Carl got home to his apartment after a long day working at the mall bookstore. He tossed the groceries he had picked up on the way home into the refrigerator or cabinets as needed, then stretched out on his couch tiredly -- moving the weekly shipment of books around was not light work. While wondering what to occupy himself with that evening, his eyes slowly fell upon a bookmark sitting on the center of his otherwise clean living room table.
"Where did this come from?" Carl frowned and picked up the bookmark. It was a plain white affair of cardboard with the standard gold tassel on the end. One side was completely blank and the other had a strange, abstract ink image of a full hourglass, with the word "Read" in small neat letters at the bottom of the bookmark.
"Strange... but might as well. Kill a few minutes before making dinner." He settled down with one the books he had brought back from work and began reading the novel. Thirty minutes later Carl took a break as his stomach rumbled in hunger and absently slid the bookmark into place. The book almost seemed to snap shut around the bookmark. "That's odd, too -- what the heck?"
Carl stared at his hands as they started to shimmer and change, then realized his entire body was also changing. After a moment, he realized he was starting to change into the character from the novel on the page he had just read. "Cripes!" He dove for the book and pulled it open despite the resistance -- the bookmark was almost glued to the page, and it looked like the image of the hourglass was running!
