The Da Vinci Effect [On Hold]

Matte Blue

It was midnight. Leo was up late, unable to sleep. Thoughts were swirling in his mind. How could he sleep with such activity? What he disliked most about the inability was that he was stuck with said thoughts until he finally clocked out.
Leo hated his insomnia: the inability to fall or stay asleep. He wanted to escape from his reality, and he felt like sleep was the only thing that could help him do so.
      He sat in the middle of the floor, meditating on his rambunctious thoughts. Until, an annoyance showed itself. He found that his mind would not focus on anything but the color matte blue all of a sudden. He tried, and tried again, until he gave up. The color was stained to the insides of his eyelids, plastered to his mind, and coated onto his very being. What in the world is so important about matte blue?
      He huffed angrily, and stood up. He wanted this to stop. But stop it would not.
      He gasped as the matte blue turned black and a piercing pain hit him behind the eyes. The needling agony was enough to make him yelp, and just like that, it was gone. His body felt...tingly? No, it felt plagued. It felt very sick. He sat down slowly, trying to gather his wits.
      Slowly did they return, and when they showed themselves, Leo sucked in deep breaths. His fingertips buzzed. He looked down at them, unimpressed to see that it was just his nerves.
      This phenomenon made him wonder. What if he were like those magical kids in those Disney original tv shows. What if he could control things simply with a flick of his wrist?
      He laughed at himself, telling himself that it was a ridiculous thought. He stared at a bottle cap on his desk. One little try couldn't hurt? Could it?
      Leo stared at the cap, urging it to move. Nothing. He tried again, and still nothing.
      He felt ashamed of his behavior. Magic wasn't ever real, so why should it suddenly be? Just because he wanted it to? Although, it would have been cool...
       The book...The book. The book.
      As if Leo were scared out of his pants, he vaulted off his bed, and flung his arms around under his bed, trying to locate the ancient book. He smiled, almost insanely, as the palm of his hand slapped against the hard leather of the old book Master Splinter bestowed upon him. He pulled it out, and bounced back into his bed with it.
      Opening the front cover, he gasped as he found paper worms eating at the binding of the book, and squished any he could find. Great. His book had an infestation. He shook his head, chastising the worms, and continued through the book to the table of contents. He couldn't believe what he found.
      Either, someone was pulling a prank on him, or he was wrong about everything he ever believed.
      The Table of Contents held:
Introduction to Magic - Page 3-8
Basic Spells - Page 9-35
Intermediate Witchcraft - Page 36-85
Advanced Wizardry - Page 86-118
Magical Beasts - Page 119-142
Odd Botany - Page143-183
Black Magic and Curses - Page 184-226

      Leo's eyes stuck to the Black Magic bit. Wasn't that...evil? He shrugged, thinking nothing more of it and flipped to page 3.
      Time passed, and Leo found himself immersed in the book, on the last paragraph of the introduction when the doorknob turned. He tried to stuff the book under his pillow, but was too late. Raph tore it out of his hands, and looked at the cover.
      "Raph! Give it back!" Leo cried out, reaching for it desperately. Raph shoved him down, and glared at it.
      "Why are you reading this rubble? It's stupid, and so are you if you think magic is real!" Leo's eyes widened in terror as Raph pulled out a lighter, and held the bright orange flame under a corner of the book.
      For Leo, everything seemed to move in slow motion. The flame licked up the book, burning as if it were dry grass. Raph dropped it to the floor, and left Leo in tears.
      Leo was horrified as he knelt by the burning mess. It was already smoldering ash. Tears blurred his vision, and his hands shook. Sensei had this for years, decades even, and Leo managed to destroy it in a matter of seconds. He felt sick to his stomach.
      Once Leo could see through his tears, and wasn't gripped with nausea each time he moved, he collected an old Pringles can from the trash. He knocked the crumbs out, and scooped the remains of the book into it. He put the can in the bottom drawer of his nightstand along with a picture of him and his brothers when they were little. Now, he regretted looking at that picture because it gave him a sense of false hope that his jaded brothers could change.
      Miserable, he laid in bed and went over what he read from the book. Trying to savor any bit he could from the ancient book.
      "Anyone and anything can be influenced by magic. The trick is to get it to bend to your will. Magic is a wild beast, and to tame it truly takes patience, time, practice, and good intentions. See it through, and you can become a great wizard."