"Remember your origin, remember your purpose. Rewrite that which has been written, and read the revelation anew. Archivist."
[05/08/1997]
Another day to live. Another day wasted.
Maybe I'll die tomorrow. Maybe not.
But such is fate, isn't it? Twisted and cruel like a game that never ends until the battery runs out.
I was lying in my bed, looking up at the ceiling with an empty gaze. The only sound that can be heard is the sound of a French television show that I forgot to turn off.
I turn my head towards the coffee table, and the hot coffee that I had brewed 2 hours earlier has begun to lose its warmth.
Beside the coffee mug sat a familiar book — yes, there it is. The blasphemous gospel. The very book that defies what I once believed.
I still remember, the day I was walking down the empty street. When out of nowhere, a book was lying down on the concrete street. Not understanding its content, I took it back home, in hope I could decipher its language.
However, it was fated to be my biggest regret. The once ordinary book was nothing more than a blood sucking leach, it feeds on the human blood, yet it returns no benefits to its feeder.
Years of research, I felt like it was all utterly a joke. I used to believe that everything was resolved around science, and that time is absolute.
Yet the truth is ever-changing. Even if all knowledge were to be in my grasp, I would return empty-handed.
On top of the book was a quill, which I found of no use. They say there's a price we paid for words. This is the price the bloody bastards pay.
I got up from the bed and reached for the gospel. As my hand was about to touch it, the pages glowed dimly, waving left and right— it's hungry, dying of thirst, and it wants blood.
"I wished that one of us could disappear."
I grab the book and flip through the pages, and the notes that I intentionally left inside of it were gone. Again. It seems that this book feeds not only on human blood, but also on knowledge.
"Thirst for knowledge is self-consuming, I know that."
I've tried everything I can since I became the not-so-proud owner of this book. I tried to set it on fire, tearing its pages apart, and buried it in the dirt.
Yet, all are futile, when I wake up, it returns by my side — closer than a lover, patient like a corpse waiting to be filled again.
Suddenly, there's a knock on the door.
Knock. Knock.
I set the gospel down on the table and went to open the door. As I opened it, I saw a familiar silhouette, and I had no doubt who it might be.
I was right when I opened the door to see a man in a long white robe that reached the floor. He stands before me with an otherworldly presence.
"So, you decided to show up today, huh?"
I said provocatively, but the man isn't bothered in the slightest by my provocation. Instead, I look in his eyes, his gaze landing on something inside my small apartment. The book, of course, it's the book.
"Cael Ravel, it seems that you have yet to rid yourself of the scripture. I wonder how long it has been."
He mentioned my full name in a low, deep tone. He then walked right past me, directly intruding on my apartment. But instead of resisting, I closed the door and followed closely behind him.
He was an acquaintance of a friend of mine. They said he could help me resolve my mundane problems. But it seemed his presence never changed things for the better.
The man stopped in front of the table where the gospel was resting. He outstretched his right hand to the book, but not quite touching, as a faint glow of golden energy radiated from it — as if purifying the book.
After some time, the glow faded away, and the old man put away his hand at his side. He shakes his head.
It's been a few times I've visited you. To be truthful to you, there's nothing either of us could do. The spirit living inside this tome is beyond that of the ordinary."
I didn't quite understand what the old man was saying, but whatever it meant, I know that even if I hide across another multiverse, the book will continue to haunt me.
The old man shrugged and looked me in the eyes.
"Mister Ravel, I pity you. Really, I do. You're bound to the soul within this gospel, but I hoped you would accept it with open arms. This is the woe of language."
The old man starts pacing around the room, but his gaze never leaves mine. He picks up the book and places it in my hand.
"It recognizes you as its source of nutrients. And now it's only bound to you. So shall you be."
The old man started retreating from my apartment. But then, he halted, looking over his shoulder. "May time be on your side, ending your prolonged suffering."
He turned away and left the apartment, closing the door behind him, leaving me stranded here with this anomaly in my hand.
I look down at the book and start flipping the pages; the contents within it are still foreign to me, and I never get close to deciphering the contents.
As I flipped the pages, a strange thing happened: there were empty pages at the back of the book.
"This.. It's not possible. This wasn't here before.. how can it.. be..?"
I grabbed a pen from the table and tried to write on it. Miraculously, the words I wrote were absorbed by the pages, leaving no trace of the pen's ink.
It intrigued me that, after years of research, something finally happened. Something... Significant.
But why now?
The question lingers in my mind, but I pay no attention to it, as I am busy with the discovery.
"Think... I need a lead, this is my only chance..."
I tap on my chin, thinking of a way that would work. Just as I was lost in thought, my eyes landed on a particular object — the quill. The same quill I found next to the Gospel when I first took it in from the auction.
"That's it! Now everything is in place."
I have never thought it would be any use, but now... this is the only option I have.
I grabbed the quill and dipped the tip in black ink. Then, I started to write on the page, but I was dumbfounded when the ink also vanished.
What has possibly gone wrong this time?
A series of questions with no clear answers, I need an answer, and I need one now. I started pacing around my apartment, thinking of a rational way to make this work.
"Blood... Do I really dare?"
In a moment of frustration, I decided to take drastic measures — poking my fingertip with the quill, drawing a small amount of blood on its tip.
"Damn it to hell..."
I then set the book down on the table. This is it. Either I return with something, or I never return at all.
I then started writing the first full sentences inside the gospel — 'Video, Scribo, Muto'.
The blood ink stays intact on the pages, as the words glow with a bright red.
"Hah..." I put a hand on my forehead.
I bit my lip as I threw my head back, letting out a laugh like never before. The truth is, years of isolation and self-critique, I've been drowning in piles of research papers.
Now... I finally float somewhere in the vast ocean. Finally belong somewhere.
—Penning a new chapter…