others, but that was the game of life. It always had been that way. People with the power were playing it today and they would be playing it again tomorrow. Oblivious to the plebs on the receiving end.

But Amira was not going to be one of its pawns. They could play without her. She would not pay that price.