[A city on Earth, doesn't really matter which...]
The room was bleak, devoid of light, except for the solitary ceiling lamp, hanging atop a messy table, swinging like a pendulum in the breeze that wafted through the gaps along the window sill. Rain pelted the panes from outside, accompanied by vicious, howling wind.Though a dingy, cheap apartment, the foundations were sturdy, and thus the furious elements of nature could only lament in vain as they kept on trying to breach the flimsy barrier of cheap wood and dirty glass, but never succeeded.
A small bed, barely big enough for a single person was thrust to one corner of the room. The table occupied most of the space to its opposite. The sheets on the bed were surprisingly clean given the condition of the other furnitures and objects in the room. Most of the floor-space was occupied by several arrays of books and folders comprising of newspaper cuttings. At a quick glance, it could be deduced that most of the books were on topics that were found only in fantastic worlds of stories, movies or video games. Books on magic, occult and rituals were propped against books on reincarnation theories, rebirth, ancient scriptures of various religions. There were also topics that tried to signify their 'legitimacy' by adding the suffix '-logy' at the end of their titles. Demonology seemed to be the one the procurer of the books seemed to have focused on, judging by the sheer number of volumes that were present. Apart from the books, there were several notebooks scattered across the floor. One in particular seemed to be of special importance, because a figure, the only occupant of the room, was hunched over it.
The figure belonged to Scott Degen, a lanky, tanned man in his mid-thirties. An unruly crop of black hair speckled with grey covered his head. His brown eyes were bloodshot from sleeplessness. The T-shirt and cargo trousers he wore were both long overdue for a trip to the laundromat. Despite the haggard looks, his eyes burned with a fervent passion as his hands kept on scribbling letters in a language not known to the masses. On the floor next to the notebook he was working on sat a small wooden bowl filled with a dark red liquid and a stylus fashioned from the feathers of some bird. A similar stylus was also present in Scott's hands, with which he was scribing the esoteric symbols. His left arm was bandaged with white gauze, but crimson splotches on the surface of the gauze showed that whatever wound he had dressed was done either in haste, or sheer neglect, or maybe both. The wound or its state obviously wasn't a big concern for the man because his attention was fully focused on what he was working on.
Several hours passed. The storm raging outside had mostly abated, the torrential downpour regressed to a mild drizzle. Scott lifted his head and was apparently only just aware of his surroundings. In front of him, the notebook he was scribbling on was down to its last blank page. Scott glanced at the bloody bandage on his arm, a wry smile forming in the corner of his lips as he looked at the bowl, the 'red ink' now merely a lees at the bottommost depth of the container. He dipped his stylus once more in the last vestiges of the 'ink' and started writing once again, on the last page of the notebook. One line, then another, and another….and then he stopped.
"Three thousand, one hundred and twenty nine. This better work." He voiced out hoarsely.
Reaching under the bed, he pulled out a duffel bag, from which he took out a bundle carefully wrapped in several layers of newspaper and bubble-wrap (with the bubbles already burst, because otherwise its a heresy). Unwrapping the layers of protective covering unveiled a piece of cured skin, big enough to wrap the notebook in, which was what he did. Once again he dove under his bed, and this time he pulled out a large cardboard box. The contents that came out of the box were in order of rapidly escalating aberrance. A glass jar in which an umbilical cord was floating in a sea of preservative fluid, another jar of the same nature containing a severed human hand, and a third glass jar with perforated lid, containing a humongous cockroach. The insect was alive and twitching.
Scott arranged the three jars in front of the skin-wrapped notebook and proceeded to bring out yet another object from under his bed. It was a heavy bronze brazier with intricate oriental arts carved along its surface. The brazier was filled with chopped wood chips. Scott gently fingered the chips in the brazier and chuckled, thinking how the most innocuous object of his ritual was the most expensive and dangerous to get. He lifted one of the wooden chips. "10,000 years worth of human history, about to go up in smokes."
The digital clock on his table went off. Scott glanced at the time. 11:55 pm. He broke the seals of the two jars containing the umbilical cord and the severed hand. Without the hint of the slightest unease, he took the body parts out. The room was instantly awash in the strong, overbearing odour of formaldehyde. Scott placed the notebook on top of the withered, embalmed palm and wrapped them together with the umbilical cord. He placed the ensemble on top of the brazier, making sure the entirety of the book was snugly fit within the circumference of its mouth. Satisfied with the setup, he then reached inside his pockets, took out a matchbox and struck a matchstick alight.
"I feel like I should say something cool…but fuck it." He chuckled and dropped the burning matchstick on the brazier. The wooden chips caught fire unnaturally fast, even for dry wood, and within seconds, the brazier was set ablaze. The flame started out yellow but soon the yellow tinge disappeared, turning blue. Scott opened the third jar and took the cockroach out. It obediently sat on Scott's palm, waving its antennae around. "Sorry buddy. Nothing personal." He gently dropped the cockroach right on top of the blue flames.
The change was instantaneous. The blue flames immediately turned purple and shot up at least 40 cm in height. The heavy brazier started shuddering on a steady floor. Scott's eyes were on the digital clock. 11:59:40….11:59:41….11:59:50. The flames were even higher than before, the brazier was shaking violently, threatening to burst apart. 11:59:55…11:59:56. Scott opened his mouth. 11:59:59…12:00:00.
In a tongue that would definitely sound like gibberish to any sane person, Scott uttered a series of words. In the middle of his chanting, he saw the brazier being lifted above the floor by an unseen force. The individual flames in the brazier all amalgamated into a single entity - a purple blade of flame, 60 cm tall. It stopped dancing and was now utterly still. "…athrush imag nekh rokha hal akah…dakh." Scott finished chanting.
And then he dropped to the floor, unconscious. The brazier was still afloat in air, the purple flame impaled on top of it, still motionless.