Opel was twenty-three years old, an average guy with average problems. One night, he and his friends were out drinking, stumbling through the downtown streets of their city. Laughter echoed off the buildings, bottles clinked in paper bags, and the warm blur of alcohol made everything feel just a little unreal.
It was Garry who spotted the small fortune-teller booth tucked between two boarded-up shops. A purple curtain fluttered in the night air, the word "Fate" painted in gold, faded letters above the entry. They laughed, of course. Opel, Garry, Ashley his girlfriend and two others dared each other to go in. The booth smelled of incense and something older, like damp books and dried herbs.
An old woman sat inside. Her eyes were cloudy, her skin thin like paper. "I can read the paths of your life," she said. "But I can only see one at a time. I won't know what it is until I see it. Once I see it, your fate is locked. This can be good or bad. Do you still wish to hear your path?"
They laughed again, barely taking her seriously. They were drunk. Why not?
She held Garry's hand first. Her eyes fluttered shut. Then she whispered: "You will overdose."
Everyone went quiet for a beat. Garry pulled his hand away, laughing nervously. "Okay, creepy."
Ashley went next. The woman's face tensed. "You will take your own life."
Ashley recoiled, visibly disturbed.
Then Opel. The woman took his hand last, her grip surprisingly strong.
"You will die in a mass shooting."
Silence again. Garry muttered something about the old woman being insane, and they all left in uneasy laughter, brushing it off as some twisted joke. Just a drunk night.
But the next morning, Opel and Ashley found Garry dead on the living room floor.
Panic. Screaming. They called an ambulance. The report came back: alcohol poisoning.
It crushed them. Opel blamed the drinks, the night, the recklessness. A sad, horrifying coincidence. Ashley, though, began to spiral.
She grew distant. Distracted. She whispered to herself. Refused to eat. She started locking herself in the bathroom for hours.
Weeks passed. Opel was broken, but still functioning. Working. Breathing. Grieving.
Ashley wasn't.
One month after Garry's death, Opel got a call. Ashley was dead. She had hanged herself in her parents' attic.
The note she left behind destroyed him:
"I didn't mean to kill him. He asked for water. He said he felt sick. But I thought it was funny. I kept giving him vodka. He kept drinking. I was laughing the whole time. And then he stopped breathing."
Opel couldn't breathe either after reading that. He dropped the letter, and a strange cold settled into his bones.
Two prophecies fulfilled.
And now he was next.
Opel stopped leaving his apartment. He stopped answering calls. Curtains closed, lights off. He lived in fear of any public space, any crowd, any moment that might lead to a mass shooting. He kept the news on at all times, eyes flicking to it like a prey animal.
Months passed. His mind broke. Shadows became people. Every creak in the hall was a gunshot.
His neighbors called the police for a wellness check.
When they found him, he was thin, trembling, muttering about fate and prophecies and a woman with dead eyes. The officers took him to a mental health facility.
Opel didn't fight it. He barely reacted.
He spent his 24th birthday in a white room with padded corners and quiet nurses. Medication dulled his thoughts. Time lost meaning.
Then, one day, it happened.
Screams.
Gunshots.
Chaos in the halls.
Opel didn't run. He didn't scream.
He sat down on the floor of his room, back against the wall. A small, almost peaceful smile crept across his face.
"I'm coming, guys."