Inter spem et metum
Between hope and fear.

He went on the same after that. Though there was that slight bit of reassurance that had come from his trip back home, it seemed as if there really was nothing for him to come home to. Thus, he continued with his dead-end job. He'd work hours upon hours until the early callings of the morning and in turn come home to an empty little apartment. On days off he would waste time with something fruitless. Skateboarding, channel surfing, hell, even cleaning. It was all pointless in the end. He fell into that obnoxious, never ending daily routine. There were times late at night, when the moon was high overhead and the crickets were singing away their throes that he found himself missing that forsaken academy and all of the organised learning that went on within its walls.

He was lonely. A life of complete and utter solitude was one that he found himself regretting quite a bit. At least at that horrible, unforgiving school he had a roommate or a study partner. Someone to talk to, even if it was concerning minor, meaningless things. Life sped on by him, and he found himself not caring in the slightest what the universe would hurl at him next.

However, whatever strange and unpredictable impulse that the universe decided to act upon was not what he expected. What he saw in his future was crippling debt, an eviction on his apartment, or even his own demise. Being by himself for so long, he had only the negativities in life to look forward to. No friend could surprise him at the door, case of beer in hand, and invite themselves in because, to be frank, he had none. There was no one to stay up late to watch reruns of old television shows at night. No one to hang out with on the days off, or between college classes that he was reluctant to take. Small discounts at the grocery store no longer cheered him up on the bad days, and no amount of sweets or pillows on the couch could ease his crippling loneliness. His life had slipped and fallen into a deep rut, and he found himself unwilling to help himself out of it. Perhaps it was because of the way the solitude just sapped the energy from him. Or was it the depression and regret that he had that finally, after countless years, reared it's ugly claws and latched onto to him. It was quite reluctant to let go, and he didn't quite feel the need to shoo it away and back into the darkest parts of his mind.

But finally, a break in the daily tasks, the continuous rituals, came in and shattered the glass box that he had enclosed himself in for years upon years. While the glass box protected him from anymore heartache it also shielded him from the delicate relationships that were so imperative in keeping him together. He watched through the transparent, towering walls of it as people loved and spent time together and carried on. It made him envious of their effortless bliss. Though it was only a matter of time before someone or something threw a stone at the walls of his box and smashed it, leaving him exposed and open to whatever may tread across the field of broken glass shards and embrace him.

The first time that he saw a crack in that glass was at the county library.

He had long since settled into an apartment in a small, isolated town. Despite the enclosed tight-knit nature of the people who inhabited that town, he had come to know not one soul. Though there were most likely those who recognized his face when he was out food shopping or working a few hours a week, none of the population of that small town knew more than his name and his face. Girls would swing by while he was mopping the dirtied and peeling tiles of the aging supermarket or taking inventory in one of the local shops. They would flip their hair and pucker their lips and draw out their words, but he found himself not caring in the slightest. Their subtle touches and smooth voices would get them nowhere. He would acknowledge their presence as well as their words with a nod, but wouldn’t give anything more. It wasn’t like he wanted to be cold or jaded towards them. There was just nothing left for him to offer to others. His life was in shambles and he was not looking to be babysat nor did he wish to babysit. He would carry on with his life and they would theirs.

However, in an attempt to lighten his mood and alleviate the weight of tiresome solitude, he took a trip to the library. He had only visited a few times before for trivial purposes. This time, he was in search of something to occupy himself better than his television could. Something temporary and exciting. He wasn’t quite into buying extravagant things for himself using his inherited riches, for he had learned that a widescreen, high definition television could never aid an ailing physique. Books were fleeting, though. The stories inscribed in their pages meant to entertain once or twice and fling the reader into a world that is not their own. He wanted to live a life that he never dreamed of, one with a rough beginning and middle, but a satisfying and happy ending. Most of all, though, he wanted to find the magic of his earlier years, and relive the tales that his mother and father would spin for him using the most intimate pairings of words and phrases.

He wanted to live like he had lived before.

He didn’t go home with any celebrated novella, though. What he tucked beneath his arm was no fantasy story written to occupy young minds. A thick, leather-bound book was nestled between the crook of his elbow and his side. The cover had been delicately painted with a fine point bristled paintbrush in a language he couldn’t quite read. Despite the obvious language barrier, he was really not too concerned with the state of the transcription of the cover. Though it was the cover that had initially piqued his interest, once he flipped through the faded, yellow pages, he was pleasantly surprised to see that the ink scratched onto the page was legible and in the language he spoke and read fluently. After scanning the pages of word and crude artwork, he had decided that that was the book he was checking out. He was only allowed to keep it for three weeks, the librarian informed him, and if he kept it longer he would have to pay a five cent fee for every day the book was late afterward. It wasn’t like he had anything to do in three weeks. He bid the kind old woman behind the librarian’s desk goodbye before he headed back to his apartment. Finally, something to look forward to.

Once safely locked into his lonely little apartment, he dropped the heavy tome onto his stained wooden desk. The sound it made as it came in contact with the desktop was deep, almost laboured, as if the one-foot fall from his hands to the wood knocked the breath right out of it. Despite the excitement and slight anxiety eating away at him, pleading him to open the thick leather cover, he decided to instead head towards the kitchen. The book was his for three weeks. He had time to mess around for a handful of hours. Dinner had yet to be made, and a movie recorded in the once new - age colours of black and white was scheduled to air at precisely five in the evening. If there was one thing that he never failed to look forward to, it was films and television programs from another time. He could place the blame for his penchant of old programming to one of his roommates back in that accursed academy. His roommate had a solid six years on him, so he wasn't his roommate for too long. However, they quickly became close and looking back on it, the nights he stayed up with him to sneak down and catch one of those black-and-white movies or listen to him try to compose and write music was one of the only highlights of his time there. Those old films brought him back to a time after his parents, but before the bitter solitude fully set in. Once upon a time he had a friend, but like all things in his life, he eventually lost him.

Dinner had been a haphazardly put together salad with stale croutons. The movie that he entertained himself with whilst dining on his two-star salad was, regrettably, not the best. Though he still managed to appreciate the art and the effort put into the film whilst he crunched and crunched on those old bread chunks and soggy lettuce leaves. Once the program finally concluded, the credits fading in and out on a grainy backdrop used prominently throughout the movie, he dropped his used salad bowl in the sink and returned to his desk where the rented book sat.

The volume was thick, and the pages were yellowed and fraying at the edges. It looked aged, and could have very likely been more than a century old. There was no publication or copyright information printed on those first few blank pages that no one ever bothered to glance at. The only clear inscription within the span of the first four pages was written with a calligraphy pen, the ink bleeding through onto the next page and blots of of it splattered all around the word. It had been etched onto the paper in large, curling and majestic cursive.

'Necromancy'

The word was foreign to his tongue. It was a word banned from the books at school, and one that he only vaguely remembered hearing about in all of the false tales his younger roommates would go on about. Junhong could only stare at the embellished word and the swooping of its letters. He wanted to delve further into the book, to see all the wonders that were trapped between two rough leather covers, but at the same time he was afraid. What sort of troubles could he be getting himself into? Once he turned those papyrus pages, what sort of world would he be ing himself into? If he was any other age than nineteen, surely he'd turn to the next page effortlessly, right? It was just due to the excessive schooling, the relentless bible-beating, that he was so reluctant. Words of the nuns echoed throughout his head. If he turned that page, he'd be giving himself up for the devil. Nothing as sinister as the dark arts was suited for a child of God. He needed to research this 'necromancy' before he actually decided it was something he wanted to commit to. Well, not commit. Rather, he needed to sort out some background information in regards to it before he made sure it was something he wanted to look over and perhaps begin to take interest in. The rental time for the book was just shy of three weeks now, anyway. He had time.