There were rumors of it, of the existence of a desperate society that was beyond the average human, for they exceeded death.
The rumors went like so: the gentry would not walk under sunlight, for they fear of their body’s accelerating decay; they cover their bodies head to toe, afraid that they would be exposed, for the admittance of becoming a mage was akin to admitting insecurity, self-deprecation; they feed on humans for their immortality, and so on.
And I, apparently, was one of them.
Horace explained it to me in a hesitant fashion, but still with inquisitiveness:
"Your body is rotting.
"That’s what it is to be a mage."
I must have shown an expression of puzzlement, for the spectacled man sighed as though he didn’t want to explain any further.
He does, anyway.
"An ordinary person can become a mage through drinking potions.
"Each potion has a specific recipe that, at most times, cannot be altered. There are ingredients that can be replaced, however, such as cooling agents such as eucalyptus and camphor as well as hallucinogens or drugs.
"You say you have amnesia, therefore it’s possible that you simply don’t have memory of when you drank a potion."
The white room I was being spoken in along with Horace was as bleak as the run-down hospital I was in.
Each side of the room, from ceiling to wall to flooring, was cushioned.
"That is quite difficult, since each potion is named with a magus title. Each mage or magus title or potion gives the holder a certain ability or skill that is only exclusive to the potion itself."
I didn’t understand why they were being suffocatingly cautious around me.
"Being a mage sounds simple."
My head was aching. It was a bothersome and painful migraine.
"You are given a chance to live life forever.
"To be an immortal.
"However, that comes with a cause.
"And that is, even with great and ambiguous power, unless you take care of the mold and decomposition, you will be continuously rotting forevermore until your eventual and inevitable death."
I wasn’t really in the mood to listen to such a long script.
"It sounds unfair, and I agree. Though, I’m not a mage, so how would I know? I’m only a student. Though the fact that I may change my mind and become one in the future isn’t for certain.
"It also sounds tedious. I understand that very well."
As his words echoed against the cushioned walls, it also vibrated in the depths of my mind.
"But a mage would do anything to live forever."
31st Aug. 1789, Anno Impio
68th floor of Babel, Colegio de Santo Rafael
My hands wrapped to form a makeshift pillow for my head.
Classes were a bore. I wondered if I felt the same in the past.
I raised my head a little so that I could take a glance at my classmates.
Students that were dressed in a vest and shirt under their crimson purple lined black robes chattered and some were still arriving despite the fact it was past the call time.
Crimson purple.
Was there such a color?
I searched for the answer in my limited mind, but to no avail.
I groaned.
It was only orientation today, but I was already feeling unmotivated.
I couldn’t imagine how’d I feel by the next day, when classes finally start officially.
Braham refused to speak with me that day. It was a month ago by then, and I was forcefully "quarantined" until today.
Horace, who was slightly more forgiving and kinder, would enter my room that was shut off from the world beyond and spoke to me about, sometimes, himself, but mostly about Jesse, Johnny, Adam, Braham, and...Ren.
Ren and the others never visited me.
It was a terrible thing I’ve done—or so I was told.
All I remember was tripping on the concrete pavement and waking up in a white room.
In that whitewashed room, when Horace wasn’t around, I spoke to one person.
...if you could even call it a person.
"Narrator, is it night already?"
[The Narrator says that it’s 2:54 in the afternoon.]
I recalled groaning in annoyance, plopping my head down on the cushioned flooring.
I was forcefully bundled in a straitjacket where my hands had no will of their own if I tried.
I really disliked being treated like this.
Even more so that they won’t tell what actually happened.
At some point, I even asked the Narrator...
[The Narrator believes that Regulus has no need to know.]
Through a little flapping mechanism in the lower part of the door, I was given food.
Though, they weren’t very tasty.
A month passed, and then, I was told that I would be watched over by the 68th floor’s authorities as I study at the Colegio.
I never understood the need for me to go to school again, to study a bachelor of arts in divinity. I supposed that there was some use to it in this time, in the apocalypse.
...were these people aware that there’s an apocalypse just beyond their world?
The thought of that made me feel pitiful for them.
I thought as we were introducing ourselves as a block section when a student, a man with jet-black hair that was slicked back with wax and glasses, stood up to make quite an introduction.
In a uniform under his toga, he said:
"I am God.
"Please refer to me as so."
Then he seated himself at once.
It was unknown to me if the people or students around us were just as intellectual as the man who had just given a brief introduction, but I was certain that, despite my initial annoyance, I would come to enjoy this man’s company.
I stood up.
It was probably fine to volunteer...I didn’t know since I was sleeping.
"Hello," I took a deep breath. Was I such an introvert in my past? "I am Reverie."
In my days in the Colegio, I would come to befriend a quite picturesque group of studious, esoteric collegians that were named by the student body as the "Bohemians."