The threads appeared on my body suddenly. They jutted out from my chest as if they were pointing somewhere. What were they and what should I do with them, I thought to myself, and should I follow where they lead or try to get rid of them? I looked around my room and saw that they were extending out into the world. Should I try to touch them and were they even real?

My hand reached for one of them, and from the moment I touched one, I saw what only could be guessed as the future. I saw what I was going to do tomorrow. From what I was going to eat to where I was going and onwards. But the one thing I saw that just completely threw me was I saw a woman. She was the most vivid image I could see, and she was beautiful. Her hair was long and dark and she had a slender build, and her smile was warm and inviting. Yet, I didn’t know who she was, and there was no earthly idea where this was going to take me. Who was she and why was I seeing her?

I lied back down and closed my eyes, falling off to sleep. As I slept, I dreamt about that girl, as she was the only person I could think of and she was someone I had to meet.

What were these strings, I thought as I got out of bed, and who was that guy I saw when I touched them? I couldn’t get him out of my mind as I combed my dark brown hair and looked myself in the mirror to do my makeup. He was someone I had never seen before, and I never thought I would meet someone like that. He seemed strange, as if there was something off about him, but he was cute and I wouldn’t mind getting to know him.

My hand reached for the thread that extended from my chest, and I looked at it with slight concern. Was this potentially leading me somewhere I didn’t like? How was I to know if this guy was even someone I wanted to meet? What if he was a serial killer or something?

Although I had slept through the night, my mind was still racing at the sight of the girl I had seen last night. My threads were hovering in the air, but it seemed as though I was the only one who could see them and I was the only one who was aware of them. My brother, my mom, no one could see them and it was strange, as if I had a secret all my own.

The image of the girl kept going through my mind as I finished my meal, and I couldn’t help but think as though she and I would meet sometime soon. The only problem was, I didn’t know why, or for what reason, or what it was about her that could make us meet. I just knew that we were. Could this be fate or destiny or some weird curse? I finished my meal and made my way to school.

His face kept racing through my mind, as I kept thinking and thinking about who he was. More and more images of him wearing a school uniform and going to class made me realize that he was someone from my school. But I’ve never seen him before and he was just someone I couldn’t put my finger on. Why was these threads connecting me to him and what was it that we were supposed to do? What did the threads want and why did it choose me, or him, for that matter? If this was some cupids arrow thing, it picked a weird duo to choose, and I wasn’t entirely for that.

I felt the threads pulling and pulsating at rapidly fast paces as I made my way to school. It was as if they were saying that you would meet her at the school and she would meet you. After a few minutes of walking I stood at the front of the school and looked at it. My heart was running at a hundred miles an hour, I could feel my temperature rise, and I couldn’t breathe, as it was all happening so suddenly. The thread, which was for the most part white, had turned red as everything very suddenly turned normal. My heart had stopped racing and my temperature returned to normal.

“Hey!” I heard someone call out to me.

I spun around to see her, the girl with dark brown hair, and a slender build and the most beautiful hazel eyes I had ever seen. She wasn’t smiling as I had seen in my vision but it was her. Another vision of me standing over her as she laid on the ground appeared in my mind. She had a horrified look on her face and as I looked at her, I saw that her thread was jet black, and I couldn’t understand what that meant.

She walked over to me and she was the first to see the threads on my body.

“You have them too?” she asked me.

“Y-yeah,” I said. “But I don’t know what they mean or why they’re here.”

“Well, yeah, I figured.” she said. “Me neither. So, what’s your name?”

“Elijah.” I told her.

“Moira.” she replied with the warmest smile I had ever seen on her face.

“It’s nice to meet you Moira.” I told her. I turned to the school and then looked at her. “So, do you go here?”

She nodded her head in response and smiled again. “I’m in class History first period.” she told me.

“Oh, I have Science.” I said to her.

She walked over to me and in that moment I saw the image of her looking up at me. And what was on her face terrified me as it was blood. Our white and black threads connected and they had turned red.

I looked at her. “You want to meet up after school?” she asked me. “Maybe we can mull over these threads and see what they mean.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” I said, not sure of why I should do this.

The day went by normally as I tried to focus on my classes and getting through the school day. I walked out of the building after the last bell rang and saw her standing there. However, she wasn’t alone, and she wasn’t the only threads I could see. There was another guy I had never seen before and he also had threads. However, his threads were green, and Moira’s had turned to blue. I looked down at my threads and saw that they were now the color of black.

Were the colors of the threads signifying some sort of role in this whole thing? Did they mean that we were to play some sort of part that would play out in this little story? I walked over to meet the two.

The guy was the first to turn to me and he flashed me a smile that made me feel uncomfortable.

“Hey.” he said. “You’re in my intro to technology class. Your name’s Elijah, right?” He held out his hand for me to shake. “My name’s Quincy.” he said to me.

That was a name I knew very well. He was bad news and it made me feel even more uncomfortable knowing that he was involved. Word on the street was, he had injured some kid so bad that he was put into the ICU, and when the police questioned it. It was over a girl he liked and the kid liked her too.

Was this somehow how things were playing out? Were we now connected to each other and was that scene in my head somehow an image of the future. Then did that mean that the blood on Moira’s face would be mine?

I took his hand and we shook greeting each other. “Hey, it’s nice to meet you, Quincy.” I said, very offput and very creeped out.

My gaze turned away from Quincy to Moira as a way to silently tell her to get out of here, away from this guy.

“Hey, um, how about we go and get something to eat?” she offered.

Not what I wanted to hear.

“Yeah, sure that sounds cool, maybe we can all talk about these weird threads coming from our bodies.” Quincy said with a wicked smile on his face.

We went to a Korean BBQ place and got something to eat. For a moment we sat in silence as we grilled the beef and my eyes were trained on Quincy as he sat next to Moira. This was shaping up to be a very bad day for me. Not only did I meet the girl I had seen only in my vision. I had also met the guy I never hoped to become acquainted with.

As we enjoyed our meals, we talked about how the threads would show us images of the future and how some things would come true. It made me wonder if there was some life altering event that was going to happen and if we were all being played by some entity that we knew nothing about.

“So then the guy completely spazzed out because he was laughing so hard that beer just shot out of his nose all over this girl’s blouse. It was so disgusting that she literally slapped him over his head with her bookbag.” Quincy said barely able to contain himself.

I looked at Moira and she was dying of laughter at the crazy story. The thing was, they were hitting it off really great. Maybe my part was to bring them together, great was I some cupid now, or something?

Moira turned to me with a smile on her face and she saw that I was still uncomfortable.

“Hey, how about we talk about the threads now?” she asked. “I think we really need to know what’s going on here.”

Quincy looked down at his chest and shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t know, I kind of like them, ya know? I’ve had them for a little while and I learn that if you pull on them a certain way. They’ll show you pathways that you can take to get what you want.”

“What about the colors?” I asked.

“Oh, right, colors represent the good, the bad and the really ugly.” he said. “So, green means go, you know like something really good is going to happen. White means neutral. Red means determined and blue means safe.”

“What do mean blue means safe?” Moira asked.

“Well, were your threads black at one point?” he asked her.

“Yeah.” she said.

“Ok, then that means you were going to get hurt or die at some point but since they’re blue now. It means they’ve changed. That’s what blue means. Safe or change. You know, your fate has been altered, by something or someone.”

“So, I was supposed to get hurt and now I’m not?” she asked him.

“Apparently.” he said. “I’ve seen some black threads in the past and they all winded up getting hurt. Like this one kid I knew. He was trying to get with this girl I knew and he was a complete jerk. Actually tried to force her. I, uh, I had to put him in the hospital.”

“So, it wasn’t a jealous thing or he was moving on your girl?” I asked.

“My girl?” Quincy said barely able to contain his amusement. “Are you kidding me? No, Amelie and I had been friends since kindergarten, and she doesn’t even roll that way. She’s completely into girls, man.”

Oh yeah, I had heard that the girl he had fought that guy over was Amelie and I knew that she was seeing this one girl in our phys ed class. So, maybe he’s not a bad guy, just really cheesy and a complete goofball. That sort of put my mind at ease and I was feeling more and more calm around him.

Moira looked at my thread and she saw that it was black. I could sense the chill run down her spine as she realized what that meant and it made her sick.

Quincy looked at my chest and he also saw that it was black and for the first time he turned serious.

“Oh, crap, I didn’t know.” he said. “I didn’t realize it.”

“What did you see?” Moira asked me. I didn’t answer her. “Hey jerk, don’t hold out on us now, what did you see?”

“You on the floor looking up at me and there was blood on your face.” I said.

The trembling of her lip showed me exactly what was going through her mind, telling me that she was worried, and she didn’t like what this meant.

“Look don’t worry about it.” I told them.

We got up, paid for our meal and went on our separate ways, or so I thought. Moira followed me and she turned me around.

“Your threads were white this morning and mine were black. Which meant that I was the one in danger and now you are.” she said to me.

“Look it’s late.” I said. “Can we do this some other time.”

“Stay away from me.” she told me. The way she barked at me threw me off guard. “Deal with your own life. Mine is not yours to take charge of. You hear me?”

“Yes Ma’am.” I said and with that she took her leave. I would like to say that was the end. But it wasn’t. We kept running into each other and although we didn’t say anything to each other. We couldn’t help it. Days had turned into weeks and we had become friends. Quickly and without warning we were drawing closer to each other and without any warning. We were dating.

Quincy knew about it but he didn’t do anything or say anything. The threads on my body and turned to white yet again. As if my future was uncertain and nothing was as it should be. At some point Quincy had begun to act more erratic. He tried to talk to Moira but she had turned him down. This sent him into an odd rage as he felt hurt and betrayed by people he had come to see as friends.

After a while of letting it fester in him, he had come to me and told me to make things official, because if I wasn’t going to claim her as my girlfriend. He would. This sent me into a frenzy as I grew more and more concerned.

This whole thing came to a head as one night on our way home. We kissed. Only thing was, I wasn’t aware of who was watching and what his intentions were.

At school the next day, I saw Moira and her threads had turned black and mine had turned to blue. We had switched places and I was afraid of why. As school let out we were the only two to be there. After a few minutes, Quincy had walked in, his threads had stayed green, and Moira’s had turned black, while mine were white. I knew what that meant. I had yet to make a decision. What was I going to do. Quincy took out a box cutter knife and walked towards us. Moira tried to get him to calm down but as she walked slowly towards him. I saw her threads turn blue then red and mine had done the same. Our threads were now connecting to each other.

Quincy yelled and ran towards us in a jealous rage. I grabbed Moira and threw her to the ground. Without a second’s thought I shielded her with my body and as the blade went in. Our threads connected and turned red. We were determined to be together. She wouldn’t leave me and I wasn’t going to leave her. She yelled and pulled me away from the blade but as she did so. The blade entered her and we laid there on the floor blood rushing from our bodies as we laid entwined. We fought to stay together and I whispered, I loved her, and she smiled that same warm inviting smile to me as we heard the police sirens in the background. The next thing we knew, we woke up in the hospital, next to each other, our red threads entwined, connecting us to each other, and for the first time we knew what that meant.