Phil slowly picked up the papers hidden in the compartment of the back cover, he tried to read it but noticed that it was not written in the Roman alphabet. Phil tried to make sense of what was written in the paper since most of them had illustrations of some kind of being.
Phil looked at the page that he deemed the oldest since it was made of some unknown leather. A colossal monster was chained and buried deep somewhere was one of the drawings that Phil saw, the next page was a moon overlooking the colossal monster acting as a guard and lastly was an altar.
Phil thought that the content of these pages might have the answer to why he is always having a nightmare, but the problem was that he could not understand what was written on it.
Phil gave up on trying to decipher the text on his own for now, he walked towards the kitchen and prepared dinner for himself when suddenly he heard a knock on the door. He was startled and quickly entered the state of high alert.
"Phil, are you there?"
Phil sighed as he realized that it was just Sonja.
"Yeah, I'm here. Wait a moment I'll open the door."
Phil opened the door and saw the look of concern on Sonja's face.
"Are you okay Phil? Can I come in?"
"Yeah, come in."
Phil invited Sonja inside his house and they sat opposite each other on the couch.
"What happened to you? I heard from Dave that you were sent to the clinic."
"Well, I just had a bad stomachache that's all."
Phil did not tell the whole truth to Sonja since he did not want to make his childhood friend worry about him more.
"Ugh, that's what I told you not to eat all those greasy food. Look what happened to you, you were even sent to the clinic."
Sonja sighed as she finished reprimanding Phil.
"Anyway here's your class's assignment and mom said to give you this."
Sonja handed Phil his assignments and a thermos.
"What's this?"
"It's chicken soup, mom made it for you."
Phil smiled in gratitude.
"Thank you Sonj."
Sonja was about to go home when Phil stopped her.
"Uhm, hey do you recognize these letters perhaps"
Phil took a pen and started to draw on the papers that Sonja gave to him. Sonja raised her eyebrows as she did not know what has entered Phil's mind to suddenly draw something gibberish. Sonja took a glance, she did not understand or know what kind of language Phil had drawn.
"I don't know. But maybe Samantha knows since she's always in the library. Well, at least she might know what language it is."
Samantha answered as she waved Phil goodbye and walked towards her house.
After eating and drinking the soup Sonja's mom made Phil walk towards his room ready to start his homework when he remembered that he should not let other people know about the pages hidden in the back cover of the book. So Phil had an idea and tried his best to copy the letters from the page into a bond paper so that he can ask Samantha if she knew what it was. Phil was proud of having this idea since he did not want to let Eric know about this secret, well at least for now until he could truly be a 'Master of Dreams'.
'Let's see what Mr. Perfect's reaction when he knows I became a Master of Dreams before him.'
Phil snickered and laughed in three parts excited to what look Eric would have if he knew that Phil had won.
Morning came and Phil had dark bags under his eyes since he underestimated the difficulty in copying the unknown letters that were written on the old pages.
'Dang it, I hadn't slept and I did not even finish the whole thing. Well, I might as well copy just this and maybe I can understand everything without copying this.'
Phil carefully tucked the pages back in the book and put the things he copied in his bag. He wanted to come to school early since he did not want to let Eric be suspicious of him.
Phil headed downstairs and toasted two loaves of bread and headed to Sonja's house.
Arriving at Sonja's house he knocked and a middle-aged woman came out.
"Good morning Phil. You're too early today, Sonja is still sleeping."
"Good morning Mrs. Smith, I just want to tell Sonja that I will be heading to school now since I left something important. Uhm and please Sonja that I cannot go with her to school today."
"Okay, dear. Have you eaten your breakfast already? Wait a moment dear let me give you a sandwich."
Mrs. Smith came inside her house and a minute later handed Phil a paper bag containing 2 pieces of a tuna sandwich.
"Here Phil, and do not ruin your stomach again okay. Take care now."
Phil thanked Mrs. Smith and walked to school quickly.
After he arrived at school. Phil directly went to the library intending to wait for Samantha there. When he arrived at the library he was surprised that it was open and that Samantha was already there.
Samantha was wiping the library tables clean when suddenly someone tapped on her shoulder. She froze and wanted to scream when he heard the voice of a boy.
"Hello? Are you okay?"
Samantha looked behind her and saw Phil, she exhaled deeply, and her knees were shaking.
"Uhm, your Sonja's friend aren't you."
"Yeah, I'm Phil by the way. I'm just curious why are you here so early? I thought I will be the first one to arrive here and that the library will be closed."
"Y-y-yeah I currently live here."
"WHAT! You live here?"
Phil was shocked at Samantha's revelation.
"The school's headmistress let me live here ever since my father died, he worked here as a librarian once."
Phil felt awkward about letting the girl divulge her secret.
"Sorry about your loss."
"N-n-no don't be sorry, I'm okay now. Uhm may I ask why are you here so early? I haven't finished cleaning the library can you wait for me to be done."
"Okay, I will help you since I need your help."
"Uhm, What do you need me for."
"Hey, don't be nervous. Here look at this, do you know what is written here."
Phil rummaged his backpack and handed Samantha the bond paper containing the odd letters he copied.
Samantha looked at the symbols and it felt familiar to her but he could not remember where she had seen it. Samantha stood in her place lost in her thoughts, Phil felt awkward since he knew Samantha still had some unfinished task, he took it to himself and finished Samantha's task as a form of repayment to her.
Phil was wiping the dust off the last table when Samantha suddenly shouted.
"Ah! it's Latin but it is overlaid with... hmmm seems like Greek and some other old languages."
Samantha sat down on one of the table as she took out a pen from her pocket and tried to decipher one of the letter.
"Yes yes, it is Latin. Some of them are Greek and Arabic? Hmm, this is Nordic isn't it?"
Samantha stood up from her place and headed on one of the library's vast amount of bookshelf, she took some reference book and looked at the diagrams in it. Phil followed behind her and tried to peek at what she was doing. Samantha was surprised when she noticed Phil.
"Ahh! I'm sorry I was lost in my thoughts, I apologize."
Samantha bowed as she apologized to Phil when she noticed the rag in Phil's hands.
"Just relax I already finished your task. So can you decipher what the symbol means?"
Samantha felt embarrassed since she let Phil do the work for her.
"Uhmm, I can do it, but it's pretty difficult and might take time to decipher, it's more like a chimera of all the archaic languages I know of. Here look."
Samantha pointed to the symbol she was deciphering.
"This here is a Latin symbol, but this part here is Nordic in nature, and this here is either Egyptian or Arabic I'm not sure yet. Each of these symbols can contain a lot of meaning and not just symbolize a letter like our alphabet. It could mean a word or a whole sentence for all I know. I suggest for you come back later or this afternoon, I will try to decipher it since it looks like something worth studying."
Phil could not help and see the fire in Samantha's eyes, he sighed and decided to come back after the class ends.
Phil walked away from the library and felt bored since it was still early in the morning and there were only a small amount of students that had arrived. Phil was thinking about who might know some of the symbols he had copied, and then he remembered the time he was at teacher Seth's office.
"Teacher Seth might know some of the symbols since he had that old tablet and a lot of books about history."
Phil spoke to himself as he turned around to head towards Seth's office.
Phil walked and arrived at the door of Seth's office, he knocked but no one answered. Phil tried the door handle and it opened, he peeked inside and it was pretty dark.
"Hello? Teacher Seth? Hmm has he not arrived yet?"
Phil entered Seth's office without his permission and walked towards his bookshelf filled with old artifacts, Phil was about to take and read one of the books when he noticed a black mirror in the corner of his eye. Phil looked at the mirror and his head started to hurt.
On the mirror was a rune, it was written in some kind of red ink. Phil grabbed his head as visions from his previous nightmare came back to him.
He remembered that rune, which was one of the runes the crazed mad man carved on his stomach. He remembered that in particular since that was the last rune the madman carved on his stomach.
Phil grabbed his head which was hurting like crazy. Phil saw a vision of a hooded man coming out of his stomach while the men in white coats and the madman in red coat bowed down to the hooded man.