CONTENT WARNING: Strong language and references to smoking. If these are triggers for anyone, I will gladly skip over them while reading aloud.
Context: This is the second half of a chapter I wrote for an urban fantasy story idea I had. It might be a little fragmented as a result.
“You were the best thing to ever happen to me.”
I swore I heard those words before somewhere. Or something like that. I shook my head and closed the book. I hoped reading one of her fairy tales would somehow soothe the intrusive thoughts about her rampaging through my head. I thought it would make me closer to her even though she wasn’t here. I was wrong. Of course I was wrong, that last part didn’t even make any sense! I shouldn’t have read that fairy tale. It only made her absence so much louder. Damn it all…
“Hey!”
“Huh?”
Oh, great, an actual adult; and the vice-principal no less. He stared down at me with his beady little eyes and his hands on his hips. His gaze observed every inch of my pale skin and every imperfection he perceived: the piercings in my ears and lip, my torn black clothing, and my greasy black hair that hung past my shoulders and swept out of my eyes in a small ponytail. Not to mention how I was sitting in this decrepit hallway smelling of tobacco behind the gymnasium, so far removed from the rest of the school.
“What are you doing here out of class?” demanded the vice-principal. I tapped the book.
“Just a bit of light reading.”
The vice-principal narrowed his eyes. It wasn’t a lie, but the thickness of the book begged to differ. Not to mention just how strange it looked. The vice-principal then glanced down, where several cigarette buds littered the floor.
“Then how do you explain these?” He kicked the cigs towards me.
“How should I know? I came here to read, not smoke.” I tapped the book again.
“Hmm.” The vice-principal rubbed his chin. “Get back to class,” he huffed and sauntered away.
I took that as my cue to ditch school. It wasn’t like my parents would care; they haven’t cared since I failed to get into Raphael’s Sports-Affiliated High School. Oh, for fuck's sake. I shook the memory out of my head. I had enough annoying thoughts rattling around in my brain; the last thing I needed was one more. I shoved the book into my backpack, zipped it up, and slung it over my shoulder. I walked beyond the gymnasium, where a flimsy wire fence stood between me and freedom. I leaped over the fence and right out of hell. Now the question was where I’d go next. The supermarket? That cheap pasta place? The ditch in the park to smoke some more?
“Jayce?”
I froze in my tracks. I knew that voice. I turned around, though my body felt like the second hand of a clock. The face I saw was a blast from the past so shocking it practically knocked the wind from my lungs. It’d been four years since I last saw him, so he’d done quite a bit of maturing. His once boyish face had become quite manly and his prominent freckles were now faded. His bangs were gone but his hair had lengthened and become curly. His eyes, large like a doe’s, were ever the same: curious and intellectual. “Rayne.” I uttered his name as if it were a whisper in the wind. He shuffled about awkwardly, putting his hand behind his head and swinging his leg back and forth. “It’s been a while.” Understatement of the century. I didn’t know what else to say.
“It-It’s good to see you, Jayce,” Rayne said.
“Y-Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “W-What are you doing all the way out here? Don’t you go to Saint Maria’s? Isn’t that all the way on the other side of the city?”
“It is. But I stayed home from school today.” I raised an eyebrow. Brainiac Rayne, skipping school? What was next, flying pigs? “I took the bus to get here.”
“Seriously? Jeezus, that must have taken forever. The public transportation here is dogshit.” I laughed and Rayne visibly winced—oh, right, back when he knew me, I wouldn’t get within ten feet of any swear word even if it was mild as “crap”—but cracked an awkward smile.
“Yeah, it was pretty awful, but I don’t have my driver’s license yet.” Rayne shook his head. “A-Anyway, that’s not what I’m here for.”
“Well, I wouldn’t expect you to come to this hellhole without a good reason.” I meant for it to be funny and was tempted to laugh but Rayne looked pained so I decided against it. “Lay it on me, then. What’s up?”
“It’s about Alice.”
At the mention of her name, I felt all the blood in my body go cold. I turned away from Rayne and pinched the bridge of my nose. I should have seen this one coming. She was the only connecting factor between the two of us, the only thing we had in common. Of course she’d play into this somehow.
“And what about Alice?” I asked curtly, still not facing Rayne.
“When was the last time you saw her?” Rayne questioned.
“…One week ago. Why?”
“One week ago… That was when she last posted on her social media.”
“You follow her on social media?”
“I— Yeah. I have been. Since, well, she first got social media.” Rayne bit his lip. “We-We haven’t been close but we’ve been in contact. Infrequently. I’ve had her phone number since middle school.”
Alice got a smartphone in junior high? I thought her parents didn’t want her to have one until high school? Well, if that was the case… Her birthday happened to fall on the same day as our graduation. The phone was probably an early present. I wouldn’t know. After all, that was right after I’d been rejected from Raphael’s. But Rayne apparently did. I didn’t realize they were still talking. Of course, there was no way for me to know that either.
“Oh.” I released a huff from my nose.
“And you haven’t seen her for one week?” Rayne pressed.
“Yeah, that’s what I told you!” I snapped. “She hasn’t texted me or called me or anything! Look, Rayne, what the hell are you getting at?”
“She hasn’t texted me either,” Rayne revealed. “Which is odd, because she was supposed to share her finished manuscript with me one week ago. Jayce, I think Alice has gone missing.”
“You think I don’t fucking know that!?” I whirled around and grabbed Rayne’s shirt. “Look, smart-ass, if this is some intellectual mind game, I’m not falling for it! I’m not playing!”
“I— Sorry,” Rayne gulped. “I mean, yeah, what else could it be? I just— Sorry. It was a stupid thing to say.” He paused. “Her mom’s in shambles.”
“No fucking shit,” I huffed, dropping Rayne. “Look, I don’t know any more than you apparently do. Why’d you come to me and not her family?”
“Because you were the last person she posted about on her social media.” Rayne bit his lip. “I figured… I figured you might know something more since the two of you were, y’know…” “Dating? Yeah, but only for two fucking weeks,” I scoffed. “I mean, I guess I started talking to her for a month before that but— Oh, whatever! I don’t know jack shit and the only thing she left me was a dumb book! And like hell that’s anything to go on.”
“A book? Can I see it?” Rayne inquired. I hesitated.
“…Sure, I guess.” I hoped I wouldn’t regret this.
I watched Rayne with a hawk eye as he took the heavy book, inspected it with a raised eyebrow, and then opened the cover. His eyes scanned the page at a rapid pace. As he turned the pages, his expression quickly changed from curiosity to bewilderment.
“Holy shit, this is the complete body of all of Alice’s works!” Rayne exclaimed. I raised an eyebrow. Since when did Rayne swear? Well, a lot can happen in four years. “I’ve read almost all of these! I didn’t know she hand-wrote all of this! Hold on, is this book—”
“Wait, you-you’ve read most of this before?” I blurted out. Rayne pursed his lips.
“…Yeah. I was usually the first—and only—person to read her writing. She’d give me her rough drafts to peer review for feedback. It’s been like that since middle school. It’s… It’s the only reason why we’ve still been in contact for this long.”
“Oh.” I didn’t realize their correspondence ran so deep.
“Is this the only thing Alice left you before she disappeared?” Rayne questioned.
“Yeah. I’ve been trying to read some of it. I haven’t gotten too far, though.” I reached my hand out and Rayne returned the book, though he continued to eye it suspiciously.
“I see.”
“You were hoping for more, weren’t you?” I grumbled.
“I mean, yeah, kinda, but…” Rayne sighed. “I was mostly hoping for a lead.”
“What, did you want to look for her yourself or something?”
“Well… Yes.”
“Rayne, that’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard and I know you’re supposed to be the smart one. Her parents have already called the police. The hell are we gonna do except wait?”
“Um, look for her too? Jayce, listen to me: Alice disappeared exactly one week ago from today. I know this because the night she disappeared, a bunch of fucking weirdos broke into my room, held me at swordpoint—fucking swordpoint!—and asked about something called the ‘Grimoire.’ A grimoire is a spellbook.” Rayne pointed at the book in my arms. “I think they were referring to that.”
“Are you insinuating my girlfriend was kidnapped by a bunch of sword-wielding nerds taking their DnD campaign way too seriously?” I barked out a breathy laugh. “Good joke, Rayne, maybe you ought to take a trip to the schizophrenic ward of the nearby mental hospital!”
“That was uncalled for,” Rayne said poignantly. “Besides, I have proof. The reason I wasn’t at school today? Because I just got released from the goddamn hospital after being fucking slashed!”
He lifted his shirt and I reeled. Graced across his stomach was a fresh line of red stitches and blue and purple bruising all over his skin. The wound was long but narrow; a knife couldn’t make a cut so lengthy. It had to be a really big knife or a…
“Oh my fucking god.” I swallowed back bile. “She was kidnapped. You’re saying my girlfriend was kidnapped. By guys with swords; like, medieval swords.”
“Exactly.” Rayne nodded and lowered his shirt.
“Who want this book, this Grimoire, which is the last memento I have of my girlfriend.”
“Probably.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I groaned. “Alright, fine, you’ve convinced me. This shit is too weird for me but I guess this stupid book is all we’ve got. So, where the hell do we even start?”