FSE

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I woke up on a couch to see Seth's now distorted face looking down on me. Despite the strangeness of the lines on his body, I still admired the perfection and beauty of his figure.

"Hey, cutey." [Seth]

"Hey..." I sat up and looked around, finding the kitchen and living room empty. "Where is everyone?"

"Outside. Pizza finished just a minute ago, I wanted to wake you up before we ate."

"Oh, okay. Gimme a second, I need to go to the bathroom."

"Okay, I'll be outside." I got up and went into the bathroom, but stopped when I saw the mirror. At first, I thought it was just a trick of the lighting, but I turned off the lights and saw I couldn't have been any more wrong.

The apostrophes on my snout had changed from their normal, deep brown to an unbareable electric strobe light. Judging by the flashing colors on the bare, back wall, there were marks on the back of my head and on my tail as well. I noticed the mirrors were on hinges and rejoiced at my ability to climb up on the counter and see my back side. My ears had six little dots on each one that flashed through the color wheel in an entire second, and my tail had more little dots that did the same. I lifted my shirt to find dots on the outline of my shoulder blades, and a massive circle on my chest. I put my shirt back down and used the toilet before going outside.

"So, Ciph, what was that about electric colors indicating stronger abilities?" [Me]

"Yup. By the way, you're not a vocalist, you're a master. Congratulations, you're like me." [Ciph]

"Master?! So like, skilled with all magic?" [Me]

"Worse, it's skilled with complexity. So, you'll probably be to the point where you can be teaching them by the time they've learned the basics."

"What?! That's bullshit!" [Daniel]

"It's the truth. Masters are rare, about one master for every ten thousand runists, and there's about one runist for every ten thousand people."

"So that's like, seventy masters around the entire world? And two of them are here?" [Seth]

"More like eighty. So, Alex, I think you're probably the only person here who's able to read the Arcanomicon." Ciph held out the book towards me and I went over and took it cautiously.

"R-really?" [Me]

"Yeah."

"Cool..."

"So, now that Alex is awake, and vibrant, who wants some 'zah?" [Kyle]

We all herded towards him, grabbing paper plates and getting our hands on the different kinds of pizza. We all sat down at our separate tables, with me, Seth, Ted, and Daniel sitting at our own, but Ciph walked by me and took the book.

"Sorry, I'm not letting grease get on this."

"Oh, no problem. So, does it account for all the kinds of magic there are?" [Me]

"No, not in the least. Any time an author or story board writer comes up with a new form of magic, it's added to the ever growing list. Magic itself is just an energy that resides within us all, but some of us require certain methods to bring it out in it's full potential, and others are better at using it in different ways. Think of it like the mind, some of us are better with math, some of us are better with science, others are better with history. And even-"

"You sound exactly like Ms. Ardenstal!" [Ted]

"Oh, she already explained that? Oh, well, there you have it." Ciph walked off over to where Tanner and Kyle were sitting with Titus.

"... So, are you guys jealous that I'm dating a master of the arcane?" [Seth]

"No, I'm jealous that I'm not a master of the Arcane." [Ted]

"This is so weird... Magic isn't real! And yet... How is this possible to just be shoved out of the way of society? Like, how do you keep this a secret?!" [Daniel]

"I don't know, nor do I really care, just that it was, and I got to know about it before it was overly practiced." [Seth]

"Yeah... Oh fuck. My parents are gonna kill me when they see me!" [Me]

"Oh... Yeah, how are we supposed to go to school?" [Seth]

"We can go to school, still." [Daniel]

"Yeah, I guess the tough price to pay for being godly is to be impossible to look at." [Ted]

"I'm not godly." [Me]

"I know, it just sucks... On the bright side, I'm bearable to look at."

"And you don't have weird lights hovering over your body." [Seth]

"Yeah, definitely better that I'm like this." [Ted]

"Yeah, no offense to you guys, but Ted's cuter. The lines and stuff are just weird." [Daniel]

"None taken." [Seth]

"And if there were, we'd kill you in a week." [Me]

"Yeah, that's not terrifying." [Daniel]

"Or worrying." [Ted]

"Not in the least!" [Seth]

"Well, for us anyways." [Me]

"Right, after your parents find out you're becoming a master wizard and intend to survive in a post-apocalyptic America." [Daniel]

"Yeah, I have no idea how to go about revealing that to them." [Me]

"Don't. Maybe you can stay here until the end." [Seth]

"Here?"

"Yeah, I don't think my mom would take to well to me being... this, so... I'm thinking of asking them."

"Wow, that's kinda selfish." [Ted]

"Yeah, and when you fear your parents you can be judgmental about other peoples' plans to avoid them. Until then, fuck off." [Seth]

"Geez, okay, calm down. It was just an observation." [Ted]

"Then keep it to yourself next time."

"... I'm gonna go ask." I got up and went over to Kyle's, Tanner's, Titus', and Ciph's table.

"Hey, what do you need?" [Kyle]

"I was just wondering... Um, I don't think my parents are gonna take to well to... this. Is it okay if I stay here tonight?" [Me]

"Oh, Christians?"

"Obsessively."

"Yeah, I completely understand, feel free. We've got enough sleeping bags and blankets as is, and we can always duplicate more."

"Oh, okay. ... What about Seth?"

"Alex, any of you guys can stay here if you feel like it. We've got everything and anything we could possibly need for eight kids to stay over."

"What about me?" [Titus]

"If you decide to spend the night, you're probably just gonna sleep with Tanner in his bed. That counts as one."

"Right."

"So, you're sure it's okay?" [Me]

"Absolutely. I mean, we've been preparing for the end for the past six months, and when the end comes, there's gonna be some people who'll either pass through or decide to join a would-be, forming society. Trust me, we've got plenty." [Kyle]

"And anything we don't have we can buy." [Tanner]

"Okay... So is that an invitation to live here after the end?" [Me]

"After? Your parents are Christian and you're gay-" [Kyle]

"We came to terms on that and the atheism thing."

"Well, even so, it's hard to justify an overnight change from a common, red, fox to this blinding color show." [Kyle]

"Right, but-"

"If the end comes, either they'll die, or they'll escape. If they escape, that's time for you to give them the chance to accept that you're a magic user now. If they die, that's two less people you have to worry about protecting, which allows you to focus on more important aspects of your life." Kyle nodded in the direction of Seth, and I got what he meant.

"... Okay."

"Hey, are you finished eating yet?" [Ciph]

"No." [Me]

"Oh, well, when you do, there's a thing I want you to read in here. It's about something you and Seth already saw, and I recon that's where a lot of interesting things are going to happen- if they haven't already."

"Wait, you mean that space at the bottom of the tunnel?"

"Mhm."

"Oh, sick. I can be done eating."

"No, you go finish. In fact, here. Go ahead, just don't get it greasy, and don't spill on it. And above all else, don't drop it. I can't afford having to track down Greg again." [Ciph]

"Greg?"

"Long story, we'll tell you some other time." [Kyle]

"Oh, okay." I took the book off the table and went over to sit down next to Seth. I opened it and saw there was no table of contents. I looked through the sticky notes sticking out the top and found one that read, "Beneatherverse", and figured that must be it. When I opened it, the writings and symbols on the page seemed to come alive. The drawings and diagrams moved and wriggled, and I could rotate them to see the same thing from different angles. It all behaved like a touch screen, but there were dials on the side of the book, that scrolled through the text itself, that flitted and floated about on the pages.

"Wow, that's a useful book." I didn't understand Ted's sarcastic voice.

"Yeah, it is." [Me]

"Wait, can you see things on it?" [Seth]

"Can't you?"

"I just see a picture that you keep stroking."

"Yeah, why can only you read the book?" [Daniel]

"I don't know... Huh." I flipped to the front and skipped a couple pages of random symbols, numbers, and letters until I got to the introduction. It read as follows:

"If you can read this, you know about magic. Or you don't, and someone broke you until you were linked with your primal core in your neurosphere. Or a thousand other possibilities. Any way, you can read this, and that makes you a master, or at least you have the potential to be a master."

"Well, that explains it! You guys aren't masters." [Me]

"Right, who would write a book that only seventy people can read?" [Daniel]

"I don't know, why did Nazi Germany use the Enigma Code?" [Me]

"Hm, good point. So, it's a book of all the secrets and functionalities of magic? Interesting." [Ted]

"It is, now shut up and let me read." I flipped back to the "Beneatherverse" pages and resumed reading.