“Welcome to memory land! The place where books depict every part of my life … surprisingly even in motion without letters! Oh my goodness … if I could capture whatever I see, couldn’t I make a story out of it?” I said as soon as I opened the door to the library containing all of my memories. “The possibilities of moving paintings are endless! Who would write books afterwards? Only idiots!” I shouted out enthusiastically, but quickly grabbed my chin deep in thought. “I guess the dumb fucks reading instead of watching these moving pictures would exist …”
Shrugging a bit, I looked all around me after letting the door vanish behind me. This place had become even taller than last time with hundreds of rows of books stacked on top of each other, forming and intimidating wall or rather an unconquerable labyrinth. This place was huge.
“Okay … where are we?” I picked out some random book and opened it with great interest. “Page 3 … oh, right!” In the memory , there was a man right in front of me sitting on a sofa while I laid on a couch. He was sweating quite heavily and talked about my problems as if he was some kind of therapist. Well, he was dead soon afterwards, but not without leaving me with a hint how I could solve my problems: An emotional support duck. Not gonna lie, I liked the duck … even though it swam away one day.
“That was a hundred and twelve years ago? I want to see something I cannot remember!” I exclaimed unhappily. I was at the place where literally all my memories were stored and I certainly didn’t want to look through stuff I remembered.
Suddenly, the floor below me brightened up slightly and as I looked downwards, I noticed a very peculiar shape.
“Oh, that’s neat.” A green, glowing arrow was right below me, pointing towards … I had no clue where it would lead me, but I still chose to follow it nonetheless.
What was the worst that could happen anyway? I was inside myself! Okay, apparently I hated myself so much that books started to fly towards my head not too soon afterwards, but at least they were dodgable in the beginning.
“Hey, you … me? Stop throwing books at me!” I grumbled unhappily, caught a flying book out of the air and threw it right back where it came from. Sadly, the book apparently mutated into some kind of boomerang and came flying right back at me until I caught it once more.
Annoyed, but also strangely hopeful I opened the book only to find a scene of myself, looking down into a book, depicting myself looking down into a book, depicting myself …
“Haha … very funny.” Angrily, I pulled the two book half’s apart and blinked confused as the last few seconds were completely erased from my memory. Luckily it was a rather empty book, otherwise the consequences would have been disastrous.
A bit worried about the litter to my feet, I thus followed the green arrows while dodging the flying books until I finally arrived where I was apparently supposed to be.
In front of me was something I certainly hadn’t expected to be there. A stone altar stood in front of me, strangely familiar in shape. I had seen it once before, but never got even close to it. Before I could reach it in the past, I was always either stopped by a wall of books, or simply by water drowning me.
But this time, it didn’t happen. Sure, some books still came flying towards me but not in an intensity that would stop me.
And I certainly knew the reason for it once I arrived there. Contained by a wall of my memories, death fought against death. For once, something magically happened on the altar, or rather the book on it. Death magic violently clashed against an opposing force which was mine. I could control the barrier, keeping the other magic contained within a few metres, but I couldn’t stop the book from lashing out in the first place, which was just weird.
I never had this kind of experience with death escaping my grasp … at least not if it was neutral. There was one time where I tried to manipulate the deathly energies within Aska’s vessel … which spectacularly misfired.
“Great, now I hate you again.” I mumbled angrily as there was only one reason the book didn’t obey my commands: It was already under Aska’s influence.
That altar and the book on it weren’t that interesting to me though. Sure, I kind of hated the idea there was more to my past than I remembered, but it wasn’t the first time this happened to me. I already had a solution for this problem at hand … which was to gouge his eyes out until I had enough. I was angry. Really angry. But I knew that in the end, it wouldn’t change anything, no matter what I would find in this book.
And so, I turned towards the second strange object in this circular clearance.
A door.
A fucking door, standing right there, leading to absolutely nowhere as its frame wasn’t attached to anything.
A shitty wooden door, radiating a green light of it hurt my eyes to look at it. I couldn’t sense it, but I was pretty sure this door consisted of nothing but life itself which was a fucking problem for me.
Life inside the daughter of death itself shouldn’t exist. And there was only one person capable of planting whatever this door was inside me.
If I had to decide wether the book of death, or the door was worse, I would definitely chose the latter. I expected Aska to behave like the biggest arse in the universe, but I had expected more from the goddess of life.
“And I really wanted to play nice with you…” First was my useless payment for saving Sofie, and now this. “What a great friend you are.” I had looked at her differently before … more kindly, but that stopped at that day. Irminsul was pursuing her own agenda and was probably even colluding with Aska to do something, whatever that may be.
As I had no clue on how to get a hold on the book as it always repelled each and every one of my approaches, I resigned to my fate eventually and reached out for the door. My hand was already at the knob and I felt how it burned my skin away as I grabbed it tightly and tried to turn it clockwise.
Nothing.
I also tried counterclockwise with exactly the same results. That door wouldn’t open, no matter which side I tried it from, nor how much I banged my shoulder against it.
It was tightly locked by an adverse element to mine, in a way I didn’t understand. And as such, I could only look at it helplessly for a little while, admire its smooth surface and kick it with all my might.
Still nothing.
“Simsalabim! FBI open up! The fabulous bulldozing Incorporated is here!” I shouted out, but as expected, I got no answer whatsoever. Once again, I rammed my shoulder into it, but started to tire out before I could even touch the door.
My eyes closed the second time that night to welcome me in a calm slumber. My sleep was devoid of any dreams and rather relaxing.
Strangely refreshed, I woke up as I heard the sounds of paper beside me. Opening one eye slightly, I spotted Hannah on the floor, frantically filling out a rather familiarly structured piece of paper.
“Have you ever heard about a book on an altar? What could it mean? Figuratively speaking?” I questioned her out of nowhere, startling Hannah by quite a bit. Still, after a few milliseconds she continued correcting a few timetables.
“Aren’t religious texts usually on altars?” Hannah asked after a little while. I highly doubted that book in the depth of my consciousness was a religious text though and so I stood up slowly and yawned loudly.
“Really? I thought altars are just for sacrificing stuff.” I mumbled and looked out of the window showing me a dark landscape outside, with all the houses still clad in darkness.
“Are you alright? You look a little … angry and … scared?” Was I scared? Honestly, I didn’t know for sure. That these two secrets could lay beneath the surface of my consciousness this long without me noticing did scare me a little. I couldn’t know what they were for, nor what I could do to get rid of them.
“I’m not scared.” But then again, it wasn’t the first time I found secrets down there. I didn’t have a plan yet, but I was sure to come up with something eventually. Like I always did.
And until then, I could continue to live at this school for the time being. “Do you need any help?” Hannah didn’t need to know the problems I had with the two gods that was for sure. Just by telling her, I could reveal to either of them what I knew and was something I wanted to avoid. Even if she knew … there wasn’t much she could do.
“Yes. Please help.” And so, I started dressing myself rather quickly and went on my knees to help her with whatever she was doing. “There are the rules. You can only have two courses of the second type in the first semester, you cannot have …” She explained me all the rules there were to correct the timetables which weren’t little by any means.
Maybe the students should know them as well, but whatever. Maybe it had proven faster to just let them do their thing and correct it afterwards. What did bother me though was the fact that Hannah was doing this at this late hour.
“It does seem like you are a typical student who waits till the last second to do their assignments.” I said and chuckled happily. I definitely would have rather liked to spent time in the comfortable bed, but seeing her like this was fun as well.
“Hey, you are the student.” Indeed, I was a very beautiful and intelligent student. By she bought that up though … I had no idea.
“Yeah … a student who cannot join your courses openly. Someone asked me already if my relationship with you isn’t a conflict of interest and I have to agree. For the sake of my reputation, I won’t be able to join … but I’m going to visit if that’s alright.” I didn’t want to have any worries because of my relation to a teacher, and so the only chance I had was to not be graded by her. That way, I could claim there wasn’t an issue with Hannah and me being together at this school.
“… great, now we have to do yours once more.” Naturally, a change in my courses also meant checking all the criteria in need to fulfilment again, which took us at least ten minutes to do. And considering that my class was rather packed, it also meant we were doing these checks until the sun rose. At this point the bells rang to wake the students up which was also our signal to take care of our needs, which was to drink a bottle of blood for me, and to eat breakfast for Hannah.
Afterwards, all we could do was to stroll towards our homeroom in silence. During that time, I was in a relatively good mood until we arrived at the classroom.
“Damn …” I whispered as I noticed the already filled classroom. We were late, that was for sure.
“Good morning everyone.” Hannah completely glossed over that fact while I weaselled my way towards my table.
“Morning.” I mumbled towards the prince and sat down rather swiftly.
May another whacky class begun.
“Welcome to memory land! The place where books depict every part of my life … surprisingly even in motion without letters! Oh my goodness … if I could capture whatever I see, couldn’t I make a story out of it?” I said as soon as I opened the door to the library containing all of my memories. “The possibilities of moving paintings are endless! Who would write books afterwards? Only idiots!” I shouted out enthusiastically, but quickly grabbed my chin deep in thought. “I guess the dumb fucks reading instead of watching these moving pictures would exist …”
Shrugging a bit, I looked all around me after letting the door vanish behind me. This place had become even taller than last time with hundreds of rows of books stacked on top of each other, forming and intimidating wall or rather an unconquerable labyrinth. This place was huge.
“Okay … where are we?” I picked out some random book and opened it with great interest. “Page 3 … oh, right!” In the memory , there was a man right in front of me sitting on a sofa while I laid on a couch. He was sweating quite heavily and talked about my problems as if he was some kind of therapist. Well, he was dead soon afterwards, but not without leaving me with a hint how I could solve my problems: An emotional support duck. Not gonna lie, I liked the duck … even though it swam away one day.
“That was a hundred and twelve years ago? I want to see something I cannot remember!” I exclaimed unhappily. I was at the place where literally all my memories were stored and I certainly didn’t want to look through stuff I remembered.
Suddenly, the floor below me brightened up slightly and as I looked downwards, I noticed a very peculiar shape.
“Oh, that’s neat.” A green, glowing arrow was right below me, pointing towards … I had no clue where it would lead me, but I still chose to follow it nonetheless.
What was the worst that could happen anyway? I was inside myself! Okay, apparently I hated myself so much that books started to fly towards my head not too soon afterwards, but at least they were dodgable in the beginning.
“Hey, you … me? Stop throwing books at me!” I grumbled unhappily, caught a flying book out of the air and threw it right back where it came from. Sadly, the book apparently mutated into some kind of boomerang and came flying right back at me until I caught it once more.
Annoyed, but also strangely hopeful I opened the book only to find a scene of myself, looking down into a book, depicting myself looking down into a book, depicting myself …
“Haha … very funny.” Angrily, I pulled the two book half’s apart and blinked confused as the last few seconds were completely erased from my memory. Luckily it was a rather empty book, otherwise the consequences would have been disastrous.
A bit worried about the litter to my feet, I thus followed the green arrows while dodging the flying books until I finally arrived where I was apparently supposed to be.
In front of me was something I certainly hadn’t expected to be there. A stone altar stood in front of me, strangely familiar in shape. I had seen it once before, but never got even close to it. Before I could reach it in the past, I was always either stopped by a wall of books, or simply by water drowning me.
But this time, it didn’t happen. Sure, some books still came flying towards me but not in an intensity that would stop me.
And I certainly knew the reason for it once I arrived there. Contained by a wall of my memories, death fought against death. For once, something magically happened on the altar, or rather the book on it. Death magic violently clashed against an opposing force which was mine. I could control the barrier, keeping the other magic contained within a few metres, but I couldn’t stop the book from lashing out in the first place, which was just weird.
I never had this kind of experience with death escaping my grasp … at least not if it was neutral. There was one time where I tried to manipulate the deathly energies within Aska’s vessel … which spectacularly misfired.
“Great, now I hate you again.” I mumbled angrily as there was only one reason the book didn’t obey my commands: It was already under Aska’s influence.
That altar and the book on it weren’t that interesting to me though. Sure, I kind of hated the idea there was more to my past than I remembered, but it wasn’t the first time this happened to me. I already had a solution for this problem at hand … which was to gouge his eyes out until I had enough. I was angry. Really angry. But I knew that in the end, it wouldn’t change anything, no matter what I would find in this book.
And so, I turned towards the second strange object in this circular clearance.
A door.
A fucking door, standing right there, leading to absolutely nowhere as its frame wasn’t attached to anything.
A shitty wooden door, radiating a green light of it hurt my eyes to look at it. I couldn’t sense it, but I was pretty sure this door consisted of nothing but life itself which was a fucking problem for me.
Life inside the daughter of death itself shouldn’t exist. And there was only one person capable of planting whatever this door was inside me.
If I had to decide wether the book of death, or the door was worse, I would definitely chose the latter. I expected Aska to behave like the biggest arse in the universe, but I had expected more from the goddess of life.
“And I really wanted to play nice with you…” First was my useless payment for saving Sofie, and now this. “What a great friend you are.” I had looked at her differently before … more kindly, but that stopped at that day. Irminsul was pursuing her own agenda and was probably even colluding with Aska to do something, whatever that may be.
As I had no clue on how to get a hold on the book as it always repelled each and every one of my approaches, I resigned to my fate eventually and reached out for the door. My hand was already at the knob and I felt how it burned my skin away as I grabbed it tightly and tried to turn it clockwise.
Nothing.
I also tried counterclockwise with exactly the same results. That door wouldn’t open, no matter which side I tried it from, nor how much I banged my shoulder against it.
It was tightly locked by an adverse element to mine, in a way I didn’t understand. And as such, I could only look at it helplessly for a little while, admire its smooth surface and kick it with all my might.
Still nothing.
“Simsalabim! FBI open up! The fabulous bulldozing Incorporated is here!” I shouted out, but as expected, I got no answer whatsoever. Once again, I rammed my shoulder into it, but started to tire out before I could even touch the door.
My eyes closed the second time that night to welcome me in a calm slumber. My sleep was devoid of any dreams and rather relaxing.
Strangely refreshed, I woke up as I heard the sounds of paper beside me. Opening one eye slightly, I spotted Hannah on the floor, frantically filling out a rather familiarly structured piece of paper.
“Have you ever heard about a book on an altar? What could it mean? Figuratively speaking?” I questioned her out of nowhere, startling Hannah by quite a bit. Still, after a few milliseconds she continued correcting a few timetables.
“Aren’t religious texts usually on altars?” Hannah asked after a little while. I highly doubted that book in the depth of my consciousness was a religious text though and so I stood up slowly and yawned loudly.
“Really? I thought altars are just for sacrificing stuff.” I mumbled and looked out of the window showing me a dark landscape outside, with all the houses still clad in darkness.
“Are you alright? You look a little … angry and … scared?” Was I scared? Honestly, I didn’t know for sure. That these two secrets could lay beneath the surface of my consciousness this long without me noticing did scare me a little. I couldn’t know what they were for, nor what I could do to get rid of them.
“I’m not scared.” But then again, it wasn’t the first time I found secrets down there. I didn’t have a plan yet, but I was sure to come up with something eventually. Like I always did.
And until then, I could continue to live at this school for the time being. “Do you need any help?” Hannah didn’t need to know the problems I had with the two gods that was for sure. Just by telling her, I could reveal to either of them what I knew and was something I wanted to avoid. Even if she knew … there wasn’t much she could do.
“Yes. Please help.” And so, I started dressing myself rather quickly and went on my knees to help her with whatever she was doing. “There are the rules. You can only have two courses of the second type in the first semester, you cannot have …” She explained me all the rules there were to correct the timetables which weren’t little by any means.
Maybe the students should know them as well, but whatever. Maybe it had proven faster to just let them do their thing and correct it afterwards. What did bother me though was the fact that Hannah was doing this at this late hour.
“It does seem like you are a typical student who waits till the last second to do their assignments.” I said and chuckled happily. I definitely would have rather liked to spent time in the comfortable bed, but seeing her like this was fun as well.
“Hey, you are the student.” Indeed, I was a very beautiful and intelligent student. By she bought that up though … I had no idea.
“Yeah … a student who cannot join your courses openly. Someone asked me already if my relationship with you isn’t a conflict of interest and I have to agree. For the sake of my reputation, I won’t be able to join … but I’m going to visit if that’s alright.” I didn’t want to have any worries because of my relation to a teacher, and so the only chance I had was to not be graded by her. That way, I could claim there wasn’t an issue with Hannah and me being together at this school.
“… great, now we have to do yours once more.” Naturally, a change in my courses also meant checking all the criteria in need to fulfilment again, which took us at least ten minutes to do. And considering that my class was rather packed, it also meant we were doing these checks until the sun rose. At this point the bells rang to wake the students up which was also our signal to take care of our needs, which was to drink a bottle of blood for me, and to eat breakfast for Hannah.
Afterwards, all we could do was to stroll towards our homeroom in silence. During that time, I was in a relatively good mood until we arrived at the classroom.
“Damn …” I whispered as I noticed the already filled classroom. We were late, that was for sure.
“Good morning everyone.” Hannah completely glossed over that fact while I weaselled my way towards my table.
“Morning.” I mumbled towards the prince and sat down rather swiftly.
May another whacky class begun.
