There was no more doubt or mystery. It was all there and ready for the taking— Abor knew his life and his purpose and it was not to be as something as blase as a husband or father or a hard worker. He was destined for the greater and he knew his path to that grandeur.

But, the sad truth was, that in order for that destiny to happen, people would have to be . . . at the very least, made uncomfortable. Inconvenienced.

From behind, one of the specters approached. It did not speak but it did communicate; ringing in Abor’s ear signaled the “speaking” for this creature, whatever it was, and Abor heard its language through a series of sharp intonations from the ringing, as though the sound was a language alternative. Eventually, the ringing became familiar to Abor, as though it was the only language he had ever known.

Understanding the creature perfectly in its language, Abor turned to try and get a better look at the ghostly figure, but it was as if the universe did not want him to see its body; whenever Abor laid eyes upon the creature, it was as if the cosmic forces of the celestial realms edited the very nature of reality to remove the image from Abor’s mind. He saw, but he did not see; he glimpsed glances of a outline, of a flowing robe or body part, but nothing ever more, and even that soon faded from his memory, throwing Abor into a perpetual loop of misremembering.

Giving up on glancing the ghost, Abor instead spoke. “I didn’t know that. Thank you for telling me.”

Ringing. Ring. Long ring. Sharp ring followed by several more. Translated into Abor’s tongue, the creature said, “I exist to serve my lord. In life. In death.”

Abor nodded. Looking around the room, the whole room was filled with these ghosts. But since the same rules that applied to the ghost that Abor was talking to applied to these others as well, Abor failed to see any ghost in its entirety, despite the fact that, as far as he could tell, the whole chamber was stuffed with ghosts; so, instead, Abor satiated himself with simply knowing that the ghosts were here and they were— for now— helping him achieve his goals.

Following the specter’s advice, Abor moved about the room in a concentrated sort of way. He did not understand the logic, but evidently, it was important to do so as doing so meant he was able to acquire an important artifact.

Having finished his task of unusual steps, Abor returned to the marking on the floor and kneeled. Placing his hands to the floor, Abor was taken aback when his hands sunk into the floor, as though it was a messy sinkhole. Reaching down until his arm was shoulder-length deep into the “stone,” Abor felt a mass deep within the gooey rock. Gripping it firmly, Abor then pulled it slowly to the top; whatever it was, it felt powerful in his hands. And more relevantly, holding this item— whatever it was— made Abor feel as though this was his moment, like his whole life had been leading to this instance. Upon dragging the relic to the surface, Abor saw and understood why it felt as though his everything had led to this moment.

It was a book.

But not just any book. He knew— whispers of heat told him so by his ears— that this book was a grimoire. A wizard’s tome.

No. Not wizard, per se. But something like a wizard. That . . . other thing. Abor did not have the word for his thought.

Bringing the book to his face— the darkness making it hard to see— Abor felt a pang of worry shoot through him. Would he be able to read this book? His reading talents were far from developed and even in his class, he was behind in reading generally. A book like this? Likely far beyond his reading level.

Heaving the large leather-bound tome open, Abor was surprised to see that the reading level of the book would not be a problem; for, the entire tome was written in an unearthly script that went far beyond mere information-conveyance. Numbers, dots, strokes of fine-toothed pens, and other unusual weirdness featured in the written script which was before Abor and though he did not know the first thing in how to read this script, he understood it, like a musical score whose’s emotional resonance is understood but the actual reading of a musical score is a mystery.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Gently placing the book down on the marking-encrusted stone floor— the same stone floor that had, moments ago, been all quick-sandy, but now was normal— Abor poured over the manuscript. It seemed as though, to him, he spent half his eternity in reading the tome page-by-page until he understood it by heart. Knew it like he knew the contours of his video game controller. Deep. Intimately. The pages and not merely their contents but something more about that that Abor had no possibility of knowing— at least not for a very long time.

“Well, what now, ghosties?” Abor said. “I have the book.”

“Your fate is your own. We exist to serve.” the ghosts replied in unison, which threw Abor off-guard.

“My own? Aren’t I supposed to be following the commands of some entity? Like, I stumbled upon this place and this book. Like, aren’t things supposed to exist with me . . . doing something?” Abor said, drawing on a mass amount of storytelling he had consumed in where a young protagonist is coerced into undertaking quests after a precarious discovery.

“You. Are. Your Own. Destiny.” was what the ghosts said. “We have no mission. We exist to serve. You.”

“But why me? There is nothing special about me.”

“Special. Non-Special. Pointless. You are of our kind. We serve you.”

But why? Abor thought. Who was he? No one. He was a little boy. Powerless. Common. Annoying . . . especially to the kids on the playground. Why would these strange creatures serve him when he was the one who blundered his way into their home?

Was there a point to trying to figure out the why? Really, Abor told himself, was there a point? Everything that was happening to him was weird and scary and it was unlikely to stop. Answers to these questions would be illusive. And, for now, impossible to discover. If these ghosts were honest and what he did was now in his own hands, then what was his destiny?

And like an old friend, Abor felt in that moment a warmth just behind his ear, whispering unintelligible syllables. It was not a possessive whisper or magical in any way, but Abor knew it to be true. To him, at least.

“Oh, right!” Abor said suddenly, picking up the book again.

As if he had done it a thousand times, Abor ran his hand across the book’s surface and its old leathery surface with parchment pages from a millennium and a half past shifted, smoothed out just enough to add to the cover a name— Abor the Untested appeared in fine cursive.

Cool, Abor half-whispered to himself. And to the ghosts. But the ghosts paid him no heed.

Holding onto the grimoire, the book beat in one with his own heart. It was from this point on, he knew, a part of him. Kneeling and reaching back down into the floor, Abor pulled out a contraption; built from unnatural leathers, the device at Abor’s whim, hooked around his chest and enclosed itself around the spell tome. Wiggling its strange sinews around Abor’s body, the end result was a ‘grimoire holster’ for the tome, which would allow Abor to keep the book literally hanging by his side when not in use but always still keep it available for split-second reference. Looking at what he could see and feeling the rest, if Abor’s friends could see him now, he thought, then they would have mercilessly mock him for wearing such a get-up and for a book too! But he was already a nerd, what with his love for worldbuilding and sci-fi and critical theory. So what else was new?

Feeling the holster getup stretch as he brought up the book to once more examine it, he knew that the holster and its book would meld to his body perfectly given any situation. Abor knew it absolutely. Somehow . . . and yet, not somehow, because in trickles and spurts, a psychological flare in his mind was trying to rekindle itself and grant him knowledge. It was trying to tell him something important. But what was it?

It was hard to tell anything here in the dark . . .

Ceasing his flipping of pages, Abor landed on a useful spell. It appeared rather complicated and more complex than any other in his tome. Since Abor could not read the tome but only understand its general inclinations, he knew that this spell was going to be the most useful to him; since, as he glazed his vision upon the pages, he felt a radiance of knowledge that seemed to spell in his mind’s eyes words similar to “energy,” “life,” “concentration.” Positive words meant a positive feeling. And right now, that was what Abor needed— an injection of meaning straight into his heart.

Beginning his work right away, Abor would need to hurry if he wanted to have the incantation prepared in time. He had a target in mind for this utterance, and like all grocery stores, they had an opening and a closing. And they were to be opening soon.