23/01/2025
Journal Number 1, Log 1, the strange case of Martin Cekov, a boy born with the uncanny ability to see into the "other" realm, a place where spirits and creatures of magic and fantasy reside.
Origin: Montenegro, also known as Black Forrest.
Description: Handsome, Devilishly charming, and unsure of what to write on these pages.
I am the author of this journal. It's about time I started recording the things I've seen and the experiences I've had. I am now living in Sofia, in a dorm, and studying at a new university. I'm far enough away that my parents' warnings have become just afterthoughts as I write this. I am special, and I will get to the bottom of this.
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The turning of the lock of the door took me out of my concentration, closing my journal and putting my pen back into its place I looked at Vinny. My roommate for the past couple of months, his dark clothes and grunge aesthetic bleeding out of him as though he's a balloon filled with edge. Of course that never stopped him from being my first friend in this unknown world.
"Yo, help out with the water." He said, lowering his headphones and putting a giant jug of water off to the side as he got down to untie his black boots. "Man, you look like you woke up like 2 hours ago, you good?" a bit of concern leaking through his voice. He'd been sweet and helped me get acquainted with the new city and university.
I blared at the sunset of the windows, peeking through the mountains. "Couldn't sleep again, I think I missed another lecture," I said with a bit of despair, picking up the jug and moving it to the kitchen, I placed it down after shooing away the one-eyed orange creatures that had gathered in the corner, they tended to gather at corners and stick to one and each other, like jelly, I remember calling them icknusii, they were harmless, from what I'd seen they just looked icky, and this apartment had a staggering amount of them rooted.
A hand on my shoulder caught my attention as I raised mine in response and got dabbed up for a greeting. "So what's for dinner?" I asked, looking at the canvas bag, trying to peer into its secrets only to recoil away as Vinny moved it away quickly.
"Not gonna know until it's served and hot! You are my guinea pig after all." He said with mock evil laughter turning his back to me and hiding the contents in the fridge. "Just, ya know send like 8 leva for groceries" he added sheepishly.
"Sure, will do," I said already taking out my phone and sending him the money. "But what about Igor?" I wondered about our last piece of the puzzle, my eyes pondering his desk In the shared living room, the googly gaze of his pet rock meeting me right back, I honestly don't know if the rock was a spirit or not and that concerned me sometimes.
"He's with his girl tonight, so it's just the two of us, although I'll crash out early, have to wake up early," Vinny answered, still putting food into the fridge, the noises warning anyone within 2 floors of us.
"You? Waking up early?" I looked at him, remembering his late-night calls to open the front door because he forgot his keys or pleas of driving him back home after 3 am benders.
"Phah, the pot calls the kettle black?" He looked at me closing the fridge with bravado, while still managing to hide his ingredients, "remind me, when did you go to sleep today?" he asked while in the kitchen, I could hear the smirk even through the wall.
"That's beside the point, you know the pipes are way too loud in my room!" I said, shivering at the memory of the claws scrapping at the inner walls of the building, there was a reason I hadn't been getting good sleep, and I intended on fixing it today, still can probably.
"Just take some sleeping pills!" He called back. And so the evening went, we picked out a movie to watch and ate his culinary experiment of the day, this time I couldn't complain, oven-baked potatoes with fried instant noodles and a sauce of tomatoes and whatever spices he put in there.
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Thus our evening ritual was started, Vinny and I had managed to bond in a foreign country by doing what any self-respecting punk would do, watching classical movies, talking about music bands, and conversing about philosophy. Granted he was in Oral medicine and I was in Culture and Folklore so I had a bit of a step-up, but he would always manage to surprise and intrigue me with the kind of ideas he'd overheard students, lecturers, and friends would say, at class, bars, and clubs, the location not tied to individuals.
"You know, Nikky Sixx, was pronounced dead on one of his tourneys right? They managed to revive him like 5 minutes after they found him." Vinny said in between bites of his food lying on the brown couch in front of the PC monitor we used as a TV.
"From Motley? No way, seriously? How often does that even happen?" I asked looking back at him in awe, just thinking of what his spirit must've gone through, while the spirit were in the "other" world, I've seen them interact with ours, in small unnoticeable ways, but ways that added up over time. Just trying to imagine that scene was hard but so, interesting to think about.
"Yes from Motley, Yes seriously, and it's disproportionally more common with rockstars high of their minds from cocaine than with normal people." He answered
I sighed a bit disappointed at the realization that I might never get to see the phenomenon ever happen.
Vinny for his part only looked at me with a raised eyebrow before continuing "You know we got some stories at our hospital of people dying for minutes before being resuscitated, straight out of doctor drama shows." He said trying to impress me.
And impress me he did, as well as feeding into my perhaps unhealthy curiosity about mortality.
As the night drew closer I headed out of the apartment to check a witch shop I had found online a couple of days ago, hopefully, they would have something to cleanse my room. Seeing spirits had made me a bit more curious about folk culture, magics, and anything related to the arcane and spiritual, unfortunately to my massive disappointment, most of it was ballocks made to prey on people. But some of it was real, through testing and using the scientific method which my physics professor Old Lila always said consists of "Think, Assume, Do, Write, Repeat." proved to me that incense drives away spirits, prayers work to an extent, and that spirits nourish themselves by ideas.
So I put on my trenchcoat, my scarf, and my gloves, stained by paint. I exited and went to the elevator. Opening the door and letting myself in, pressed the floor 1 button and went through the list of what I needed and might be interested in. Incense, Spellbook? Some candles, if not for the atmosphere. Potions? Maybe a prayer book. Prayer beads? Nah Vinny would make way too much fun of me for that. The elevator eventually chimed at the 5th floor, I went to open the door for the person waiting and was greeted with a spirit hair made from the roots of a tree, knots forming eyes around the place where a head should be, and a female folklore style dress cladding the spirit, brandished with all of the colors I'd seen in my lectures, green, red, white and black, forming a cohesive pattern that danced around the body.
The spirit walked forward, her hand made from twigs of a dark wood pushing the door open even more. Before I could even respond and actualize what happened she spoke.
"Well thank you, bastard, of the material, it seems like one can be both a bastard and a gentleman" Her voice was like that of rustling leaves and pages brushing against each other, it was strangely soothing and calm, even with the snarky message contained in the words.
I took a step back to make space for her as I flabbergastedly looked her up and down, having never seen a spirit like this before.
"You know it's rude to stare?" She said with a cold tone before I mustered up the courage to say anything, I could feel sap on my hands appear, making them stick together, and green mold in the corners of the small cabin began to grow at a rapid pace.
"I apologize, oh daughter of the non-living, I meant no offense done with my words or actions," I said gathering myself and trying to take the diplomatic approach as always. I could immediately feel the stickiness disappear from my skin, and the musty air began to clear, her anger seemingly going away. "My name is Martin, it is a pleasure to share my roots here with you for now," I said trying to start amicable relations with the spirit, the last one I had spoken to still weighed heavily on my mind, I promised him something yet with each day I had less hope in that promise.
As the seconds passed all I got as a reply was the creaking of wood, each second of silence building tension that I could really do without. Eventually, though, the elevator reached the first floor and I waited for her to exit before taking my leave. Nodding to her I left the building quickly trying to get to the metro.
We have a spirit in the building! Well, it shouldn't be that surprising it's massive, but it's an intelligent one! Is it from a past person? How long has it been here? Why... just why? Thoughts assailed me as I walked on a path without taking in my surroundings. I guess I had my wish accomplished with a new "friend" living quite close. At least she didn't seem as scary as the man on the bridge at first, but she seemed to see right through me immediately, knowing I knew, well I opened the door for her so it makes sense.
As I walked I failed to notice the minks hiding in the trees, or the kids playing on the playground along with the bubbly zabavi. Only when I was looking at the toll gate at the metro did I feel my heart stopping its frantic beating as I put the card on the scanner and passed through.
"Fuck me, spirits are scary," I said to no one in particular as I waited at the stop, a man to the left of me nodded his head as though I was saying a common fact.