Bad Magic Ch. 01

"Pick up, you dumb fucking jock" I growled as I stared at my phone.

Where could he be? He never turned off his stupid phone, It was always glued to his big stupid hand.

What about Jen? Wait, no, she'd mumbled something about going out of town this weekend, so she was a no go.

Great, I thought, just great. That meant that Jake was now in sole possession of the only set of keys that could unlock the front door to the house we all rented.

I'd lost mine. I had no idea where, or when, nor had I had any success in retracing my steps. With my luck, they were at the bottom of a gutter, rusting.

My only hope now was to find Jake. I'd already spent the better part of the afternoon searching all of his usual haunts; the gym, the university pub, the varsity team's gym, the practice fields, and turned up empty handed.

I'd considered calling our landlord, but dreaded the idea of losing my security deposit. The loss would decimate my already feeble student budget. No, better to borrow his keys, copy them, and pretend that this embarrassing event had never happened... if I could find him.

Think like a dump truck, I thought. If I had the mental fortitude of a pile of bricks, where would I be?

I looked around, searching for any clues among the wandering university students, then it occurred to me, where was the one place I'd never think to look? The answer was obvious. Where was any student who'd put off their entire academic year till the last possible second hanging out at?

I pocketed my phone and sped across the campus, zeroing in on the one place I knew he'd be - the library. And not any old library, oh no, but the old antiquities library on the edge of campus.

I'd never paid much attention to which courses he was enrolled in. He had a sports scholarship, a magic ticket that allowed him to coast over all the academic hurtles as long as he continued to "throw ball good." All he had to do was pass the bare minimum requirements, one of which, as I vaguely recalled, involved a cake-walk course through ancient Greek history.

I remember he'd been fixated on the legend of Medusa, for all the wrong reasons.

"Wouldn't it have make more sense for her boobs to turn you into stone instead of her snake hair?" He'd asked me once, while thumbing threw his phone, his feet, still in his dirty sneakers, thrown up on my coffee table.

I'd been passing between the kitchen to my small room, hoping to avoid that type of question.

"Hmmm... I suppose, sure?" I'd quickly blurted out and scurried away.

It had been one of the few conversations we'd had and that suited me just fine. If I could have afforded a single apartment, even if it had cost me a kidney, I would have gladly forked it over.

Sadly though, it was not to be, so, I was forced to make the best of a bad situation.

Where was the antiquities library again? the east side of the university campus? I tried to picture the colorful paper map they'd handed out to all the freshman with the miniature illustrations of each building. Even with it as a guide, you often got lost, wandering among the old gray stone buildings. I'd never been inside that particular library, nor needed too, all my courses had been purely utilitarian, crunching hard numbers. I was used to the type of math that would melt the brain of the average jock and send them cowering under the team's bleachers.

I turned a corner and - success, I'd found it. It was tiny in comparison to the other faculty buildings, tucked away in between two modern juggernauts of steel and glass. A weathered sidewalk led to three stone steps and a pair of large oak doors. They were open. I passed threw them into a marble lobby. It was vacant, the only signs of life; a ceiling fan spinning lazily above. It felt strange standing in a campus building without air conditioning, I wasn't even aware there were still any. All of my classes were in vacuum sealed capsules, the desks arranged in perfect, tight rows under a regiment of pale florescent lights. I'd sit, with a blank expression painted on my face and absorb the information thrown at me by my professors. Coffee had become my dominate food group and was often the only thing preventing me from slipping off into a coma.

I looked around the empty hallway. I highly doubted they used this old building for any classes. There were, what looked like small offices, behind thin doors with tinted white class. I'd discovered early on in my freshman year, that there wasn't often anything that exciting behind closed doors in the university. Nine out of ten times, it was full of stacks of old books, cardboard boxes, and a disillusioned looking teaching assistant.

I followed a series of painted arrows that pointed towards the library. They lead me to a spiral staircase that snaked it's way down into the murky depths. I descended, for what felt like several floors, twisting like a corkscrew until I reached the bottom. The air was thicker, cooler, with the faint smell of wet cardboard. It was dimly lit by a few stray light bulbs hung from the ceiling that cast long shadows like knives across the rows upon rows of bookcases.

The organization was chaotic. What might have been a coherent numbering system had all but deteriorated ages ago. The books that did still have an assigned numerical values appeared in a random order and were greatly outnumbered by those that had no numbers at all.

How was this of any us to anyone? I thought. If it was even used. I still hadn't seen a single person since I'd walked into the old building. Where were all the the students? Had all of the universities resources successfully been navigated online. Was this library nothing more than a relic... or worse, a tomb?

Had my roommate been better oriented at using a computer, he might have been able to avoid all this cumbersome "research" and simply flipped threw his phone, found a couple of quick snippets of information and copy and pasted them into a word document. Though, I doubted the idea had even occurred to him. So, I pressed on, venturing further into the maze... and a maze it was.

The narrow corridors were like tunnels borrowed through dirt, often twisting and turning in random directions. As I went deeper, I lost all sense of direction, my natural compass, disrupted. Don't panic, I thought. No one has starved to death in one of the universities libraries... yet.

Strange, I thought, is that a... it was, a black iron gate intended to bar my way. it was open, the remains of the lock scattered on the floor. It didn't appear to be forcibly removed, but what did I know about break and entering? It may have eroded naturally, or a rat with a fetish for iron may have gnawed it off.

As I passed through it, I noticed a small sign with faded letters. I felt a shiver crawl up my spine as a pieced the word together - prohibited.

I proceeded with caution.

The appearance of the books started to change dramatically as I continued. There were massive anthologies, bound in what looked like the rough hides of a large animal, I saw scrolls, actual scrolls, and letters tied and sealed with wax.

What was in those books, and why were they prohibited?

My curiosity tempted me to look, but I hesitated. Whatever was in them was probably prohibited for a good reason. I'd already been exposed to enough strange things on the internet to error on the side of caution. Who knew, there could be some hidden secret, a terrible truth that could tear back the veil of reality and leave me a drooling quivering mess.

I kept my distance. Wait... was that a voice I heard? I stopped to listen, perking my ears up like an antennae. I heard it again, faint, in the distance. Yes, it was a voice and one I recognized - my roommate. It was Jake.

I stalked it like a rabbit, my nose to the ground. I couldn't make out what he was saying, his voice was filtered threw the thick wooden bookcases, but I was certain it was him.

I was close, with in striking distance when I hit a wall... literally, a stone wall.

It was punctured, a hole the size of a small car punched threw it. Debris was scattered on the floor. It had been covered, boarded up with plywood, then torn apart. Who would do such a thing and why?

I pulled out my phone, activated the light and peered in. The rock appeared old, naturally formed. It had been gouged out, a flight of stone slabs descended into darkness.

I ducked down and stepped in. I used the wall for support, navigating one step at a time. Who ever was in charge of campus safety should be fired immediately, where were the hand rails?

I heard his voice again, louder, echoing off the stone walls.

"Iguana sil bo... borona"

Wait, what had he just said? that couldn't be right.

There was a faint light casting an eerie green glow at the bottom of the jagged steps. I reached it, turned a corner and saw him. He was seated at a large wooden circular table, surrounded by stacks of books. The room felt like a crypt. It was uncomfortably small. Deep pockets were carved out of the wall, crammed with books, scrolls and an assortment of strange objects. Was that a human skull I saw, was it real?

I felt an impending sense of dread. I was trespassing. I half expected to feel a strong hand grip me by the shoulder, turn, and see the flash of metal and an officer's uniform.

He hadn't noticed me as I entered. He was focused on a large book open in front of him. His features? easy to describe. If he ever wandered off, and I had to do a quick sketch for a lost poster, I'd just search the internet for "all-star action figure" and copy the first image that popped up.

"Orga.. far basil" he said.

None of which made any sense to me. Were the words to difficult, to big? Was he trying to sound them out?

Who cares, I thought. I'm here for one purpose, and one purpose only: get his keys and get the hell out of here, this place gave me the creeps.

"Hi... Jake" I said in a voice I reserved for small pets and the elderly. "Wha' cha' doing?"

He looked up and stared at me as if I was speaking to him from two separate heads.

"Oh... Hi, what's up?" he asked.

What's up... what's up? are you serious? I thought behind my well practiced expression. I've spent the entire afternoon trying to find you, that's what's up. Why is your stupid phone off, how's that for what's up?

None of which I said.

"You know, not much, ah, you wouldn't mind if I borrowed your.."

"You don't know how to read Greek do you?" he asked.

"What?... no, why?" I replied.

He looked disappointed. "It's these dumb books" he said as he looked down. "I can't make any sense out of them. And I was so close too."

"What are you studying?"

No... no, wrong question, I thought. Just pull the ripcord, get the keys and escape this awkward conversation.

"Greek history." he replied.

I looked around, spotted a jar full of a thick blue liquid and the silhouette of what might have been an eye staring back at me.

"Are you sure you're in the right section?" I asked.

"I... I think so. The librarian's assistant was very helpful."

What librarian's assistant? I thought. Wait, no, don't get sucked in, it's not important. Stay on target - get the keys.

"Well, I don't want to interrupt you. Also, unrelated, but a funny story, you won't believe this, but I lost my..."

"Like this, does this make any sense to you" he said, cutting me off and pushed the book towards me.

I stepped forward and looked down. Even upside down, of what little I knew of the Greek language, I knew it wasn't Greek.

He pulled the book back and started to read.

"Boyolawn pur uim ses panla ray!" he said. "Doesn't that sound ridicul..."

Bam...

What happened next is beyond my capabilities to describe in words. It would be like standing under an atomic bomb and being asked to look up and describe the shape of the cloud after it detonated.

What I do remember is him speaking, then abrupt chaos. There was a light, a white light, fierce, blinding. Every nerve in my body screamed in agony and then... nothing. I have no memory of falling, but fall, I did, because that is where I woke up, on the ground, staring at the leg of a wooden table.

I tried to pull myself up. The room was spinning like an old carnival ride clinging desperately to one last rusted hinge.

"Are you... are you ok?" I heard Jake say, his voice blasting in my head like two loudspeakers pressed against my head.

Ok... Ok? I thought. No, not Ok, I'm no where near Ok.

I tried to focus, find Jake among the swirling madness. I reset, and sat up. My weight felt redistributed. Why was my chest pulling me down like an anchor?

"What... what happened?" a voice asked. It wasn't mine, but I appreciated it speaking on my behalf. It was exactly what I had intended to say. I looked up and saw Jake towering over me. He was pale, frightened. He looked like he'd just knocked over a priceless relic at a museum and was now on the hook to replace it.

I felt a wisp of hair fall over my eyes and brushed it away, which was odd since I didn't have long hair.

"I lost my keys" the voice blurted out.

You too? I thought, what a strange coincidence.

"I need to borrow yours"

Jen, was that Jen? How had I missed her, was she hiding in one of the corners? No wait, it wasn't her voice. It was softer, sweeter.

"Ah... sure dude, I mean... ah..."

I sat up, rocking like a bell. My shirt felt uncomfortably tight around my chest, like it had shrunk. I reached up, ready to pull it loose. What I discovered, was the last thing I expected to find. They were soft, round, paired and they were mine... breasts. There was no doubt in my mind, even with my limited experience, I knew a pair of breasts when I felt them - the hands never forget.

"What... what the hell did you do to me" I heard the voice scream.

I looked up and Jake was holding my phone. Had I dropped it? I took it and pulled it up to my face, and stared at it's fractured glass screen. I saw a face, the face of a girl, her features were delicate, petite, her thin eyebrows hovering above eyes the color of a meteor shower, her pouty lips glistened like a candy coated apple.

It was a stupid filter, it had to be, I thought. But I'd never installed one, nor could my old phone even support them. No, as I stared at the screen I came to terrifying realization. The girl I was staring at... it was... it was me.