"...and lastly, we will be on a cruise that will tour us around Europe! We will visit the Eiffle Tower in France, the Berlin Wall in Germany, the Leaning Tower in Italy and a lot more!" a girl with straight black hair falling to an inch below her shoulders proudly read her essay ending with a snobbish grin towards a boy, noticeable of his short rust brown hair, sitting on the front seat nearest to the center aisle.
"Perfectly read Hannah! Obviously, you'd have a great summer so you don't need me to greet you." In a matter-of-fact manner, a male professor started clapping as he was sitting on his desk at the corner of the room, near the window. The other students followed almost instantly with their applause, as Hannah proudly bowed and elegantly walked to her seat in the third row. "Alright, now Mark, come on here and tell us how you will spend your summer."
"Well, I'm going to go to the market and help my poor mother sell some smelly fish!" A boy of large build with spiked hairstyle sitting at the back row shouted in a sarcastic manner causing most of the students in the classroom to laugh.
"Alright, that's enough laughing! Settle down now, settle down!" The teacher in front repeatedly hit his desk with a long wooden ruler, which was previously lying beside him on his desk, to catch the class' attention. "And that's great Alvin! You just earned a free ticket to the principal's office! And oh, you don't have to wait too long because the show's going to start immediately after class!" His tone shifted from being sarcastic to a serious and pissed off tone.
The class gradually stopped laughing which made their teacher abruptly smile then faced the boy in the front row who seemed to be bowing down in embarrassment. Alvin, who seemed to have been embarrassed as well, bowed down with a fierce look on his face and a clenched fist.
"Ok now Mark, go on and impress us with your summer plans!" The professor demanded, making Mark stand up, with his legs shaking a bit then turned to face his classmates still bowing. His freckled face blushed in shyness as the face of most students turned towards him. He stood in a crooked posture, worsening his short stature. "Please move to the center young man, and chin up so we can all see your handsome face!" His teacher encouraged him as he walked towards the center, in line with the teacher's desk.
Mark, the one sitting on the front row to whom Hanna gave her sarcastic grin, raised his pad to the level of his chest, revealing tanned hands with obvious course textures. The boy took one deep breath, then started reading. "Uhmmm...this summer..." he read in a soft, stuttering voice. "...I will go to the..." His speech was abruptly stopped by the sound of the school bell signifying the end of class as well as the school year.
"Well, I'm sure you'd all have a great summer ahead of you! Now hand over your essays and have fun on your vacation everyone!" Before he could even end his sentence, the students started to stand from their seats then lined up in front of him.
"Goodbye, Mr. Goodwick! See you next school year!" The class recited in a harmonic choir as they hurriedly walked to the line.
"You'd be under another teacher at that time, but yeah I'll be seeing all of you in the school grounds for sure!" Mr. Goodwick stood up reaching for his students' papers as each of the class excitedly got out of the room. "And oh Alvin, stay put for a while. I'm going to accompany you to the principal's office." Alvin got back to his seat giving a fierce look towards Mark who nervously handed his paper to the teacher and hurriedly got out of the room.
Mark stopped for a few minutes the moment he got out of the school gate. He took a deep breath and then exhaled, letting off a relieved sigh, as if he just escaped from a scary pursuer.
He smiled to himself, seemingly forgetting the embarrassment he went through earlier. He then wore a determined look on his face, positioned himself like a track n' field athlete in starting position. "Ready, set..." He whispered, ignoring the mocking gazes of students, exiting the school grounds. "...and go!" He then ran off as if in a race, avoiding people along the way.
He scampered through the city, across a bridge, through narrow alleys, made a lot of turns, pausing for a moment in front of a church, then off again through a park, and stopping in front of a public library.
He lowered his upper body, resting his hands on his squatted legs. He panted, catching his breath from the long run. Mark then dried himself of sweat using a face towel from his pocket then went into the library.
"Good afternoon Ms. Rotcher." He whispered to a lady sitting behind the desk near the library's entrance.
The lady, having the face of a young lass in her early twenties, smiled at him, mouthing the same greeting, as he carefully walked toward the "Myths and Legends" section. His path was definite as if he had walked there before. There were few people in the library, perhaps less than twenty, and none of them were in the area he was in.
He stopped in front of the first bookshelf upon reaching the "Myths and Legends" section. He looked upon a book, which he seemed to have instantly seen the moment he faced the bookshelf. He then reached for it at the 3rd layer of the shelf and immediately went back to Ms. Rotcher.
"May I borrow this book, ma'am?" He courteously asked in a cheerful yet soft voice.
Ms. Rotcher reached for the book from Mark's hand after brushing her short dark brown wavy hair just above her right ear. She then opened it to the last page, getting a library card. "Yes of course honey, but you know there are thousands of other interesting books here aside from this one. Well, if you know what I mean." She remarked as she handed Mark the library card to sign on.
"Sure, I'll try to read some of them as well. Perhaps some other time this year." Mark whispered with uncertainty as he signed on a card that seemed to have been filled with his signature several times. He got his ID card from its lanyard and clipped it with the library card then handed them over to Ms. Rotcher
"You see, 124 times borrowing that book might be too much. But well, if that book's really that interesting to you..." She noticed that Mark isn't showing interest in what she is saying. Instead, his excited eyes were fixed on the book he was borrowing. "...alright I will say no more." She forced a smile with small hints of a puzzled look as she got the library card from Mark then placed it inside a steel cabinet.
"Thanks, Ms. Rotcher!" He excitedly placed the book inside the bag and ran toward the library's main door.
"Oh don't forget to return it after three days! You wouldn't want to pay the fine for delayed return." Her voice got a bit louder, attracting the attention of most people inside the library.
"I will Ms. Rotcher!" He quickly ran outside with a noticeable mood of gladness in his face.
He finally arrived in a slum area near a river, located at the far edge of the city. He entered a house made of scrap plywood which serves as the walls, with the top part of the house covered by tarpaulin canvases and rice sacks that are sewn together, serving as the roof. The sun was already low on the western horizon and could be seen across the river, resembling a golden disk illuminating the sky and land around it with its golden rays.
"I'm home, mom!" Mark greeted though no one seemed to be around. 'She might still be in the market' He thought while climbing a ladder to reach a small room, with a space similar to a taxi's space inside, with a height just enough for the boy to stand straight without his head touching the ceiling. He quickly placed his bag on one corner of the room and without changing his school uniform; he got the book out of it, sat on the floor of the room with his legs crossed then started reading.
The book contained the story of an old empire named Hominum and its war against the orc horde. For some reason that he couldn't explain, he was particularly fascinated by the battlemages who were able to conjure demons. He had read the book a couple of times and as a matter of fact, he had already memorized the different class of demons written in an index near the end of the book.
'I wish I could summon a demon as well to keep me company and fight those bullies!' He has always longed to be a battlemage similar to those in the book. He particularly took interest in a Peryton, that he dreamed of flying him to places similar to where his classmate Hannah had gone and even farther. His next choice was a Canid that he would use to scare off the bullies in their place and at school and a cute Scarab to simply keep as a pet.
This time around, he was not really reading the story contents but chose to gaze upon the list of demons in the index section of the book. The book kept on mesmerizing him as he viewed the black and white sketch of each demon followed by a paragraph of two or more, describing each of them. He read, as if the book was a pet shop's advertisement flyer, letting him choose a demon pet of his own.
He turned to the last page but as he was about to read the last list of demons, he seemed to touch something peculiar inside the book's back cover. He laid the book on the floor still touching the back on the book feeling something embossed near the lower part of it. It seemed to be a thin rectangular paper of some sort, sandwiched in a diagonal position inside the endpaper, glued to the back cover. At first, he decided to ignore whatever that was but as curiosity hit him, he couldn't seem to fight the urge of taking a look.
Mark took a deep breath as he climbed down the ladder and reached for a paring knife in the kitchen. He quickly got back up to his room and onto the book lying on the floor. He carefully peeled the end cover, trying his best not to cut the paper itself so he could glue it back later and conceal what he had done. As he cut the adhesive on the paper, he saw a piece of sandy brown leather that seemed to be centuries or even millennia in age. He tried to pull the leather piece but it seemed to have been glued inside so he decided to continue on skinning the back cover till the leather piece had been fully revealed.
Some archaic symbols or perhaps an old alphabet was drawn on the leather. The symbols had almost faded, but were still readable, thanks to some sort of glossy material that could have perhaps preserved the leather. He then immediately thought of how the battlemages in the book transferred their demons to their children. "Wait, could this leather piece be imbued with a demon that I can summon?" A bit skeptical but at the same time excited with a hope that the myth he had dreamed of experiencing were true all along.
His excitement had been replaced with a deep pondering mood as he had no idea what the symbols represented or how to read them. 'Perhaps I will find something in the library!' He put the book back in his bag, changed his clothes to a casual one, and climbed down the ladder.
"Good evening Mark! Help me with my things here." He hid his disappointment upon seeing her mother enter the door carrying two plastic bags filled with different sorts of vegetables. He reached for one plastic bag with his left hand and with his right hand, he gently got the left hand of her mother, bowed down a bit, and placed her mother's hand on his forehead as a sign of respect.
'Well the library will have to wait till tomorrow'
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Please note that this is a fanfic inspired by the book Summoner by TaranMatharu
You may check out his works by searching for Summoner: The Novice and Summoner: Origins. I'm a hundred percent sure you'd be fascinated by his work.
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This story will be regularly updated every Thursday.
BTW, the media coverage of is chapter is a photo of my childhood. Please bear with that for a while and I promise to put story related artworks next time.