Disappear
Tear walked all the way home through the night. During the trek, he reminisced about his distant past.
'My life's been shit for as long as I can remember, but... I barely even remember what happened before my grandpa died. Still, I know those were my best days.' Tear thought to himself on his walk.
His eyes stared at the sky, which was devoid of all stars due to the thick light pollution in the city.
He thought of his late grandfather: 'Had to leave me to fend on my own when I turned 18 huh?' He said to himself, slightly scoffing.
As soon as he arrived at his crappy apartment building, he took off most of his clothes, stuck a toothbrush in his mouth, and began rummaging through his old storage.
It didn't take him very long to find a dusty old wooden box with blue writing all over it.
'Here it is.' He mused, remembering how he threw this box away after his grandpa died and never looked back at it again.
He blew on it to get rid of all the dust. Carved on it was a word that read: "Remember."
'How could I forget.' Tear immediately said to himself: 'The last words you said to me before you died...' He paused that thought, opening up the box.
Inside, there was a textbook-sized paperback book. He opened it up straight in the middle.
Even though it had hundreds of pages, "They are all blank." Tear said, looking at the plain sheets in front of him.
"Well... all of them except the first few." He quickly flipped to the start of the book.
On the first three pages, there were some directions on how to do random and simple magic 'spells' as the book called it--and also visual depictions.
One of them was a spell called Transfer (Written in all-black ink): [Allow any small object in one hand to move to the other when concealed.]
This was a trick that most magicians knew how to do. It was sleight of hand and was fairly easy to learn.
There was one more simple trick on the next page, but Tear ignored that one and flipped the page to come to the final spell.
"Disappear." He said out loud as he looked at the third and last spell in the book. This spell, unlike the other two, was written in pencil.
"This is the only one that has a chance to make me win big. If it works... I will surely win and maybe even make it big one day."
At that moment, thoughts of Tear riding on helicopters, driving supercars, swimming in gold, and having hot babes all around him screaming his name quickly filled his thoughts.
He nearly drooled at the thought of it all, but quickly shook his head and collected himself.
"But... It has to actually work first." As he said this, his fingers grazed against the description portion of the page.
It was... completely ripped off, unlike every other page in the entire book.
Tear didn't know why, but he knew that: "There's no description for this spell... and it's not even written in ink. But, I am sure I can figure out what this spell does just from knowing its name. Disappear. Like all other disappearing spells, It makes someone disappear right in front of your very eyes." He surmised from its name.
A hint of excitement swelled up within him just thinking about the possibility of the spell working.
After brushing his teeth and getting ready to go to sleep, Tear decided to practice the Disappear spell first.
He sat down on the ground with the magic book in front of him. To the side, he placed an empty cardboard box: his test dummy.
He exhaled deeply: "Come on... please work." He said under his breath--staring at the pencil-drawn letters on the book page.
Tear raised his hand to perform the spell, causing a spur of memories to suddenly enter his mind.
He remembered he used to do magic tricks--or rather, how his grandpa used to do them.
Before he even knew about the modern world, Tear lived with his grandpa in the mountains.
His grandpa was surprisingly strong for his old age, so they didn't have a difficult time out there.
The old man taught Tear to read and write, and also some lessons about morals and... whatever else. Tear forgot about that stuff quickly.
What Tear remembered most from those days were the magic tricks that his grandpa always used to show him.
Disappearing, making things float, and etc.
Although Tear grew to believe they were only tricks and not real magic, his grandpa never gave up his argument that he was performing actual spells.
He didn't give this fact up, not even on his final day...
On Tear's 18th birthday, his grandpa passed away. There was a lot that Tear still wanted to know, and wanted to say.
Yet, the immovable and ever-overpowering time forced Tear to give up those qualms and come to grips with reality.
He was thrust into the real world--not a single year in school, and not even a single contact with another person other than his grandpa...
What Tear wanted to know most that day was... what were his parents like?
For some unexplainable reason, Tear couldn't remember what happened before he was 6 years old for the life of him. It was like a mental blockade of sorts that simply never left him.
Due to this, he didn't remember his parents at all either. Heck, he didn't even know if he had ever seen them before.
The only thing his grandpa had to say about his parents was that... "They are a funny folk, Tear. I guarantee that you will meet them in your lifespan."
...
Remembering all of this, a slight smile pulled on Tear's lips. To him, his memories were mostly bitter, yet still had a hint of sweetness to them.
Finally, he said "Disappear" as he moved his hand around the cardboard box next to the book.
Nothing happened.
He waited a few seconds, his eyes filled with hope.
Yet, again... nothing.
He tried for 2 more hours. It was the pinnacle of boredom, but such measly things rarely affected Tear anymore.
In the end, he fell asleep while continuing to practice.
***
The next day, Tear stood in front of a behemoth of a building. His mouth was slightly agape, while his eyes gleamed in awe.
A large building that resembled a palace, with many pillars and marble structures supporting it.
It had tall windows that were glowing even in the daytime, with a wide red carpet rolled several hundred meters down to the street.
The loud commotion of thousands of people around him pushed him back into reality as he looked down at his clothing.
This was the fanciest he had ever dressed--a white tuxedo with black dress pants, a small black bowtie, and a blue magic book in his hands.
'I owe that suit-store guy more money than what's in my bank account... I can't afford to mess up.' With this sentence said in his head, Tear sucked in two lungs worth of air and took a large step forward...