Working With Divine Magic

“Okay so how do we get past the guard?” Lottie whispered to Bryson.

Bryson looked over to her as if she had just grown two heads, “Frost, they work for my family.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Quickly brushing past the two Viola strode towards the guard, “Clear out.” Very quickly the guard heeded her order and left the hallway.

“Come on.” Viola beckoned the group as she entered Sable’s room.

“You sure no one’s going to enter?” Bryson asked.

“Yeah, father isn’t due back until around six and the doctors are leaving her here to rest.”

The pixie fluttered her way over to Sable and seemed to be studying her. The pixie flew up and down Sable, circling around a few times.

“This… is peculiar.” The pixie muttered.

“What is it? What do you see?” Primrose asked.

“I can see the spell.” The pixie said.

“How? I don’t see anything.” Bryson asked.

“You can’t. It was made for me.” The pixie said brows furrowed as she tried to figure out why.

“Come again?”

“This isn’t a normal curse. It’s been made so that I can see it. Everything looks like it was made for me to see.” The pixie said as she was completely lost as for the reason of this.

“Someone set this up to happen then.” Florence said.

“Why would Afa do that?” Viola asked.

“It’s not Afa. I thought it was, but this wouldn’t make any sense if it was, the spell isn’t like her… I think this is Hallow.” The pixie said in astonishment.

“That name again, who is he?” Bryson asked.

“We’re not quite sure honestly. He’s some sort of god from an unknown realm.” Primrose said, “He works with Afa to achieve some end.”

“Which makes a lot of sense now.” The pixie said.

“Why?” Bryson asked.

“Afa only got her position recently. She lacks the authority to do what she wants. Something this extreme would’ve got her in trouble. Hallow would be the one to do more difficult tasks. Like the curse.” The pixie said.

“But why would he let you be able to see what he did?” Lila asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What can you gather from it?” Florence asked.

“Uh… let’s see… well, divine pixie dust would cure her.” The pixie said before blinking a couple times, “Huh.” She breathed out as she extended her arms out. From her palms a magic circle appeared.

The translucent sigils in the circle danced around, spinning, twirling, and changing. Bryson tried his best to get a good look at what was on the circle, however from his angle and the small size of the circle he had no luck.

“There’s a message.” The pixie said.

“A message?” Primrose asked as it was her turn to be confused.

“Yeah, some type of message.”

“Can you play?” Viola asked.

“Yes. Here.” The pixie said as the circle shifted around, the room went black.

Bryson blinked in surprise. Looking around he couldn’t see a thing. In fact, it felt like he wasn’t even in the same room anymore. It felt like he was a great black void. The same void he was in when he was sent there by that entity all those years ago.

“What the… Viola! Marsh! Frost!” Bryson called out. No reply came to him. Bryson frantically looked about, “Anyone! Where am I!” Bryson shouted as he ran in a direction. Only to find that he felt as though he was running in the place.

As Bryson continued to look around lost, something in his peripheral caught his attention, looking towards them, he saw them. Two glowing pure white eyes. It was different from his, they were shaped to fit an animal. A growl emitted from it.

While the eyes were so bright that they were difficult to look at, no light was reflected on any surface. Bryson was unable to make out any form. It was as if the eyes absorbed all the light in world and kept it all concentrated within those two tiny orbs.

But sight or not, Bryson could still hear, and he heard the growl get louder, saw the eyes grow bigger as the thing before him move closer. As Bryson moved back, it only seemed that the creature was getting closer and closer.

As Bryson took another backwards step, it felt as if he stepped on something soft. Tearing his eyes away from the eyes of the unknown mass before him for a moment he looked down. Only to find himself standing on a piece of carpet.

“What?” Bryson said dumbfounded. It wasn’t just any carpet he stepped on. It was the same carpet in his bedroom.

“What?” Bryson repeated again as he looked down on the floor that was now carpet and floorboards of his room. Looking back up, he no longer saw two glowing eyes, but his bed.

“What?” Bryson said now sounding like a broken record. The room shook for a second before returning to normal.

I’ll let you keep the pixie. But mess up again and I’ll be seeing you soon. A voice echoed out inside Bryson’s head. The voice was malicious and sent a chill through his back. The light in his room flickered for a moment and the voice was gone.

Bryson quietly stood in his room in confused silence. A sudden knock on the door caused Bryson to jump back. He stared at the door with caution as he heard it start to open. Out popped the head of… himself with glowing eyes.

“Hello!” The other him greeted with a friendly smile as he moved into the room, shutting the door behind him, “Your brain’s a bit weird you know that?”

Bryson simply stared at his glowing-eyed mirrored self completely dumbfounded.

“I’ll give you a moment to process.” Other Bryson said moving around Bryson and plopping onto the bed.

“Is this inside my head?” Bryson finally said after several more moments of silence.

“Yep.” The other Bryson said as he made himself comfortable.

“So you’re a figment of my imagination. Like the last time.”

“You remember me! Well, yeah just like last time. But also bit different.”

“Different how?”

“Well, I kinda lied when we first met.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not exactly a figment of your imagination.”

“What are you then?” Bryson said getting suspicious.

“I don’t know.” He admitted, “I am part of your head, but I’m more of an addition.”

“What does that even mean?”

“How much do you know about yourself now?”

“That I’m here to bring destruction to the family that raised me, by some goddess I never met.” Bryson said.

“Yeah, you know the name Hallow right?”

“Some unknown god that works with Afa.”

“Yeah, not quite a god… actually maybe he is. Hard to say.” Other Bryson thought for a moment, “Either way that’s not important. This Hallow took you, threw you here.”

“Why?”

“Not sure really. He’s playing with you, hence why you’re here.” He said motioning to their surroundings.

“What happened?”

“He was expecting you to try something with the pixie, so he set a prank.”

“A prank? What does this prank entail?”

“Melting part of your brain.” He said unconcerned.

Bryson stared at his other self mouth agape, “Come again?”

“He would melt a couple bits of your brain together. If it wasn’t for me of course. Which he expected.” He said looking quite smug of himself.

“Alright.” Bryson said slowly, “What are you exactly then? If you’re not just part of my mind.”

“You know how Hallow took you to this world?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well you were stolen and the… guy? Let’s go with guy, the guy who made you made sure to add a security system. Me.” The glowing-eyed Bryson said.

“How does that work? You seem to be able to counter everything Hallow tries.”

“Not exactly, first time you met me had nothing to do with Hallow. It was something he wasn’t responsible with. Not entirely anyways.” He said sitting up from the bed.

“So if that was supposed to be a random occurrence why did you act up? How did the guy know to implement you.” Bryson asked, every time his duplicate spoke, only more questions were raised.

“Your maker knew that Hallow was up to something just around when you were about to be sent to your original location. So he added me, once to help you when your power activates, second time once you know about Hallow. So here I am. Ta-da!” He said standing up from the bed and waved his hands a bit.

“What happens after?”

“I give you some advice and disappear.”

“What’s that advice?”

“Before you ask, let me just say. No, I don’t know what Hallow wants. I’m more or less just a super advanced recording, can’t help you figure out his motive. But I have an idea of what will happen.” He said as he approached Bryson.

“What’s that?”

“What I’ve told you the first time. Things are going to happen to you. Some of these things won’t be very pleasant. It might be because of Hallow, Afa, or just bad luck. Either way, things will happen.” His voice became less joking and more serious.

“So what? I just grit my teeth and bare it? Be some puppet to be controlled?” Bryson said getting annoyed at the thought of him being helpless.

“I didn’t say that. Neither of them can directly touch you, only help push you into different situations or situations into you. And not a hard shove either.” He assured Bryson.

“Then what about Sable? That seems pretty direct.”

“Oh, Hallow pushed things quite far with Sable. Afa bringing back some old illness is one thing, but a custom-made curse at that level? He won’t be able to do something like that again without consequences. So don’t worry, in fact, once you’re out of this place, there’s going to be some sort of solution to save Sable, without the pixie being ground up.”

“That seems awfully convenient.”

“There’s going to be a price for it and I wouldn’t exactly say this entire process has been easy, since you know, you almost got brain melted and the whole search for her.” He countered. Bryson gave a begrudging conceding grunt.

“Though, it might be important to think why Hallow did this, even though he knew he needed to give you a fighting chance. It might not just be about you.”

“Back to the main point however.” Bryson’s counterpart said with a dramatic wave of his hand, “After you wake up, I’m gone. No more protection from the supernatural. You have to fend for yourself. More importantly, the outcome of all these things that will happen to you depends partially on your choice. No one can tell you what to do except yourself. The good and bad that will happen to you are going to happen based on what you do.”

“That doesn’t sound like much fun.”

“But that is life. Besides, you have to admit, despite all the crazy things that happened to you already. Some good has come out of it, right?” He asked raising a brow.

Bryson thought for a moment and thought about everything and everyone he had encountered so far. Before giving a small nod.

“See?” He said smiling, “Keep your head high and do what feels right to you. And try not to die.” He said with smile as he snapped his fingers.

Bryson blinked and he suddenly found himself back in Sable’s room. It didn’t seem like any time had passed. The pixie was about to read out the message she found on the curse.

“Are you okay?” Florence asked him suddenly right next to him.

Bryson was taken aback, “Uh, yeah why?”

“It was only for a moment, but you looked like something was wrong.”

That’s perceptive. Bryson thought both impressed and surprised, “I’m fine. Trust me, you don’t need to worry.” Bryson said giving her a reassuring smile. Florence simply nodded her head and looked back towards Sable.

“What does the message say?” Viola asked.

“It says, and I quote; ‘Congratulations, you found option two. As fun as it would be to see that pixie ground up, there is another way out. Here’s the instructions. Have fun.’ That’s what it says.” The pixie said before making a face, “Even thinking about the guy feels wrong.”

“Why is he offering up a solution?” Viola asked suspicious.

“Destroy our reputation only to find out that there’s another better option after the fact.” Bryson said choosing not to mention his weird episode he just had, “That could be a reason.”

“From the little we know of him, that isn’t out of the realms of possibility.” Primrose said.

Bryson in the corner of his eye saw Florence glaring at him. When he turned to look over Florence had already looked away and was talking to the pixie, “What does it say?”

“I don’t know… it’s nonsense.” The pixie said.

“What? Let me see.” Primrose said moving over to the pixie. With a wave of her hand, the magic circle increased in size and she stared at it. She stared hard at it for a minute before giving a tired sigh, “It’s some sort of cipher.”

“So it’s a puzzle that we have to solve. Complex one I’m guessing?” Lila asked.

“Yes.”

“Doctor said we only have a day or two at most.” Viola said bleakly.

“Great.” Bryson said through gritted teeth, “Just great.”