Elmer was not sure what the exact hour was, but with his view of the sky with the sun still hovering behind its clouds, and also taking into consideration the sort of weather that had been present when he'd left home earlier this morning, he expected it to be around 10:00 A.M. or so.
He needed it to be between that time at most, he could not have it any later. There were things he needed to get done, and he was hoping the day would not run out before he was able to complete them.
Elmer sighed and went ahead to drape over his window the makeshift curtain he had woven from tying pieces of his and Mabel's clothes together.
From the upper frame of the window fell the temporary curtain, and it shuffled about for a few seconds, unable to diligently perform the job it had been made for, until Elmer tucked its edges into the sides of the window.
He further made sure to prevent mistakes by using two little stones, which he had snuck into the apartment beforehand, to force the curtain into stillness by placing them upon its hems which were sprawled on the window sill.
After he was done, he took a few steps backward, and for a few seconds he watched his work of art in the flickering darkness that had shrouded the room before deciding it was perfect with a bob of his head.
Using the dim light of the halfway melted candle on the edge of his table, Elmer made his way toward the paper bag that was placed upon it and poured out all that was inside.
He had gone to the Black Market first, and he had made sure not to spend more time than necessary, even though he'd had a nagging thought tugging at him to inspect the alleyway beside the store he had bought his elixir ingredients weeks ago.
It had been telling him that maybe he would have been able to find a clue to his lost memory there, but Elmer had fought against it.
He had little time, he could not be spending that chasing after shadows.
And it was not like he had lost all his memories, only a single piece had gone missing, something of such could return anytime. Well, that was if whatever supernatural incident that had caused such deemed it fit.
He knew it had not been natural, nothing that had happened and was happening to him was, so losing just a single piece of his memory struck him as something that involved the actions of someone from the other plane, someone who did not want him to remember them.
The Losts and curses obviously paled in comparison to whatever entity who might have done that to him. And if he had struggled against such lesser beings, then there was no way he could even force that unknown entity to return his memory.
He decided to just focus on what his level of intellect and expertise could handle.
After sliding the table over to where he had taken his seat on the frame of the bed bunk, Elmer picked up his pen and wrote on the pristine white paper.
A young boy dressed in a dungaree and a flat cap…
It was a very vague description, seeing as there would be countless people dressed in such a manner in the world. But he had seen neither of the boy's distinctive features, so this was all he had.
Elmer wondered how the divination he was about to perform would work in that regard. Maybe it would show him every single person with such a description, or maybe…
He looked at the bag of money on the table…
Probably that's why an item the person came in contact with is needed… It would help narrow it down to who exactly had been in possession of it and was of such a description…
Elmer sighed. It was wishful thinking, but a hopeful one at that.
He dropped the pen on the edge of the table, then picked up one of the four red candles he had bought for the divination and lit it using his already flaming room candle.
After a few seconds of waiting for the red candle to burn, Elmer went ahead to drip down its melted wax on the four corners of the table, taking hold of that bit to send his pen and room candle to the floor.
Done with that, he stuck the candle in his hand onto the wax at the upper right corner of the table, forcing it to stand firm, before lighting up the rest of the candles and putting them each on the vacant waxes at the remaining edges of the table.
The candles were lit and well placed, the bag of money, which was the item the boy had come in contact with, was at the center of the table, and so was the paper of description.
All was set.
Elmer heaved out an exhale before leaning away from the table a bit so he would do no damage to his altar, and then he said in a hushed tone, "The watchful eye of the Heavens that sees all, I plead for your vast gaze, show me what I seek."
In barely a second, a soft wind whooshed into his room from an unknown source, seeing as Elmer had shut his window so as to prevent air from blowing onto his makeshift curtain and ruining the whole process.
Following that enigmatic occurrence was Elmer glimpsing the words he had written on the pristine white paper erase as though they had never been there, and the candle flames ceasing all their flickers as they stood erect, pointed and stiff.
His own room candle had long quenched from the unannounced onslaught of the mysterious wind, leaving only the flames of the supernatural as his lighting.
Suddenly, and without warning, as Elmer was still taking in the mystical activities that had stormed his room, his body grew rigid as though some giant invisible clamp had tightened across his frame to hold him firmly.
And then his eyes sank.
A blink followed up by a sharp inhale, and Emer found himself standing on a crowded walkway overrun by working peasants and laborers exhausted out of their wits.
Elmer needn't no one to tell him where this place was. It was very obvious from the cramped and dirty streets, along with the thick black smoke emanating from the countless factories built so closely together and darkening the sky above.
He was standing in the Merchant's District…
But it was different.
The acrid and polluted scent of smoke mixed in with soot and the metallic tang of machinery were not upon his nose.
He was breathing in air that was mildly thin and vastly different from what should have been permeating the Merchant's District due to its ambience.
The atmosphere was as well not heavy and oppressive. And the chatters, coughs, and wheezes were so indistinct that Elmer almost thought them to not even be of existence at all.
It did not take long before he understood what was happening here.
What he was undergoing was not the same as it had been when he'd wandered into the dreamworld.
His body was still in his room, and only the sensations of his mind had been taken on this supernatural journey, seeing as even though he was dressed in his boots and standing on a ground made of granite in this scenery, he still had the sensation of the cold wooden floor of his room sweeping against his feet.
Elmer had been expecting it to be similar to the way he'd felt in the dreamworld, but it seemed taking the essence elixir dragged him into a greater connection with the supernatural than mere rituals.
He was not especially surprised that it had turned out this way, after all, back then he had been throwing his arms out to embrace the supernatural, to become one with it, it was only expected that he would bond with it on a deeper level.
As for now, he was simply just scouring through the supernatural in search of someone he sought, he was not trying to remain in this world, so there was no incentive to feel a deep connection with it.
With that figured out, Elmer went on to do what he had ventured into this plane to do.
He quickly swept his eyes around the streets, searching for whatever might give him a definite idea of where exactly this part of the district was. And he saw it. A road sign standing unmissable at the intersection of this walkway he was on. It read "Sir. Clover's Street."
All of a sudden, the indistinct but nonexistent chitters that had filled this ad hoc Merchant's District faded away.
And after a short gasp followed up by furrowed eyebrows, Elmer watched as every single thing that had existed in this space faded away, replacing themselves with a thick fog of mist that filled both the grounds and the skies—all but one building. A one-storey brick apartment that stood before him with the number "15" engraved above its front door.
It looked a bit rundown and dirty, and even though it was just before Elmer, the mysterious smoke swirling about it made it seem a great deal distant.
Is he in there…?
As if to affirm Elmer's thoughts, the front door of the apartment suddenly creaked open slowly, and presented before his eyes a pitch black hallway that seemed to stretch out infinitely.
The door of the apartment had opened up to him, it was fairly obvious what his next step would be.
Elmer closed his eyes, and with a deep inhale and exhale, he went forward and up the outer stairs of the building, before taking himself into the cold darkness of the apartment.
The door slammed shut immediately after.