Dreams of the Quill

Night Switch 03.01 Posted on April 7, 2008 at 5:29 pm by Flak Post Categories: Night Switch Tagged: marin chapter • monday update Comments:

No roll. Welcome to our third section, and our second plot arc.

“You seem exhausted.”

“I am,” replied Marin, sighing into her pillow. Her large desktop computer, humming happily away on the desk a couple feet away, displayed the website of her friend Dorito George. Plastered all over it were images of the demon she had summoned in the middle of the night. It was a huge, impressive monster of a thing, jet black and covered in spikes. Lying in front of her keyboard was the hefty tome she’d bought from Dorito.

“Are you happy now?” asked the dachshund, cocking its head to the side and gazing up at the girl. When it didn’t receive an answer, it sauntered over to her desk and leapt up onto the chair. Peeking over the edge of the desk, it nudged El with its nose. “It’s weird that the book won’t talk, though.”

“Whyzzit weird?” yawned Marin, looking up at her desk and the dog perched precariously on her chair.

“You’ve awakened your powers, so the book should recognize you as its owner.”

“Owner?”

“This book can talk to the human it recognizes as its owner.” Turning and seeing Marin’s look of disbelief, the dachshund quickly added, “it has in the past! You must be the bottom of the barrel as far as powers go for it to not talk to you, though.” After an uncomfortable pause, the dog cleared its throat and grumbled, “stupid girl.”

“What was that thing that gobbled up the library, then, if my powers are so meager?”

“A low-level demon,” replied the dog, “one that doesn’t even deserve a name. Ahhh, what a pain. El is finally bought by someone with the power, and I find my way here, and I teach you how to summon, only to discover that you’re a dud.”

“A dud?” questioned Marin. “That thing seemed pretty strong to me.”

“Strong?! Well, I suppose to a human it might seem like it was strong, but—”

“Moreover, the only thing you ‘taught’ me was to yell the words ‘from the darkness in my heart, a violent awakening!’… talk about sappy lines. I’m sure I could have summoned that thing without them.”

“Don’t be so sure, girl. Feel free to try, though.”

“Maybe I will,” she snapped before collapsing onto her back, gazing up at the ceiling. She felt conflicted—on the one hand, there was this pesky dog that treated her terribly and wasn’t particularly calming as far as her sense of sanity went. On the other, she had discovered a gargantuan power within herself, one that could very likely change the boring world she lived in.

Yeah, the dachshund had told her that she was meager.

Maybe she was, from its perspective. But a ten-meter tall demon that ate up a building’s matter in order to come into existence was hardly a joke to her American compatriots. She was sure that in the shadows, those “DHS creeps” her friend Elise had referred to were moving. Her boring life—her stagnant country—the broken world—they were all going to be fixed.