The Invitation

It wasn’t thirty minutes later that Ryuuhei had finished reading the contents of Lingua Magi. He closed the book and laid it down on his lap. For a while, he said nothing. Then, in a moment of frustration, he shook his head in disbelief.

“......What the heck? Who writes a book with only one chapter in it?”

He got up from the sofa and gently wedged the book back into a vacant spot of the new shelf in the East Asian Wing.

“Guess the author was so tied up in writing a good opening that he forgot to write the actual story. Ugh, what a buzzkill,” Ryuuhei said to himself in dismay.

“Whatever. Time to go wash my face.”

When he came out of the bathroom, he saw the librarian talking to someone and made no hesitation in strutting right up to her.

“......Ryuuhei? What’s up?”

“Man, Lingua Magi was such a great book, alright,” he said in a dry, sardonic tone. “Almost all of it was blank.”

The librarian paused for a moment with a look of confusion.

“Lingua...Magi? What are you talking about?”

“Huh? You know...the one you helped me get from the top of the shelf. A black book.”

“Ryuuhei, I just got here. I had someone else fill in for me because I had errands to run earlier today.”

A look of horror tarnished Ryuuhei’s face. Had he hallucinated the entire exchange he remembered from earlier? —No. He couldn’t have.

“I-I, right! The book! I’ll show you. Come with me,” he stammered to the librarian.

After walking her over to the newly-installed shelf in the East Asian Wing, he scanned it carefully. —Gone. The book was gone! An empty space sat where it should have been.

“I.....I don’t understand,” he said as a chill ran down his spine.

The librarian looked at him for a moment, tilting her head slightly.

“Are you feeling alright? You must be tired or something, because you’re clearly not yourself right now.”

“Look, I know what I saw, okay?” Ryuuhei let out a deep breath and placed his left hand on his face, lightly gripping it. He closed his eyes for a while, as if to regain composure. “Listen, I......I’ve gotta go.”

Without saying another word, he ran out of the library as the doors swung shut behind him.

“He’s always been a strange one, but today was on a whole other scale,” the librarian muttered to the woman she was talking to as she watched the scene unfold.

Later that night, Ryuuhei sat on the edge of his bed, still shaken by the events that transpired earlier at the library. What was that book? And why did the librarian not remember handing it to him? If it wasn’t her who retrieved it atop that shelf, then who—or what—did?

Upon getting home from the library, he had resorted to playing video games to distract himself momentarily, but it was all for naught. Ever since sundown, Ryuuhei’s head had started to spin with thoughts of paranoia and suspicion. The fact that he lived alone only exacerbated his lingering discomfort.

Finally, the moment came when he succumbed to the fatigue that had built up in him that day and decided to turn in for the night. He switched off the lights in his bedroom and laid his head down onto the pillow.

“If you’re going to come for me, do your worst. I’m too tired for this crap,” he said weakly with a yawn. Before he knew it, he had nodded off successfully.

Then, in the dead of night, it happened.

Ryuuhei awoke to the sound of knocking on his apartment door. He jolted awake and could feel his body start to tense up. Someone had come, and he had a feeling that it was no coincidence, given the timing. Suddenly, a voice echoed faintly from the other side of the door.

“Ryuuhei-sama, are you there?”

It was a woman’s voice—gentle, yet somehow uncanny. The speaker was addressing him in Japanese.

“......Who are you? What do you want?,” he responded frantically.

“Do not be alarmed. I come bearing an invitation.”

“Invitation?”

“Yes. I am personnel of Lingua Magi.”

“Lingua Magi...,” Ryuuhei repeated after the woman faintly before suddenly springing to his feet. The dread he had been feeling had inexplicably vanished. Somehow, someway, he knew that the visitor was not here to harm him.

He unlocked the door and opened it. Outside stood a young woman in an ornate gown—no—a cloak of jet black and crimson. Its craftsmanship was unlike anything he had ever seen before—perfectly symmetric and adorned with a polish that suggested transcendental origin. The woman was equally as striking—her skin was a ghostly pale, juxtaposed kindly against the blackness of the night sky. She was holding something in her right hand.

“This is for you,” the woman said as she offered it toward Ryuuhei.

Puzzled, Ryuuhei took the item from her. It was a plain black card; one small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Ryuuhei’s eyes widened as he noticed the scarlet emblem that rested smack in the middle of it.

“This is......!”

“It’s the same emblem that was on that book I read at the library!,” thought Ryuuhei as flashbacks of events from hours earlier started to resurface in his mind.

Without warning, the woman began to speak again.

“Adair Boulevard.”

“Huh?”

“The old bus stop on Adair Boulevard. Tomorrow at twelve o’clock midnight, a vehicle will arrive there. Show the driver that card, and he will allow you to board.”

Ryuuhei looked at the woman with a troubled expression. He found himself hard-pressed for a response, given the abruptness of her proposal.

“Um, so here’s the thing. I would love to throw my hands up with all excitement and vigor and be like, ‘Okay, sis! I’ll be there at twelve!,’ but this is all kind of sudden, yeah?,” he jabbered. “I mean, put yourself in my shoes. What kind of person wouldn’t be at least a bit freaked out that someone they’d never seen before knew their name AND address—”

“Ryuuhei Sakazuki.”

“......See what I mean? You even know my last name somehow!”

“The dice has been cast. The rest is up to you,” the woman interjected, paying no heed to Ryuuhei’s frantic remark.

“Hey, wait a second here......”

Ryuuhei was desperate to find out more, but when next he blinked, the woman had already disappeared. His eyes darted around the vicinity—left, right, left, right—but she was nowhere to be found.

“......At least tell me whether or not your offer included one of those cloaks you had on. That thing was beyond aesthetic,” he whispered to himself with mild vexation.

The next day, all Ryuuhei could think about were the supernatural happenings he had encountered the day before.

As he sat alone at a window seat of a local cafe, he reached into his pocket and pulled something out. It was the black card with the emblem he received from the woman the previous night. He started at it for a while with a blank expression on his face.

“Lingua Magi...huh?”

After drinking down the last of his iced Thai bubble tea, savoring its sweet, distinctive taste, he stood up and leisurely exited the cafe.

Before he knew it, nighttime was upon him, and Ryuuhei knew he had a decision to make. He had put it off for the entire day, but it was now past eleven o’clock pm. If he was going to accept the woman’s offer, he had to start making his way down to Adair Boulevard’s bus stop soon.

As he laid on his bed, facing the ceiling, he pulled the card out again.

“Do I do it?,” he wondered as doubt began to wash over him. “What if it’s dangerous?”

“—No. All my life I’ve wished for something interesting. No use getting cold feet now. Besides—,” he continued. “I have no family—no one to beg me to stay.”

A slight grin formed on Ryuuhei’s face.

“I’ll do it,” he said as he started to throw essentials into his backpack in a frenzy. Money, clothes, snacks—Ryuuhei figured that was about all he needed to survive wherever he turned up—at least for the next few days.

After grabbing his cellphone from his bed, he exited his apartment and bolted down to Adair Boulevard on his trusty bike. Even peddling at full speed, it took him all of twenty minutes to reach the bus stop. It was just past eleven fifty when he arrived.

Ryuuhei waited and waited for what seemed like the longest ten minutes of his life, frequently checking the time on his phone. When at last the clock struck twelve, he eagerly looked up, but there was no vehicle in sight. Had he been pranked?

As he threw his hands up in dismay and was keen on returning home, he noticed something faint in the distance. —Two red dots. Something was quickly approaching. Ryuuhei gulped as he felt his heart start to race in both anticipation and fear.

“Uh oh. There’s no going back now,” he thought to himself.

It wasn’t until the machine was right upon him that he could make out what it was. The vehicle that pulled up to the bus stop was a large, modern SUV—so black that it seemed to utterly devour the light around it. Its headlights emanated a menacing, yet elegant red glow. Ryuuhei could hardly see the car, even as it rested mere feet away from his face.

As he approached the SUV, Ryuuhei saw the windows of the driver’s seat and passenger’s seat roll down. He squinted his eyes hard, but he could not catch a clear glimpse of the driver’s face.

After holding up the card the woman had given him the previous night, Ryuuhei suddenly heard a voice come from within the car.

“Ryuuhei-sama. We’ve been expecting you. Please, step inside.”

Once the voice subsided, the sound of the car’s locks undoing could be heard from inside, and the doors leading to its back seats opened automatically.

“Here goes nothing,” Ryuuhei said internally as he took a deep breath and nervously boarded the vehicle. Once he was inside, the doors quietly shut behind him.

No sooner had its doors closed than the vehicle began to move. Before long, it had accelerated to a blinding speed—gliding seamlessly—quietly, into the night.