Scars of Life

Adrian N. Aldrich stood over the pool of his own blood in the empty alleyway and gasped for air. The man couldn't take another step, the sharp pain was shooting all throughout his limbs and it seemed to him like the soles of his feet were being cut with razor blades over and over again. He couldn't feel his face... it had stopped hurting, but blood was still dripping down his thoroughly disfigured chin into the palms of his hands which were also torn up in the same gruesome way. His once white shirt was now soaked and crimson red. His head felt light and his eyes fogged up as a result of the severe blood loss. His hands were going numb and Adrian felt colder than he had ever felt. He wished that it was only a dream, but he knew that this pain is real and he can't escape it... The blood-covered man prayed for death. He fell on his knees, let out a scream of pain and threw up- the street was now covered in fresh warm blood and Adrian laid dead in the middle of it while still staring at one of his hands. Every wound had instantly healed, leaving the corpse covered in thick revolting scars.

Days ago Adrian N. Aldrich had been cursed: Maybe by an angry gypsy-lady or maybe a vengeful ghost... I guess only he knows the reason now, but what he picked up was something very old, dark and deadly. Every time he remembered an occasion when his soul had been damaged (be it childhood traumas or accidentally running over a cat) he received a seemingly unimportant little cut in his skin. You can tie the wounds with bandages or even try to burn them, but they will not stop bleeding... and the memories pile up. Every moment he thought of times he had got hurt or had seen a loved one in pain another one surfaced. Soon every hurtful occasion in his life started flashing through his mind and every cut on his skin started hurting unbearably. And after the hours of pain Adrian N. Aldrich died in terror, scarred by his own life.

Alice... Lumos

The dungeon corridors were abnormally silent that evening and not even Bloody Baron dared to disturb the peace in the underground levels of Hogwarts. Archibald sat behind the teacher's desk, in the middle of huge piles of books, in the dimly lit potions classroom. The pale boy had taken off his green striped tie and leaned on the table while staring at the wooden stick suspended in the air, spinning around it's own axis. After careful consideration he grabbed a chisel out of a little leathery box and started carving. He tried to utilise everything his father had taught him and it seemed to word. After acchieveing the desired shape he smoothened it with rough pieces of animal skin.

The young man waved his hand over the spinning stick after sanding it smooth- It fell onto the desk. The black piece of wood had taken the shape of a basic wand. Archibald  placed the tip of the coreless wand on top of a few strands of black hair and focused hard while grasping the handle firmly. The wand started emitting a warm light and absorbed the long strands of shiny black hair. The boy looked up and stared at the dark classroom- It must've been a few hours after midnight by now and he had to attend the transfiguration class at 8 o'clock. He ran his hand through his light-brown hair and sighed.

The corridors started echoing with faint footsteps that seemed to be approaching the potions classroom.  Archibald waved his hand over the table and put out the numerous candles he had lit. Complete darkness filled the spacious room. A luminous light creeped in the room from beneath the large door. After a second the heavy wooden door opened with an ominous creak. A slender figure sneaked into the classroom and closed the door. Archibald realised that it's just another student and lit the candles once again. The sneaky figure seemed surprised. It was a white-haired girl, who seemed overall rather pale. She was wearing a very loose green hoodie, a little cloth satchel and white slippers that were shaped like sheep (one of them yawned widely for second).

"Hello..." Said Archibald while staring at the girl with his silvery eyes.
"Hi... Nox." The light shining from the girl's wand went out. "Am I in trouble?"
"Umm... I don't think so. I am not going to rat you out if that's what you mean... I'm Archibald."
The girl seemed relieved and stormed to the cupboards filled with different ingredients. She opened some doors, took some vials and jars and put them in her bag.
The boy threw his feet on the desk and placed his arms behind his head.
"Are you looking for something? I mean... I know this classroom pretty well."
The white haired young lady flashed her red eyes at the young man.
"Ashwinder eggs. I need Ashwinder eggs."
Archibald had never been much of a bookworm, but he wasn't completely immune to book-knowledge.
"A love potion?" He asked, while flipping through the pages of a potions book. "The one with the rose thorns and moonstone, right?"
The girl blushed slightly. "I am making it to test my skills. Who do you think you are to accuse me of such vulgar actions?"
"I didn't accuse you of anything... " The boy had opened one of the drawers and taken out a tiny jar. " I wonder if I could trade these Ashwinder eggs for a name."
The girl walked up to the teacher's desk and grabbed the jar of eggs. She was about to turn around and leave when it occurred to her that there was at least 4 wands in the boy's leather covered toolbox and one laying on the table.
"Are all of these yours?" She managed a fake smile, that looked almost perfectly genuine.
Archibald closed the box. "Yes... It's just a thing I do. It's nothing really."
The girl sat onto one of the chairs and crossed her legs. "Do tell." She smiled again.
The young man picked up his tie and stuffed it into his pocket.
"Well, you must remember the time you got your wand, right. I'd say 11" vine wood, maybe?"
She was slightly amused, but didn't let it show. "Correct."
The boy continued: " I was never chosen by one. My father looked all over the world- Nothing seemed to work, so now I use wands that haven't accepted me and once they break I'm going to make new ones."
The white-haired girl was interested now. "I should've realised. You're Garrick Ollivander's son." She looked at the black wand that the boy was rolling between his fingers. "It's quite nice."
Archibald looked into her eyes. "Ebony, 12" Thestral hair core. I sometimes paint them... but they break anyway. Why bother?"
The young lady was certainly amused. Wands had never really interested her as she wasn't very skilled with them, but there was something about the way the young man talked that made her want to listen closely. There weren't many things that amused her- she liked to think that nothing was a real challenge to her as she had always been the top of the class in every subject, except the ones that required wand mastery. Suddenly the early transfiguration class popped into her mind and she jumped out of the chair and ran to the door. The quirky white-haired girl looked back at Archibald with a slight grin. "Alice... Lumos" She said right before stepping into the dark dungeon corridor and disappearing into the shadows. 

The Grand Grimoire

A grinning black owl clinged to the dead hawthorn, spreading it's branches over the black graveyard fence. It almost seemed like the twisted tree was trying to escape through the tall bars of cold metal. It must've known that there was no way out and yet it tried to reach the freedom beyond the horrible cemetery.
In the shadows, between the numerous massive crypts walked a dark figure. He slid his hand along the cracked wall of an ancient mausoleum. The faint breath of the centuries slowly leaked out of the marble and sent traces of long forgotten memories flashing through his head. The man stopped and took a deep breath.
It wasn't the tomb he was looking for... but he could feel it getting closer and closer by the step. The ghastly gentleman gallantly stepped in front of a heavily tilted marble cross bearing celtic engravings under a thick layer of moss. Thin streams of rain were dripping down his face and soaking into his black tailcoat embroidered with bloodred silk. The sky was almost completely black as if it was reflecting the man's state of mind. A threatening thunderclap woke him from the shallow daydream, that had silently crept to his mind and he could feel that he wasn't alone anymore.

"Hello, Viki." The man stood still and listened to the girl's feet swinging through the air in the most childish and carefree way while she was sitting on top of a comically large and out of shape tombstone. One of her black and white striped stockings was pulled up over her knee and the other one had fallen loosely around her ankle. The girl casted a glance from beneath her tophat, which was tightly stitched together from grayish-brown pieces of human skin. Her face was framed with perfect locks of bright white hair and her fern-green eyes rimmed with odd golden rings around her irises.
"My name is Victoria." She said with a slight irritation in her soft voice.
"I heard you were in town... I thought that even you wouldn't be so stupid to lift your foot in my town, but I was obviously wrong, Mr. H."
The man adjusted his perfectly round glasses and looked at the girl.
"It's doctor actually... And I can assure you that I am not looking for trouble."
She jumped off the tombstone and placed her index finger on the man's red cravat.
"Then what are you looking for, darling?"
"I'm guessing that you won't leave me alone until you find out..."
"That's right, honey. So you better start talking or I am forced to use... force." Her cute grin took a mad and rather sinister tone.

Dr. H  closed his eyes and tried to pick up the dark trace again.
"I bet you have heard of the Grand Grimoire." The girls eyes widened and although the man had shut his, he could still see everything. "I thought so." He continued. "The Grimoire of Honorius- The mother of every grimoire. I have traced it for decades now... I missed it in 1332 when captain John Crabbe cursed his ship and crew for eternity with the help of that book. I tell you he was a horrible man, but a genius at that... no one else had a ship-mounted catapult. John Dee had it for a while and Erik Weisz, a man of many names, people thought he was a fake, but in actuality a very influential magician... hiding behind cheap tricks, smoke and mirrors."
The man had led the girl to the other end of the graveyard without opening his eyes and talking all along.
The girl seemed worried. "You think it's here?"
"I know it." The man replied "I can feel it... whispering..."
The man opened his eyes and beheld the grotesque building towering in front of him. Large stone-slabs forming dark walls, that hold the most horrible curse. Two grinning devil statues on each side of the massive door added yet another dimension of evil to the atrocious crypt. He placed one hand on the weird decorative plate right in the middle of the door, his eyes lit up in a miasma of dark-red lights, while the giant stone-plate imbued with flaming-red cracks and finally cascaded into millions of little pieces. His eyes turned back to normal as he starightened his coat. The white haired girl stared into his eyes and asked:
"What are you going to do with it?"
He looked down at her and smirked as he backed into the stairway leading under the cemetery.
"Destroy the world, cupcake...destroy the world."

The Gentleman's Way

      "The crowded streets of London are particularly breathtaking on fine summer-evenings like these." thought Lancelot while making his way through the countless teenagers, businessmen and couples,clinging to eachother. The light wind was roughing up his black suit, that looked almost too noble, because of the victorian waistcoat underneath the jacket and of course the unusual neckwear- a royal cravat made from red silk, stolen three weeks ago. The young man- not more than 17 - seemed almost like he had stepped out of a painting to take a nice stroll on the streets, but then again he was firmly holding a fairly modern-looking black umbrella.

During peaceful moments like these Lancelot usually kept an inner monologue: catalogueing his thoughts, people on the streets, cars passing by and every possible threat. "Male, 20-25 years of age, a modern baseball-cap- probably one of them hippity-hoppity fellows, slight limp in the left leg..." Ventrue was distracted by another individual, obviously a drug-dealer... and judging by his thin moustache and the length of his jacket probably also a sexual predator of some kind. "People roaming the streets of this city... Some of them earn their money honestly, some dishonorably and some of them are like me."
Lancelot Ventrue noticed a chubby man in an overly-expensive suit (even for the streets of London) and "locked on" to the target. "Male, 50-58 years of age, wealthy, in a bitter mood, distracted- Perfect victim." Ventrue lifted his chin up, thus looking even more posh and bumped into the old man, with a moderate amount of force. "Hey! Watch your step, punk!" shouted the rich elder in an arrogant manner. In a split second the young man's hand had snatched the wallet from the fatcat's jacket. Just one charming smile and humble apology later he had already disappeared into the heavy crowd. "Wallets, watches, phones and jewelry are so easy to misplace, especially in a big city where there's people, who practise my profession." A short man wearing aviator sunglasses stepped in front of the young pickpocket and crouched to tie his shoelaces. Ventrue's eyes widened, time seemed to stop and thoughts started echoeing through his mind.

"Professionals tend to work in trios: The Blocker, who distracts the victim,..."

The black-suited young man dodged the crouching man after which an African-American girl in a purple hoodie tripped into him and grabbed the freshly-stolen wallet.

"...the Cannon, who obtains the item of value..."

Ventrue casted a glance behind him just in time to notice that the wallet was dropped inside the backpack of a bald man with a red goatee and rather unstylish flip-flops.

"...and finally the Shade, who takes the item and disappears... Let's have some fun, shall we?"

 Ventrue reached under his longer than usual blonde hair and tapped on his nearly invisible earpiece: "Thor calling Wolfman, male in his late twenties, brown backpack, red goatee- moving towards the cave."

    200 feet away, in front of an italian café behind one of the restaurant-tables was a man observing his surroundings through two holes cut into a newspaper. "Wolfman to Thor, I see the target. Wolfman's leaving the cave." Behind the newspaper was a tall young man
with a painfully obvious fake moustache and a brown bowlerhat. He paid for his tea, tipped the waiter and started following the thief listening to music from his earplugs. After a few zig-zags between different small empty alleyways, it was clear that the Shade with
the stolen wallet had noticed "Wolfman" tailing him... but then again the slightly overweight man with a bowlerhat wasn't trying to be silent and made sure to smack every metal object on the way with the end of his walking stick. "Back off, chump, this is none of your business! I'll break your legs if you won't stop following me!" The bald bearded man was getting anxious at "Wolfman's" calm and positive look and pulled a switchblade out of the pocket of his yellow jumper. *click* The stainless-steel blade propelled out of the handle.

The well-dressed man ripped off his moustache and put it under his bowlerhat while spinning the wooden stick in his hand. He smiled and cast a wild glance at the opponent: "Tell me, mr. Thief, have you heard of Bartitsu, the gentleman's way of fighting?"

The Ominous World II

     Last night a caucasian male in his early 20s walked inside BRED Banque Populaire, grabbed a stack of 20 euro banknotes, walked out and disappeared in the nightlife of Paris. He didn't pick any locks, he didn't open any doors and yet the security cameras show the skinny man, with a black goatee dressed in a steampunky leather costume complete with a silver cane, move in and out of the bank freely. How?
     Every human has a forcefield around them, an aura as some call them... you might even call it a soul. Individuals, who can see the life-energy around us and predict our moods or even thoughts, are not uncommon, but there is another kind of use for that field- Keeping a person from falling apart. There are some humans with skilled control over their physical body. They can loosen the connections between every particle in them, while still maintaining the connections and staying intact- this allows them to move through seemingly solid surfaces. Although these people are in control of their body, their minds are usually as unstabile as their particles. 


   Victor Grigoriev, 21, short black hair, goatee, severe bipolar disorder. The skinny russian had been kept in  an asylum since he was 11 years old and in there, during a sucide-attempt, he found the amazing gift that allowed him to simply leave the high-security building. Although Victor was mentally unstabile, he wasn'tstupid and managed to keep the police off his tracks easily. He didn't knew what he was looking for, but before he had been locked into the asylum, he had been to Egypt with his mother and that trip had always been his happiest memory, so why not do it again?

If you could go anywhere without being asked any unnecessary questions, where would you go?

The Ominous World I

     Have you heard that your whole life runs past your eyes right before you die? It's true, but it isn't some poetic/pathetic reminder of all the good deeds you've done or every kind word you've said, it is merely a savepoint. Everything you've felt and everything you've seen will be saved as a cluster of memories that represents a person. "Why?" you ask.

    Many mortals have wasted their lives in order to find the cure for death, but they never knew that we all hold the key, we all have the patential to live forever. The human brain was designed for immortality- Although man as a whole ages and fades, the mind is infinite. The reason of this "emergency back-up data" is simple... to cheat death and live once again, but everything good has a bad side.

     The streets of Dublin were clogged with people, running up and down the streets, but he felt that it was peaceful somehow... reminded him of London and the days he spent in his grandfather's house.

Howard Baker, 28 years of age, perfectly shaved head, rough face-lines, menobilist. Three years ago his grandfather had died. Usually mind-movers or menobilists get killed, because people, who have enough money to buy a new life, have dark secrets that need to stay hidden. Howard's grandfather had been cautious enough to live a rich life and also train an apprentice- It took the bald man a year to get the very basics down, but as grandfather had said: "One must never stop learning."

     Howard straightened his old leather jacket and stepped onto a bus. The mind-moving jobs had become rare, since many of the menobilists had been killed by organised crime leaders or rich high-rollers, but he had saved some money from earlier jobs and this kind of work had brought in a decent sum. His last job had been transferring an elderly woman's mind into a young asian girl. There used to be some conflicted feelings about ending someone's life like that, but business is business and the rich people will win most of the time. The man had sat down in a basement and placed one hand on each of the woman's foreheads. Every menobilist had their own way of picturing the minds- Howard imagined a simple holographic interface with two folders, but his grandfather had seen two books on an old writing table. After doing his job he got his money and left... as simple as that. 

     Howard wasn't afraid of death, but living as someone else had crossed his mind several times. Receiving a new life would usually be tricky, because there would be a need for an apprentice, but then again two menobilists could keep a perfect cycle of immortality... 

Howard Baker's phone started playing the theme-song of Doctor Who, on the LCD display was blinking a writing: "Grandfather"- on the man's face appeared a warm smile.