All Because Of You

By Prathamesh Makwana

You’re about to read the story of Xian Lee, a kid with a very strange ability. An ability which at first seemed obscure but soon turned out to be ominous. Xian was eleven when he first started noticing ludicrous words floating over the head of every person he met. Xian was perplexed as these random words, which made no sense to him, began to collide with his life.

Not sure of whether he was the only one noticing the words, he went up to some people and asked whether they too noticed those words as well. But considering the fact that he was just a kid, the grown-ups never really paid heed to any of his questions.

After always ending up getting ignored, Xian decided to keep his doubts to himself and tried to figure out things on his own by noting down those floating words on a paper; hoping to find a clue as to what the words actually meant. As he was just eleven at the time, nothing really made any sense to him, even though he kept keeping a note of the words, hoping that someday he would be able to decipher the meaning of those words.

Several years passed, the truth behind the words still unknown, Xian normalized noticing words and had moved to the city for work purposes. Although, the uncertain floating words were still noticed by him, Xian was living an ordinary life consisting of a nice pay for eight hours of work and a simple dinner at a local restaurant.

It was all going alright, until the day Xian’s neighbor, Ryan’s untimely death occurred. Earlier the day of this incident, Xian and Ryan were conversing over some topic, that was the time when Xian noticed the

word “CRASH” floating above Ryan’s head. And guess whattt!!!!!!! Ryan died in a car crash later that day!!!

It was at this moment, Xian figured out the ability he possessed and it felt more like a curse to him as he started to know the cause of death of the people because of those floating words, even before they died. Because of as creepy as it sounds, Xian tried to convince himself that

it was just a coincidence and there might be a different reason behind the floating words. Assuring himself this, Xian continued to live by his everyday schedule.

Another incident occurred when Xian was at work, a colleague from his workplace was fired by the boss and at that moment, Xian noticed the word “WATER” floating over his colleague’s head. The next day, news broke out at the office of how the fired colleague took his own life by drowning himself. Hearing this, Xian felt deeply guilt-ridden thinking about the fact that he could have saved the life of his colleague if he just paid a little more attention towards it.

After the work hours, Xian, with a very unhappy mood, visited his everyday restaurant and ordered his everyday meal. As he was unhappy, he overslept the other day to get rid of his sorrows and as a result of this, Xian was late at work which triggered his boss which eventually resulted in Xian doing overtime.

Xian, who was already sad about the previously occurred incidents, also became frustrated because of the unnecessary extra wok he had to do. Considering all these mixed feelings, Xian decided to have a drink before his meal that day. Unhappy and frustrated, and also drunk at the moment, Xian headed to the restaurant and decided of ordering something different than his everyday meal. He ordered for some random dishes to the waiter. Seated down, as the waiter brought the

dish he ordered, Xian noticed the words “YOU” floating over the head of the waiter and everyone else present at the restaurant.

Thinking of the fact that he is just drunk and hallucinating, Xian slurped down his throat, ‘A DELICIOUS BAT SOUP’ !!!

By Prathamesh Makwana