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As Eric awoke, so did I. I wouldn’t call it waking up, per se, because I don’t sleep. It’s more of a sense of usefulness. I know he’s woken up because I feel like I could be used. Eric sat up and rested his head against the headboard of his bed in his small, government sanction apartment. All members of the government were given free housing for their services. The less important you happened to be, the smaller your living space. Eric yawned, no doubt tired from his long night of work. He cursed his life, something he did every morning, and then started getting ready for another monotonous day at the office.
I was always surprised how the government architects were able to squeeze a bathroom into these apartments, but somehow they did. Eric looked into his tiny mirror and sighed. I wished I could comfort him, but I knew I could do nothing. He reached for his razor and began cutting away at his five o’clock shadow. He winced when he cut his neck. A small drop of blood slid down his throat. He noticed it and wiped it up with his finger.
Eric hated black, so working for the government was horrible for him. They all wore the same black suits and black ties. Black was the color of uniformity for the government. I was that shocked that the Capitol wasn’t painted black. He looked to his watch and rolled his eyes. He was already late. Eric went to the mat in front of his door and checked the pentacle. He looked it over as well; there were no smears and no irregularities. He stood on it and closed his eyes.
“Ire,” Eric said in his deep, authoritative voice.
I immediately went to work once I heard the Old Words. I twisted around him, pulling his very body right out of his apartment and into my world. We didn’t stay long though; I felt his command ordering me where to go ringing throughout my being. I took him to the pentacle he thought of and I allowed his body to take its own form again. Once he had fully formed, he stepped into the Department of Homeland Security.
“Good morning, Mr. Warren,” government workers said as they passed him.
He mostly ignored them, but he would give some a nod of acknowledgement. He walked with purpose as he quickly sauntered towards the Department of the Taskforce of Counter Terrorism. He opened his office door and sat in his chair. It wasn’t long before he heard a knock. He sighed.
“Come in,” he said.
Eric’s boss, Mr. Knox, always sent his secretary when he wanted to talk to him, so Eric was already out of his office before the secretary could talk to him. He walked briskly to Mr. Knox’s office and opened the door. Mr. Knox didn’t bother to look up at Eric as he walked in, so Eric just stood and waited for Mr. Knox to decide he wanted to walk to him. After Mr. Knox made Eric stand for at least two minutes, he finally looked up to Eric.
“Eric,” Mr. Knox said, “I have another assignment for you.”
Eric sighed; he hated everything Mr. Knox had him do. He had no choice though. He did what he was told.
“Where is it this time?” Eric asked. Mr. Know held up a folder and Eric took it from him. As he walked out of Mr. Knox’s office, Eric flipped through the folder to see what his next assignment was. When he knew what he had to do, he took out his phone and dialed the number he had to dial too often. “We have our next job. Meet me in the briefing room.”
They were masters at being unseen. As they crept through the night, I knew that no one would be able to see them, even if they tried. Eric and the four agents he brought with him carried two pieces of paper each. Those papers were the only weapons they needed. The appliance store that was their target was innocent looking enough, but Eric sadly knew that there was more to the small shop. Eric held up his hand and the agents all stopped. Eric took a small piece of paper from his pocket and pulled it to his lips.
“Quaerere,” Eric whispered to me.
His words vibrated through my body and I drifted into the store. I whisked myself around every rack and every corner of the shop. I went straight through the ground when I felt the magic. It pulled me down and I saw what I hoped would not be here. As soon as I located the magic, I was pulled back to Eric. He knew what I knew.
“They’re inside,” Eric said.
The agents around Eric stiffened, as they always did before Eric’s orders. The magic in the agents was thrilled; I could feel it. Such young magic too, but I couldn’t be sure because I had never conversed with them. Eric pointed to the shop, withdrew his papers, and ran with the agents.
“Patefacio!” one of the agents screamed with his paper raised.
I felt his magic surge within him and push itself through the pentacle on the paper. The magic forced the door open and Eric’s team swept in. They went halfway in the store and then Eric knelt down and placed his paper on the floor.
“Patefacio!” Eric said, pushing me into the floor.
I opened the trap door and revealed the secret stairs. Eric’s team ran down the stairs and Eric nearly cried when he saw the circle of people on the floor. They were seated around a pentacle holding each other’s hands. They were scared out of their minds. The magic that they were using was good magic. Pure magic. I think they were trying to perform a spell for the betterment nature.
“Taskforce of Counter Terrorism,” one of the agents said, flashing them a badge, “Are you aware that none of you are in employment of the government and therefore do not have the right to practice magic?” The members of the circle slowly nodded. “Are you aware that, since you are not in the employment of the government, you do not have the ability to use magic?” The members of the circle nodded once more. “Are you aware of the penalties associated with the delusion of the possession of magic and with the unauthorized attempt to use magic?” Eric turned his head away and did not see the nods of the people in the circle.
An agent grabbed Eric’s shoulder and squeezed it. Eric raised his paper and held it in front of the circle.
“Ignis,” Eric said quietly.
No one else in the room could see, but a single tear fell from Eric’s eyes as he sent me blazing towards the defenseless people. Since it pained Eric, it pained me to burn them along with the other agent’s magic. We killed them. We slaughtered them under orders from the United States’ government. Some of them cried and screamed and some of them stayed silent. When the ashes of the innocent covered the ground, I dissolved my fiery form and went back to Eric. He didn’t bother saying anything to his agents after that. He just left.
He didn’t want to use me to travel back to his apartment in the blink of an eye. He walked instead. Government workers never came to this part of town, but Eric did. He came to be reminded of what the government truly was. Those who weren’t born into the magic had to live poor their entire lives. Government jobs were reserved for magicians. If you didn’t possess magic, you performed the jobs that magicians found to be below themselves: carpenters, cooks, servants, plumbers. It was all a lie, though.
Magic was in everyone. It was stronger and weaker in some, but everyone possessed the ability to summon force magic. As Eric walked down the street, I saw people who thought that they were magic less. Their magic was sad, weak, and unused. The government had found that the longer someone goes without using magic, the weaker it becomes. If the government convinced regular people that they didn’t have magic, then their magic would whither into perpetual nothingness and would no longer be a threat. It was a genius system of control, but an evil one.
When Eric reached his apartment and opened the door, he almost fell asleep on the floor. He managed to get to his bed before exhaustion caused him to stop moving. He was barely able to pull out his wallet and take out her picture. He did it every night to remind himself why he worked for the government. I missed her. I truly did. Her smiling face always brightened Eric’s day, so it brightened mine too. When she came home from school, she would run into her father’s arms and give him a hug of such unbelievable love that I could not even describe it. It always made me cry to think that she was being used. She was locked away to keep the rebellious Eric Warren under control.
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139,835 Literary Works • 672,773 Reviews
Hey there, John,
I really love the plot and concepts in this piece! Different takes on magic are always fun, and I really like the idea of Eric flinging the narrator around the place with words. That said, I would like to suggest a few ways in which you could improve the way you deliver those concepts to the reader.
Firstly, my main point is going to be about the things you "tell" us about Eric. I understand that, as his magic, the narrator knows him very well, and could tell us all about what he thinks and feels, all day long. However, for the reader, it's much more interesting if, rather than telling us what Eric thinks, you tell us things that let us visualise Eric, and from that work out what he's feeling. For example, when Mr. Knox gives Eric his assignment, rather than telling us he hates it, but has no choice, and does what he's told, perhaps think about the body language someone in such a situation might have, and tell us about that.
On a similar note, the narrator also gives us a lot of information about the world Eric inhabits directly - the fact that the government uses black, for example, or that they want to keep the population subdued so they don't realise they have magic. There's an awful lot of it in this one short piece, and I tend to find that, as a reader, just being told all this information in depth in one go is a bit uninteresting. I think it would be a good idea to look at what you tell the reader about the world, decide how much of it is necessary to understand the story, and think about whether there is a way to tell us about it in a different way (and also, if this is the beginning of a longer story - I notice there's a '1' at the top - whether it could be revealed later on). For example, I'd be tempted to write "Eric hated black", followed by a quip about how that's a problem for a government worker, and leave it at that - the reader can infer that the government uses black a lot. For another example, when Eric looks at the picture of his (daughter?), I would favour telling us less about what has happened to her, and showing us more of Eric's emotions around the picture.
Next, I'd like to mention a couple of points of confusion that made me stop and reread things. (This is generally to be avoided, because if your reader has to stop and work things out, it breaks the immersion in the story.)
Point one: when Mr. Knox's secretary comes into the room, you don't let us know that it's the secretary before showing us Eric's reaction to the secretary walking in. I think this bit could use a little rearrangement, just to make it clear the sequence of events and where everyone is.
Point two: on your first Latin command. The confusion here arises because 'ire' is an English word, as well as being a Latin infinitive. It took me a little while to realise what he had said - and I suspect that readers who have never studied Latin will have more of a problem. I notice that later on, you switch from using infinitives like 'ire' to other parts of the verb, like 'patefacio' and 'ignis'. I think it would be good to be consistent about this, rather than switching, and I also think that using a part other than the infinitive would clear up the 'ire' confusion - 'eo' is definitely not an English word, for example.
Finally, I'd like to encourage you to build some more depth to the character of Eric. In the last line, he's described as 'rebellious', but the impression I get from the rest of the piece is not one of rebellion. I'm guessing that Eric's rebellion has died down since the imprisonment of his loved one, and he's now more resigned to his fate. It would be great to see you bring that out - show us his desolation, and try to make us really feel it. (This will be especially interesting if this is indeed part of a longer piece - I'd certainly be keen to see how he develops from this position.)
I hope that this has been helpful. If you have any questions about things I've said, of it you'd like me to go through on a spelling-and-grammar nitpick (though there wasn't anything that sprang out at me), please feel free to drop me a PM. Otherwise, happy writing!
Cadi x
This really good! I mean oh my gosh I would give this a 10/10 and i seriously cant wait for another one! Happy writing my friend!
Thank you so much!
First of all I love your story. Really all I have is nitpicks, it was that awesome.
"Black was the color of uniformity for the government. I was that shocked that the Capitol wasn’t painted black. He looked to his watch and rolled his eyes. He was already late."
Comment: It's usually good to have sentence variety, since long sentences can get kind of draggy and shorter ones are more to the point. but when you have so many short ones so close together, it ruins the flow of the story. Maybe pick one or two to embellish a little bit.
I immediately went to work once I heard the "Old Words."—is there a reason this is capitalized?
I twisted around him, pulling his very body right out of his apartment and into my world. We didn’t stay long though; I felt his command ordering me where to go ringing throughout my being. I took him to the pentacle he thought of and I allowed his body to take its own form again. Once he had fully formed, he stepped into the Department of Homeland Security.
Comment: It's interesting how brief this is. I think I like it, but do we eventually get more of a description of "her world?" It just seems so important, and it's so brief...
After I finished the story, this made a little more sense, but still...
Eric’s boss, Mr. Knox, always sent his secretary when he wanted to talk to him, so Eric was already out of his office before the secretary could "talk to him."—I would rephrase that, maybe before the secretary could begin?
Mr. Knox didn’t bother to look up at Eric as he walked in, so Eric just stood and waited for Mr. Knox to decide he wanted to walk to him.— I had to read that couple of times to figure which "he and him" you were referring too, so maybe you could clarify?
After Mr. Knox made Eric stand for at least two minutes, he finally looked up "to Eric".—I would delete those two words.
“Where is it this time?” Eric asked. Mr. Know —Knox?
“Patefacio!” Eric said, pushing me into the floor.—Is Eric the only one who can see her/him?
That was the end of my Nitpicks, mostly because I was too absorbed to notice anything. Wow. I have so many questions right now, there's no way I won't be able to keep reading! You're writing style's different, but it totally works for your story. If I had one comment it would be to make things less wordy, but really, that was awesome.
Thank you for the review! I posted this on another website and they absolutely hated my story, so I'm glad you enjoyed it!