All things start and all things stop. It happens all the time. Everyone knows how it starts and how it ends. What matters is what happens in between. Take me, for example. I started as a human, and now, I'm... this.
You could call it an end - the end of my existence as a human.
Look at me, getting ahead of myself. Curious? No matter how you respond, dear reader, I shall have to continue. It is a story that needs to be told.
--
The sharp ringing of the alarm clock was what roused me to consciousness. I cracked open one eye and looked at the time. 7:00am. Slamming it on the top to make the infernal sound stop, I flopped back to bed and sank back into blissful sleep.
It wasn't until my brother had come to my room to get me up that I actually woke up. I went through my morning rituals half-asleep, though feeling the cold water splash onto my face certainly cleared my head. After grabbing something to eat, I went out to the train station to meet up with Sakuri.
Sakuri's my good friend; we've been together since we were kids, but I was overseas for four years due to my dad's work. We only moved back to Japan last year. Despite our time apart, we're still close friends. The high school we go to is kind of far away from where we live, so we have to take the train to get there. Usually, we meet up at the station, then go to school together.
That day, she didn't appear. Not at the station, not at school and not at her club activities.
I was puzzled, but I assumed that she had a fever or something. She was a sickly kid growing up, and was prone to seasonal illnesses and changes. Once, I had to help her back home when she collapsed during classes. I pulled out my phone and sent her a message.
'hey sakuri, you sick? we got an english assignment, so i'll go over to your house to give it to you. you had better be grateful that i'm such a good friend!'Heehee.Sakuri's family recently moved, and though she didn't change schools, (which would have sucked lots) it meant that she has to get up earlier to be at the station. The layout of the neighbourhood she lives in is a mess, but I've been to her home enough times to have its location memorised like the back of my hand.
The train ride was uneventful, but as the train pulled up to the station, I could see smoke in the distance. This made me feel a bit uneasy - had her house caught fire? Was her family safe? I needed to know.
My fears were confirmed, but not in the way that I expected. There was a huge crowd surrounding the area of her house, and there were some TV vans and reporters. I squeezed my way through to the front, right to the police tape, and my heart froze.
The house wasn't burnt at all. In fact, the entire structure was gone. In its place was a deep pit of soil - the smoke that I saw billowed from the pit, so I couldn't see much. None of the surrounding houses showed any sign that they were damaged or affected in any way, and the neighbours were saying that they didn't hear anything last night.
It was then that I sensed a certain.... 'scent' would be the best way to describe it, though there's nothing olfactory about it at all. The scent gave off an uneasy feeling and there was an instinctual feeling of wrongness, that this was something that humans wouldn't be able to do. Something only magic could do.
No specifics. It's the same as being in a dream and just knowing something is something when you recall it later.
I rode the train back home in a daze, the feeling lingering with me, and I was horrified to hear later that evening that two bodies were identified in the park in Sakuri's neighbourhood, and the both of them were identified to be Mrs. Kunikai and Sakuri's little sister. The condition of the two were described to be horribly mutilated, and in the case of Sakuri's sis, only her dental records allowed her to be identified. Only Mr. Kunikai was still around, and that was because he was in another prefecture for the past few weeks.
How could something this horrible happen? Where was Sakuri?
I couldn't sleep that night. Not knowing where my best friend had gone to, and knowing that such terrible things happened to her family made me fear for her even more. What's more, Sakuri had never replied to my message.
I woke up the next day looking and feeling like shit. My mom was concerned for me, as she knew I was good friends with Sakuri. She told me not to worry, that the police had classified the case as murder and was on high alert for the killers. I didn't say anything, but her attempt to comfort me unfortunately didn't work. How could I not worry?
No mortal human can do this. Only something magical.A day passed, and at school I was questioned by my classmates, I went home and found no peace there. Since I was Sakuri's friend, the police asked me if I knew anywhere any Sakuri might have gone.she might have ran away to escape from something. perhaps she's hiding somewhere, a place that you might know.
How was I supposed to know? I rattled off a couple of places that we we frequented, and they seemed to be satisfied by that.
Days passed. I tried to continue life as usual. It's not like I could do anything, right? If the authorities with all of their manpower and influence couldn't find her, what good could I do?
Days passed, ticking into a week. I was growing increasingly antsy. It was stupid of me, and it was too much to hope for, but maybe - just maybe. None of the humans could figure out where she had disappeared to. Maybe those that weren't could help.
For that, I needed to go to the city. There was a dingy bookshop, hidden away in a dark, ass-end of an alley, in a maze of back streets and cul-de-sacs. You couldn't find it unless you looked really really hard and thoroughly or already know where it is. It doesn't have much customers; I'm surprised it's still in business. I opened the door of the shop and coughed a little. The room was rather dim, with only a few naked bulbs providing an orange light. The air of the store smelt of old paper and wood.
"Ah, hello there." A positively ancient man greeted me. His beard was pure white, and his face became a mass of wrinkles as he smiled at me. "Need anything?"
"I'll cut to the chase. I need you to tell me where the magical books are." Normally, I wouldn't have been this direct, but there was no time for beating around the bush. Not when Sakuri was out there.
He frowned. "Magic isn't a toy. You don't know what you're dealing with."
"I don't care about that! I need to find my friend!" I growled. Doesn't this fossil think I know that?! Of course I do, but I'm prepared to take any burden I need to know that she's still alive!
"Are you speaking of the Kunikai child?" His smile was somehow sly, as if he knew something. "I've heard of the circumstances of her and her family. Truly, my condolences are with Mr. Kunikai."
"Yes, her. Are you going to tell me where the books are, or shall I have to conduct my business elsewhere?"
He laughed. "You'll be hard-pressed to find any other place as well stocked as my own, girl. You've given me a good laugh, so I suppose I can let you into the back room. See what you like!"
The back turned out to be a extremely small room with a shelf full of books that were coming apart. When I picked up a book, the pages spilled out in my hands. Most of them were handwritten, and the inks had smudged badly, rendering most of the writing and drawings illegible, not to mention they were in other languages altogether. The condition of the paper was incredibly poor, too. If I was too rough with them, they would crumble into pieces.
There was a certain thin book that turned out to be oddly good condition. I flipped through it; most of the writing were insane ramblings about stuff nobody cares about, but that's actually most of the magical stuff that manages to get written down. It's probably a combination of being too long in the desert and/or dying of the plague or something.
There was only one page that contained anything useful to me. It contained a clear drawing of a summoning circle with the list of reagents for the summoning of a 'being that is the master of all'. Jackpot. If it was the master of all, then it would surely be able to help me!
I went back out and placed it on the counter. "How much for this one page?" I asked.
He took a look at the book, and then replied: "2000 yen for the book."
"Wait, I don't need the rest of the book, it's just stupid rubbish. Can't I get that?"
He peered down at me. "Did you even think about what you say? Does anyone buy books that way?"
Oh, right.
I'm stupid!"Fine." I grumbled.
--
I went shopping for the reagents a few days after I bought the book and tried to read the one page. It asked for a lot of hard to find ingredients - candles rendered from fat, but I used plain wax candles in their stead, as I couldn't find any tallow ones. Surely it was just the magic of the ritual that counted. Besides, the english used in the book was really really old, and back in those days they used what they had, which was probably those sort of materials. It also asked for fresh human blood, so I went to the local blood bank and got a packet. They looked at me funny, but I persisted and got what I came for.
I decided to do it in outskirts of the city. There would have been a huge fire risk had I tried to perform it at home, and I couldn't have any sort of outside inteference. There was a place that I knew was perfect - it was a street soccer playing field, but everyone used the one that was in the city, so pretty much nobody goes there.
Once I got there. I took some time to draw the circle and light the candles - the rough surface of the concrete is ideal for marking on. I placed the item that would amplify the magic and let the being hear my summons. Just before the ritual started, I spilled the packet of blood onto the circle, and then started reciting the spell.
As I chanted, the air in front of me started distorting and twisting into strange shapes. My heart beat faster, but I continued to chant. Who would have thought that this ritual actually did work, that I was capable of casting magic?!
A sharp pain then pounded into my skull. I fell to my knees, gritting my teeth but still chanting, albeit slower. It then felt like something enormous and heavy pressed down onto my brain, and such a huge surge of pain came that my knees bowed and I fell to the ground. My body felt like the insides were being rearranged; my very skin boiled. Before I blacked out from the pain, I saw a mass of writhing black mass come out from the air that was distorting and warping. I then closed my eyes to blink away the tears and lost consciousness.
