Chapter 1

Confusion.

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Subject: Reminder of Late Payment

Dear Mr.Shim,

This letter is to remind you that your invoice that has been send to you on June 25th, 2012, has been overdue for payment as of July 2nd.

I request you to make full payment by July 6th. If not, the company will be forced to take legal action to recover the debt along with interests and other associated costs.

I believe that such an action will not be required and for your convenience, I have attached another copy of the invoice. If you have any queries, you are free to call on my office number (1-8ab-5pl-5ku3) during working hours.

Sincerely,

Mr.AndrewbSylvester
Accountant
SunlifeEnergyIncoporate
07/03/12

He was fed up. For the umpteenth time since he moved in here, Shim Changmin received the email that he was late in paying his bill, and not only the additional fine, he was also heading towards a lower credit score. Furiously speed-typing an apology e-mail, the third-year university student wondered why his mailed bills have never gotten to him. 

He was sure someone was taking his mail, either that or the mail was just never delivered to him, though he gets his mail sometimes, it’s very rare, and that’s if he catches the mailman. If not, his mail box usually consisted of flyers, and they were just as messed up too, there was always something wrong with the date, and it happened so many times that Changmin knew they weren’t just all typos.

Changmin paced heavily around his house, causing the old cherry wood floor to creak like no other. Nothing made sense. It was really something now that he realized that he had put up with this for 3 whole years, but now, Changmin was pushed to his limits. The phone’s ring interrupted his thoughts.

“Hi mom.”

“Shim Changmin why don’t you ever contact your grandmother anymore? She told me that she sent you a letter a month ago and  that nothing came back!”

Never got it. How do I explain that to her though? “Uhmm, sorry I never got the chance to, tell her I said hi though”

He knew it was a lame excuse, but if he had to end up explaining why his mail never got to him, the phone conversation would drag on even longer, knowing that his mom was something of a talker, plus an idea was starting to blossom in his head. 

“Who would forget to simply reply to a letter? I mean seriously-”

“Sorry I won’t forget, I have to go, talk to you later”

“I expect something for her soon, Changmin.”

“Alright mom.”

I wonder if I can send a letter. 

With that, a light bulb was lit. He would be able to solve 2 things that day if he sent a complaint letter to the post office. There were two possibilities as to what may happen: 

1. There’s a screw-up in sending the letter and goes to the wrong person, which would prove that his mailbox was far from the ordinary.
2. The letter gets delivered to where it’s supposed to go,the post office, which would help him solve his bill-problem, and would also prove that he COULD send a letter. 

Of course, number two seemed better, but still, as he wrote all of his frustration onto a piece of paper to send and dropped it into his orange mailbox, there was a tiny part of Changmin that dreamed of a little excitement and mystery behind outcome number one.
 

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“-ineapple under the sea? SPONGEBO-”
No.
“-on’t please, I need you! Don’t leave me Danie-”
Are you kidding me?
“-add a cup of ground pork to th-”
You’re doing it all wrong.

Victoria song was bored out of her mind, as she aimlessly flipped through tv channels, barely paying any attention to the colours and shapes on the lit screen. The university-bound student cringed at the thought that there was still a whole two months to go before school actually begins, and she would wind up spending it here, with no company.

Surprised it took her less than two days to unpack, Victoria was left with nothing to do for the whole summer. It took her no time at all to get accustomed to her new house, and already, it had felt like a home, the only downside was that there was absolutely nothing new to do in it. 

Except...The mail! She hadn’t checked it since she moved in, and being something that Victoria hasn’t done, she jumped off the couch in excitement, landing on the old cherry wood floor with a thud. 

She half-ran half-skipped to the painted-orange metal box outside her old yet homey house, grabbed all of the papers that sat inside, plopped them all on her kitchen table, and began sorting.

Restaurant Grand Opening? Don’t care. 20% all electronics, meh. What is this, a bill?
She assumed it was for the formal tenant, and scrawled “moved” on the envelope before proceeding to look at everything else that came in the mail in the three days she’d been here.

After sorting through the heap of colourful flyers, Victoria was left with a newspaper, and also a letter. Oddly, the newspaper had a huge typo, and read 2012 instead of 2009, which Victoria would have accepted, had it been some small town paper, but she knew that the day The New York Times had a typo would be the day she won the lottery.

She set that aside, remembering to revisit the paper awhile later, and picked up the seemingly hand written letter, it was addressed to the post office, she was about to write “return to sender” when her eyes fell onto the return address: it was her own.

It’s rude to open a letter meant for someone else, but for the curious girl, it became impossible for her to resist, and before you knew it, the letter was ripped open. It turned out to be nothing interesting, just a man complaining that he wasn’t getting his bills, however it was the date that really stumped her, it was sent, just today.

No... That’s impossible, no one can live in my house besides me, but how can someone send a letter today using my address?

A confused Victoria wrote “return to sender” on the envelope, hoping that it would just go back to the original sender, as well as written on the actual letter: “Who is this and why did you use my address to send your letter? Thank you, Victoria Song”, resealed it, and dropped it off into the mailbox.

Shaking her head as if it will magically clear up, Victoria sighed, “Well, at least I’m no longer bored”, she said to herself.
 

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Victoria stared, wide-eyed, at the headline of the strange newspaper which she had left laying on the kitchen table.

“New Zealand hit by 6.5-magnitude earthquake, 65 dead
Office building, cathedral spire collapsed, continuing aftershocks reported”

Weird.. Wouldn’t this have been all over the broadcasting news? Victoria had remembered passing through a live news channel but not hearing anything about a strong earthquake.

Something was seriously odd, quickly grabbing the remote, turned the TV on and immediately changed to the current news channel.

“-ates steps down as Chairman of Microsoft Corporation to work full time for the Bill & Melinda Gates Founda-”

Try another channel.

“-omas Beatie, the world's first pregnant man, gives birth to a daughte-”

It’s gotta be there somewhere.

“-id Betancourt and 14 other FARC hostages are rescued by the Colombian armed forc-”

Nothing.

No. No way. The story is real, why would the New York Times report it then? C’mon Victoria, don’t be stupid. Maybe it isn’t being broadcasted right this moment. It’s gotta be on the internet, everything, is on the internet. With that thought, the confused brunette took off for her laptop, jumping up 3 stairs at a time, causing a large ruckus in the empty house, and bounded back down, this time carrying a laptop.

With lightning speed, Victoria typed in Google search bar, the exact headline on her paper, almost confident that it would be the first result. However, as she browsed through the results that came up, nothing at all matched with the story, absolutely nothing. The story didn’t exist.

She grabbed the newspaper, and eyed it with suspicion. It seemed like a legit paper, everything seemed to be normal, except the date, as all the articles had the year of 2011, which looked nothing like 2008, and would be a rather difficult typo to make.
Victoria Googled some of the headlines and stories in the paper, and found that the paper was completely filled with sports events that never happened, reviews of films that have never been heard of, and stories about President Obama’s changes to the country, when Victoria was pretty sure that he hasn’t even become president yet.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, reported in the paper actually happened. Could it be that — no, that’s not possible, what newspaper would report the future? Seriously though, mistakes like that can’t be just typos, plus newspapers never really make mistakes, let alone the #1 newspaper in the world.

Victoria pondered and pondered as she paced back and forth in the house, nothing made sense. Question after question flew through her mind. Why was there a letter to the post office sent using her address? Why did a newspaper reporting the future be in the mailbox, why would a newspaper even report the future?

Her pacing ended her up on the white porch of the house, overlooking the orange mailbox that probably used to be bright, but now has rusted and faded to a state of dismal. Everything seemed pretty normal that moment, until Victoria laid her eyes on the flag attached, it pointed down, meaning there was no mail to send.

That’s weird, the mail carrier must of already picked it up.

Victoria took out her phone from her pocket, the display, screen read:Sunday, July 3rd, 2008.

Sunday.

There is no mail service on Sundays.
 

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His letter definitely went somewhere, but now, clutching the reply, Changmin was certain that wherever it went, the post office 3 blocks down wasn’t it. His letter definitely went somewhere, but now, clutching the reply, Changmin was certain that wherever it went, the post office 3 blocks down wasn’t it. Every evidence pointed to the letter getting rejected, “return to sender” was written on the envelope, the contents had been sent back exactly as it was, except, a new sentence was written, below his rant, a sentence that made as much sense to Changmin as :

Who are you and why is your address the same as mine?

The sentence answered pretty much none of his questions, and not to mention raised a few hundreds more.

So much for receiving my bills. Changmin thought glumly, disappointed of the inadequate response he had been given. Someone else must of gotten their hands on the letter, he put two and two together, but that person, seems to think that they have the same address, which is absurd, since Changmin was pretty certain that there was only one country in the world called “The United States of America.”, and there aren’t any states with the same name either.

He took out his pen, sat down on a table, and stared at the hand writing as if there would be something he missed the first time. Nothing happened. Furrowing his brows, Changmin came up with different scenarios that were actually possible for this mishap.

There was only one possibility that was actually realistic and made sense: His neighbor had gotten a hold of the letter and since their addresses were so similar, perhaps they would think he sent a letter using THEIR address instead of his. Only one problem though, why would a neighbor be able to get ahold of his letter?

Half driven by curiosity and half driven by determination to have a clean credit score, Changmin wrote back to whoever wrote to him, a simple, “Are you sure we have the same address? Because I’m certain I live in this one, maybe you should check yours again.” on a fresh piece of paper, in case whoever got that letter got it again.

After it was stamped, Changmin threw the letter carelessly into the mailbox and propped to flag up to signal to the mailman to pick up mail to deliver. Walking back to his house, Changmin was completely oblivious to the fact that the flag, propped up just a moment ago, seem to have been set down again, all on its own.

So how was it? I know it starts off pretty boring but I'll try to make it more exciting :/ Subbies and comments make me happy~ TY

(17/04/12) added chapter 2 into chapter 1 because I felt it was rather short and I want this story to be around 20 chapters, not like 40 (one of my pet peeves: overly long stories that have lost its meaning completely). But anyway, I'll try to update maybe twice a week. I have a tonne of homework and tests to study for, so that's the best I can do for now. Thanks for reading, subscribe! comments and criticism is welcome too~