As he read the title on the pages, his hands began to tremble and sweat. Time seemed to stop; his peripheral vision blurred, and the only thing he could see was that unusual title. He started flipping through the pages rapidly, as if trying to absorb everything at once. He quickly realized it was all handwritten and even included some illustrations. This discovery shocked him even more, causing him to step back until he leaned against the sink. His legs now began to tremble as well. At that moment, he started speaking out loud.
"But how? How did that guy prepare all of this so quickly? This must have taken weeks to put together. Either he's a crazed fanatic about me, or… he might actually be telling the truth."
The silence in the kitchen was broken by a burst of laughter.
"Hahaha, I'm the crazy one here! I'm almost believing what that weirdo said without even reading these scribbles. I bet none of this will make sense—it'll just be a bunch of conspiracy theories."
His confidence began to return; his hands and legs stopped trembling. Apparently, the initial shock had passed. Now calmer, he put the water on to boil and pulled up a chair to start reading the material. The first thing that caught his attention was the date on the first page—it began next week and ended about two months later. Another intriguing detail was the stranger's phone number, printed at the bottom of each page, just as he had said it would be. Smiling, he whispered:
"That guy wasn't kidding when he said his number would be on every page, hahaha. He really wants to talk to me. And wow… practically 'three months' preparing this material—I should at least read a few pages. At least he's persistent."
He poured the coffee into a filter, set out a mug, and began sipping while diving into the text. It started like this:
"Professor, all of this might sound completely insane. But I need you to take this material seriously—you are one of humanity's last hopes. As I'll explain to you at the hospital, I'm from the future. Specifically, the year 2432. Before I give you the full context of the future, I want to talk about your final accounts while you were alive.
First of all, you die on January 22, 2028…"
"Wow… This guy doesn't hold back, huh? He starts off by telling me the exact day I die, hahaha."
Initially skeptical, he laughed while gazing out at his backyard through the window. But soon, he started reflecting—that date left him with less than three months to live, more precisely two months and eleven days. If this were true, his situation was even worse than he'd imagined. After this realization, his hand began trembling again, and he almost spilled his coffee as he took a "dry" sip. He barely noticed the taste or whether it was too hot. He just swallowed it.
At that moment, he got up, left everything behind, and walked to the bedroom where his wife was still resting. He leaned against the doorframe, staring at her for long seconds. Slowly, he slid down to the floor, sitting with his back to the door. Looking at her, he began to cry. Tears streamed down his face without stopping. All his strength vanished in an instant. All his plans disappeared, leaving his mind blank. Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes into hours.
Eventually, his wife woke up and found him in that depressive state. Her eyes widened, and she immediately jumped out of bed, running toward him and wrapping him in a tight hug.
"What happened?! Why are you like this?"
She looked deep into his eyes, but all she could see was an overwhelming emptiness, as if he couldn't even see her standing there.
"Talk to me! What happened?"
He remained silent, his gaze blank.
"WHAT HAPPENED?!"