Jack

The squiggles on the page don’t become any more legible when he squints at them. He doubles the effort, just in case, blurring them through lashes till they melt into completely cacographic ink stains. It does nothing but stoke the throb of fatigue beyond his eyes.

Jack pushes the scroll away with an exasperated sigh.

The invisible push of a ticking clock on his anxiety is an illusion. He knows it. But he can’t help the sense of urgentness he feels at another failed discovery. Every ‘day’ that passes is another opportunity lost and he’s starting to become overly aware of how they are adding up, like drops of water slipping out of the clenched fist of a dehydrated man.

His hand drops to his pocket, rests there. It’s a habit he’s taken up, seeking out the outline of the chalk portrait he keeps there like a touchstone. He never takes it out, not in public places where others might see. There is a selfish part of him that does not want the her beauty (sad caricature as it is compared to the real woman) bestowed to any eye in this realm but his. Still, it’s a grounding reassurance when the frustration wears his resolve too thin. He takes some small measure of comfort from her reminder and it steels his determination to continue. After all, he has nothing but time.

He runs a hand over the burn of his stubble and pulls the faded scroll back before him. This time he flips open the language key the librarian had suggested and renews his efforts, raking over the lines one at at time for anything that might make sense. Several of the symbols start to match up, and while he has no idea of the translation or what it does, he takes to phonetically mumbling what he thinks the written words might sound like. He’s butchering it, of course, muttering nonsense into the otherwise tomb-like silence of the room like a mad man. Perhaps that is what he’s become. Driven to such a state by a combination of boredom, a woman he cannot touch, and his own damned curiosity.

Some time later, he’s made something of progress, at least pairing text with the coordinating syllables in the codex. He takes a break, huffing, sits back to look at his own scribbled pronunciations. There is still no clear meaning, but the words have a rhythm now, a cadence he can hear when he repeats them into the quiet. It’s a start.

Suddenly the air ripples, stretches. And in the negative space there now hovers the shimmering outline of a younger man, waif-like and ghostly. He is both visible and felt, the pressure of the sudden appearance of strong new magic palpable in the room, like a weighted blanket. It is not a malevolent energy, and it is not the familiar welcoming tingle of Electra’s connection. Needless to say, Jack is more than confused about the sudden development of unknown apparitions immediately preceding ancient botched dictation.

Jack blinks at him, dark brow furrowed and mouth open.

“Oh,” is all he can initially say.

He is not processing at full capacity, stunned as he is. There is a guilty realization that he is perhaps the cause of this. He only has a brief reassuring thought that in all of his time spent on research, there has been no evidence to suggest demons are real and it is highly unlikely this spectre classifies as one. There are no minions of evil or shining servants of a holier power. There are only living and dead. And then a horrifying thought comes to Jack, casting the grey of his face a shade paler and thinner.

He glances down to the scroll and back up at the spectre. Down and then back up. He uncharacteristically swears.

“Aura’s tears, I haven’t….killed you, have I?”