Ominous Omen

Madness is a matter of perspective. To your world, you may seem mad, but from your viewpoint, the world appears mad in return.

Ominous Omen

"Hey," I greeted the cold stone.

I put down the alcohol I brought with me and sat.

"Everybody's been nagging me," I began quietly, "They haven't let up since the party. I'm sick of all this fancy friend-making."

I sighed. "Even Mose has started following me. You know, Misfortune Mose."

I laughed a few dry chuckles. "I'm sure that as uncomfortable as I am, you'd find the situation funny."

"I brought you something," I said suddenly. "Cherry-flavoured vodka. It's so sweet I couldn't stomach it, but I'm sure you'd love it."

I remained silent for a minute.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered to the wind. "I'm so sorry you can't be here with me."

I felt like Joe deserved to be here more than I did.

I spilled the reddish alcohol on the grass around the gravestone. The dry earth sucked it in greedily. It looked a little like spilled blood, but not. It was too dilute.

After that, I just sat in silence. I have no idea how long it was before I had company. But it didn't matter.

Coffee sat down next to me in silence. Actually, we met there most of the time. Perhaps because of the Halloween party, we were both a little more somber than usual.

"Why do you smell like alcohol?" asked Coffee, almost accusingly.

With a dry half-smile, I held up the empty vodka bottle. She looked at me, shocked.

"You didn't drink it all sitting here by yourself, did you?"

I shook my head. What was she thinking?

"I mean, it's okay..." she added quickly, almost defensively, "I mean, no, it's not okay but everyone has problems."

I sighed. I held the bottle closer so she could see the label better.

"Hm, I didn't think you had a sweet tooth."

"Because I don't," I said. "Joe did."

Coffee's eyes sparkled with understanding. After that, we just remained silent.

Alex arrived shortly afterwards. He gave us both some pictures from the Halloween party. I just sighed. I didn't necessarily want Joe to see me like that in the afterlife.

Anyway, I got out my lighter and lit the first picture. I held it in my hand for a while longer and looked at the grinning, heavily intoxicated figure in it, who looked deceptively like me. Finally, I dropped it into the bowl to burn to ashes.

My first picture was followed by Coffee's own, in which he looked rather uncomfortable in our company, yet smiling slightly. Many-many pictures followed the first two, and we watched silently as the flames consumed the smiling figures.

(...)

The real disaster was yet to come. Until, say, 5:30 the next morning. When I woke up and went to open the blinds, I noticed a message written on the cold, ice-blue glass. From the inside.

I searched the apartment, but I couldn't find a single soul. I made out of the house because I felt like drowning.

At school, when I took out my book and opened it, the same message was written on the page. When I turned another page, the letters appeared before my eyes scribbled on the edge of the page. I slammed my book shut and refused to open it. Seriously, it gave me the creeps.

When I opened my exercise book in English, the message was there again. Yet the scariest part was when I got a text message during the break. There was no sender, so I deleted it without opening it. Another message, then another, and another. My phone then started beeping, constantly receiving messages. Same message, no sender.

To finally silence it, I took out the battery. My phone lit up anyway, flashing the same ghostly message. That was the moment, I ran out of school feeling like I was being chased down the corridor by a horde of mountain trolls.

Rolo was sitting alone. He always sat alone. It didn't seem to bother him, maybe he was used to people not liking him. At least, his classmates, I think the teachers liked him very much.

In any case, Rolo did not fit in with the average students in any respect. First of all, he was not human — which, let's admit it, is a significant difference. Besides, as a consequence, he was not particularly fond of humans.

Secondly, he was the shortest. Not that he wasn't short among his peers, but he stood out even more because he was barely a hundred and sixty centimeters tall — at least, most of the time, when asked, he would give the number one hundred and sixty, and I would always calculate to myself that it was a generously rounded measurement.

The most striking difference was his age: he was only fifteen and the youngest in his class — I think this was the main reason for the dislike experienced from his peers. The disgusting yellow-green demon of envy always stared down at him incessantly from the eyes that strayed towards him.

I can't really say that Rolo cared. Maybe he accepted it, maybe he just didn't care. In any case, it made people even angrier. After all, people find it hard to take defeat, especially when they feel their opponent has won by an unfair margin and is even cocky about it.

Rolo never tried to be normal. Perhaps it would have been too much of a strain to pretend to be listening all the time, or to write papers worse, or to give wrong answers. Perhaps it was easier to stare aimlessly out of the window and scribble down the right answer than to wonder how he could come up with the wrong one. But it could also be that Rolo really enjoyed his superiority. Perhaps he was trying to prove his worth to himself by these small successes.

In any case, he watched in silent solitude as the clouds moved slowly across the sky that day, until the teacher spoke his name for the third time, now at a volume loud enough to reach the boy's dreamy consciousness. Rolo raised his eyes to him, almost irritatingly slowly, and the teacher, seeing his bored face, repeated the question:

"We know the following about the first three elements of an arithmetic sequence: the first element is a two-digit number, the second element is obtained by reversing the digits of the first, and the third element is obtained by putting a zero between the digits of the first..."

The teacher had barely finished the question before Rolo had the answer.

"Sixteen, sixty-one, one hundred and sixteen," he said.

"Can you write the solution on the board?"

"But it's the right solution, isn't it?" the boy frowned.

"No doubt," nodded the teacher reluctantly, "But no one in the class knows how you worked it out except you."

Rolo stood up because although he was an excellent student and undeniably a genius, the strict maths teacher didn't seem to care.

I stormed into the room as if Satan himself had been chasing me. In an instant, I straightened my features and my posture out and ran my gaze over the students — instantly finding the emerald eyes.

Rolo was stuck somewhere between sitting and standing when he saw me.

I turned to the teacher wearing my most charming smile.

"I apologize for the intrusion," I said graciously, "I'm Rolo's brother, I'm looking for him on urgent business."

"Really?" the teacher thought for a moment.

He probably already had a snappy retort on the tip of his tongue.

"May I talk with him for a few minutes?" I added quickly, and as I did so, I drilled my eyes deep into his, hypnotizing him like a snake hypnotizing its prey. Or a snake charmer a snake. It's a matter of perception.

In the end, he nodded briefly, didn't ask any questions, simply turned back to the board and began to write — to everyone's utter astonishment. Rolo was a little surprised, but soon got over it and seemed to show some willingness to get up and walk out of the classroom before the end of time arrived.

I held the phone out to him and he snatched it out of my hand.

"You speak Italian, don't you?" I asked.

"What's going on here?" he demanded, "It's not normal for someone to receive messages from the Mirrorworld! What have you got yourself into now?!"

I wondered. "I don't know..."

"What do you mean you don't know?!" the kid snapped again.

"They were just dreams, Rolo, nothing more. Simple, innocent dreams."

Rolo's eyes widened. Suddenly he understood.

"You must break off all contact with him!" he ordered uncompromisingly.

"Well, I think it's done already," I shrugged, "I haven't had a dream for weeks."

Rolo was suddenly speechless, his face flushed with anger.

"You're not taking this seriously at all!" he shouted, "You don't understand anything! Seriously, you don't understand the danger you're playing with!"

"Then explain it to me so I can understand it too!" I retorted.

Suddenly, he stopped. His anger seemed to have subsided, but only because he was thinking about something. Probably what to tell and what to keep to himself.

"The Mirrorworld is also called Purgatory," he said, "Those who inhabit that world have all committed some sin. They serve their time as Wraiths and if the necromancers think they deserve it, they are put to the test."

"That is why they bring the Wraith into this world... and they all want to get out."

Rolo nodded. "The necromancers are actually judges, they decide whether a soul is worthy of rebirth or must be imprisoned for good."

"But one thing you must never forget, Shay," he continued ominously, "There are those in this world who are forever imprisoned, who have committed unforgivable sins."

Although Rolo said so, I still didn't think Lordling was bad.

The kid thought for a moment. "I'm worried."

I raised my eyebrows questioningly.

"If that Wraith has the power to pull you through without the summoning of a necromancer..." he paused for a moment as he bored his emeralds into my eyes, "Then he can probably leave the Mirrorworld at will himself."

With that, he stepped to the door of the classroom, but before entering, he glanced back at me one last time.

"I hope we are not in the middle of an orbital disaster," he paused for a moment as he stared at the door handle.

He said the last three words so softly that a human would not have been able to make them out. His words were softer than a whisper as if he was afraid that if he said them something terrible would happen. Then he entered, leaving me alone in the deserted corridor. For a moment I merely stood there, then I started to walk. As I walked, I repeated the message to myself.

"Look for the regalia."