He checked the calendar twice, hoping the date was wrong. It wasn’t the date that bothered him. It was the instructions. They had arrived weeks ago, neatly typed, addressed to him, with no return address. At first, he’d assumed it was some kind of elaborate prank. “On this date,” the letter had said, “you must follow the steps exactly.” He hadn’t taken it seriously—until the first step came true on its own. Then the second. By the time the third unfolded exactly as written, he stopped laughing. Now the final step loomed. He sat at his kitchen table, staring at the envelope again. Inside was the manual. He hadn’t read it fully. Just skimmed, picking out the parts that seemed relevant. Enough to follow along. Enough to believe he understood. But as the hour approached, doubt crept in. What if he had missed something? What if the order mattered more than he realized? His hands trembled as he flipped through the pages again, slower this time. That’s when he saw them—tiny numbers, referencing text at the bottom of the pages. Footnotes. Clarifications. Exceptions. Warnings. His breath caught as the meaning shifted beneath him. The steps weren’t instructions. They were safeguards. And he hadn’t followed them properly. Outside, something moved exactly when the letter said it would. But not in the way he expected. The manual had been honest all along; they just hadn’t read the footnotes.