Possibly a disclaimer: Okay, I know most of the people who reviewed my fic wanted me to do Spy or Sniper next. However, I don't think it would be fair to the poor token black guy. I had to do to this chapter what I've done with Engie's,becuase it turned out to be too long. The dialogue between Tavish and Merasmus is copied word-for-word from the TF2 Halloween comic. I try to use as much canon as I possibly can, so this came in handy.
I do not own TF2 or Valve, though I own many hats. Enjoy, anyway.
"Are you sure about this? " asked a young blonde boy looking at his friend fidgeting around the loch. He looked nervously at his parents sitting idly by and drinking their morning coffee. Young Damon was incredibly careful when it came to playing with other young Scottish lads. He never got his shoes dirty, there wasn't a single scratch on his skin and no matter how hard he tried, he never seemed to get himself in trouble. And there he was, with his new friend Tavish DeGroot, on a secret mission to kill the Loch Ness Monster.
Tavish wiped off his muddy face. He looked at his new creation, quite pleased about what he had just made. Looking back at it, it wasn't so advanced as the things he would put together now. It was a simple stick of TNT, or Tri-Nitro-Toluene, coated with a large flashing ring. The ring was metal, and basically consisted itself of a small button and a lighter. The mix of sulfuric acid, nitric acid and a hint of water were bundled together with some wax. The six year old tried out the TNT formula for weeks, and finally perfected it. And now he was about to put it in action.
The plan was to blow up the Loch Ness Monster using the TNT sticks. When the TNT is thrown, the button would switch on the lighter, causing it to blow up upon impact. Tavish should have known that the plan would backfire, somehow. But, mind you, he was only six. He ran his fingers through his short black hair, looking at his scared friend. He frowned at him
"'Couwse I'm suwe! Ya think Alfred Nobel wasn't suwe when he made this?" Tavish had prepared six bundles of home-made TNT. He looked around the coast once more. The gloomy September morning gave out the smell of victory, because, by any six-year-old's logic, no epic battle was won when it's sunny out. The water of the loch was grayish and reflected the thick clouds, without having that usual shine the water has. It was if the water became completely matte. Tavish kicked off some dirt off his shoes, frowning upon the still watery surface. Damon's parents, and his adoptive parents, were sitting on an old wooden bench somewhere up the hill. His adoptive mother, Stephanie, waved at him.
"Damn yee, woman! Yer givin' us away!" he yelled at her, his screams losing all sense as they went up the hill and got in her ear.
"Love you too, honey!" she waved, smiling at him. Tavish smacked his face with his hand, irritated by that woman.
"Wight…" he looked at Damon, who shook nervously; "Keep yer eyes peeled for anythin' that looks loike Nessie!"
A couple of gulls flew across the sky, squealing. The cold wind tussled their hair and buzzed in their ears, but they stayed, shielding their eyes from the sun with their hand, scoping the area.
"Tavish!" Damon jumped as he saw a shadow float across the surface.
"Holy cwap!" Tavish left out yet another "r", a speech impediment he had ever since he could talk. He waddled quickly to the surface, holding the six sticks. Knowing that he had a good throwing arm, he lifted it up and bent slightly in the knees.
"Fwedom!" he shouted, as Damon backed away and cupped his ears nervously. The stick of TNT flew across the air, only to land on the surface intact. Tavish was confused.
"Maybe you didn't build it properly." squealed Damon, biting his fingernail innocently.
"Maybe you didn't build it blah-blah-blah… Shut up, Damon!" Tavish snapped as he concentrated on throwing another stick on the beast. This one too, landed on the water, and continued to float about, gently touching the first stick.
"This time…" Tavish stretched out his leg like one of those professional baseball players, and swung the thing harder than before. It went further, but it did no damage. The Loch Ness Monster, which was later confirmed to be some driftwood, turned and started to float away, carried by the cold wind.
"It's getting away!" Damon yelped excitedly. Tavish threw two more sticks on the water, where they continued to float about. Maybe the water wasn't enough for the impact. Maybe it doesn't work when it gets wet. Tavish looked at his last potential masterpiece, laying in his hand. He frowned at it, as the Loch Ness Driftwood floated away out of sight.
"Piece o' junk." Tavish exclaimed, throwing the stick behind his back with angry force.
Damon's parents were sitting comfortably with Stephanie and Travis, Tavish's adoptive parents. It was a chilly day, and they drank warm coffee to keep themselves cozy. Stephanie looked at the two boys playing on the coast. She waved to Tavish, who seemed to be thinking deeply. She waved to him, and he waved back, shouting to her.
"Love you too, honey!" she responded, not exactly knowing what he just said.
"So, how's the boy?" Damon's mother smiled while rubbing her hands together. Stephanie fixed her long winter coat.
"He's doin' fine, thank you. He's taken quite a shine to that boy of yers." Damon and Tavish were talking near the coast excitedly. Tavish turned to the water and screamed something. Stephanie chuckled.
"Wasn't it a bit odd, him being black as the ace of spades?" the woman asked, in a way that she considered was subtle. Stephanie smiled. She was almost completely white herself, with her long blonde hair and small freckles. When she was first born, the doctors thought she was an albino. Her husband, Stephen, was the same as her; only his hair was chestnut brown. The couple couldn't go anywhere without being given odd looks from by-passers. Stephanie still remembered the day that she and Stephen first found Tavish. He was abandoned, left in a small crib made out of metal and various wires. They immediately took him to their home, where they had raised him as their own.
"It's not odd. Our home is just more…colorful." She smiled as she made the unintended pun.
"What we're more concerned about is his interest in explosives." Said Stephen, hugging his wife. "The boy can't git enough a them."
"I see… Is it possible that your son has some psychological disorder that makes him act the way he does?" the woman smirked, as her husband rolled her eyes, hoping that something would put him out of his misery. Stephanie frowned.
"That psychological disorder is called childhood curiosity, Zelda. And if you let your son pull the stick from his arse, you would see that it's quite common."
Zelda gasped. Suddenly, Stephen noticed something. Their children were throwing something in the loch.
"Now isn't that nice?" said Stephanie. She couldn't help but notice that the objects they were throwing in were left floating about.
"How come Tavish is throwing those big red sticks in?"
"It's called being an unruly child." Zelda smirked, looking at the moist ground. "And if you disciplined Tavish once in a while, you would see that it shouldn't be that common."
As much as Stephanie wanted to smack Zelda in the face with her foot, she got up, ready to go get Tavish.
"Playing is one thing. This is littering." She began to walk down the slippery hill, and soon her husband and Zelda followed. Zelda struggled to walk in her tight high heels, much to Stephanie's amusement.
Suddenly, they saw an object approaching them. It was a stick. A large red stick with a fuse and a lighter attached to it. It flew through the air in slow motion, and Zelda could see the glistening surface of the big red button, just as it hit her large forehead.
First, there was a large explosion. A gush of wind tussled the boys' hair. When they turned around in shock, they saw terror. A large fiery spiral went up in the air, crackling loudly. It soon disappeared, and a giant cloud of dirty, grey smoke filled up the sky. The entire pasture went deafeningly loud, the hot smoke escaping to each corner of the plane. The hills behind them disappeared. There was not a single scream in that utter chaos. But, as Tavish anticipated, there were a lot of flying body parts. The first thing Damon saw was his mother's ring that fell in front of him. He picked up the shining diamond, and the finger it was propped up on. He saw the whiteness of his mother's bone. The poor boy started to cry. His parents were gone. His life was over. Meanwhile, Tavish didn't say a thing. He watched Stephen's head catapulting through the air. He destroyed his family. He destroyed his perfectly normal life. All in a single, careless throw. And it was all his fault.
"Awesome." he said, hypnotized by the puff of smoke pinching his eyes. He may have not gotten Nessie yet, but he was on the right track.
"How cool is that!?" he asked his crying friend… ahem, crying former friend.
It had been exactly one year since Tavish DeGroot killed his original adoptive parents, and his best friend's family. No legal action was taken against the boy. However, the whole incident was retold time and time again by all the inhabitants of Ullapool, so, in the end, a simple accident managed to become a ferocious massacre. Up to that day, mothers shielded their children from the terrifying tot, walking around the Highlands looking like a black misfortune bringing sheep.
"Don't look at him, Adelaide!" the mother instructed her young daughter, turning her around while she shut her eyes tightly. "That boy is an ungodly menace."
Young Tavish walked past the shy girl, carrying his bag innocently. The contents of the bag was quite usual for any Crypt Grammar School attendant. There he held a couple of books, a quill, a cheat sheet with the School's hymn written on it in case he forgot and just a dash of potassium chlorite in a small bottle. He held the bag close to his body, trying not to interfere with the unstable compound. He could see the young girl's shy smile flash across her face.
He has been a member of the Crypt Grammar School for Orphans for about a full year, and during that year, he was adopted twice. His first family lasted about two months, before they gave up on curing his obsession on all things explosive. The second family came after a month. Tavish happily sat in the car with them, his new mother smiling beside him. Everything was going great, until the car ran into a cyclist. His new father panicked and turned to the left, and the car screeched as it hit a tree.
"Awesome." Exclaimed the wide-eyed Tavish after escaping the burning wreckage. His leg was broken and he almost died from inhaling so many exhaust fumes, but as he looked at the great ball of fire, reaching the tree top and spreading into the sky, he knew that it was his destiny to recreate that moment.
Sadly, his new parents' destiny wasn't to see him do it.
So, it was back to the Crypt School. But once there, he started intensely working on his new invention. He spent long, sleepless hours locked in his old dusty dorm, trying to perfect his newest invention. A grenade. So simple to make, yet nearly impossible to master. And every weekend, around eight o'clock, he brought his test subjects and threw them at the Loch, from the same spot he threw his self-activating TNTs.
"Too slow… too heavy… needs more Ammonium Nitrate…" commented the disappointed Tavish on each explosion bursting through the quiet starry night. The local inhabitants were less than thrilled about this regular hour long show, and continued to avoid Tavish as much as they possibly could. Until September 17th.
That Saturday was the day he finally wanted to test out his newest creation. Usually he made a couple of grenades, but this week, he made only one. He pulled it out from under his bed, hidden from the prying eyes of Sister Florence. He quickly ran to another dorm, knocking loudly on it.
"Be near the lock at eight! I 'ave a hunch! It'll work this time, it will!"
All the boys at the Crypt Grammar school knew better than to have anything to do with Tavish. Damon, sitting alone in his dorm began to cry again. He remembered the cold morning, the explosion that destroyed his life. He still kept his mother's ring close to him, in his pocket. Of all days, Tavish picked today to test out his amazing, mind blowing contraption. It seemed like a bad joke. When Tavish ran to his dorm and kicked the door open, he looked at his former friend, his feet kicking the air while he was sitting on his bed.
"Damon! You wanna go to the Loch with me?" he held the grenade carefully in his hand. Damon couldn't believe him. Asking him to relive the psychological breakdown he suffered one year ago. He had no idea what to say to him, but he was boiling inside.
"Okay." Damon shrugged, never being too keen on holding a grudge for too long. He kept silent while Tavish ran to spread the news, tactically avoiding the nuns passing by. Damon then looked down at his untied shoes. His mother always did the knot. He sighed quietly.
Tavish expected a lot of things when he came down to the loch that night. He half expected his classmates to ridicule him, to spit in his face and call him a monster. The other half expected that nobody would show up. He had experienced that before, and he always returned to his dorm in shame, burying his face in the pillow and waiting until morning, not making a sound. What he didn't expect was a large horde of his schoolmates waiting patiently near the loch. As soon as Tavish came, the group started pushing each other and telling Tavish to come closer.
"Well, come on, then! Don't keep us waitin'!" yelled a boy from afar.
Tavish gulped. In his hand he held a makeshift grenade launcher, made out of cardboard and some metal scraps. A mechanism inside pushed the grenade outward when the trigger was flicked, making the impact more precise. In theory.
"Come on, come on!" yelled the Crypt School boys. They were wearing their school uniform, their ties untied and hanging idly over their shoulders. Some boys grabbed them and swung around the air with them. The young black Scot walked up to the coast. His fellow schoolmates stayed behind. Tavish concentrated on a small piece of wood floating far away. The grey sky looked bleak, and the water was rapid, moving around in small waves due to heavy wind. It was about to rain.
Tavish picked up the grenade launcher, and tucked the grenade in it. It was a snug fit. He lifted the thing over his shoulder, and as he did, the rowdy boys went silent. All that was heard was the whooshing wind, and Tavish's nervous heartbeat. He gulped once more and pulled the trigger. It sent the grenade out, the red oval object flying through the sky. It almost fell on the water. Tavish found himself praying; not another failure, not now, not today! The grenade plopped silently in the water, and it began to sink down to the bottom. Tavish was just about ready for ridicule, when suddenly; triumph!
In a matter of seconds, the grenade blew itself up in a thousand little pieces, all flying upwards, some scattered sideways due to water pressure. It was an extremely loud explosion, it sounded like thunder crashing through the Highlands. The water went out, looking like a mushroom cloud. When it reached its peak, it stayed up for a long time, like a common puff of smoke. This explosion had volume; it has a special thickness like no other. Two lightning bolts flashed behind it, and the entire watery blast now resembled a tornado. A couple of frightened boys ran away to the safety of their homes, and the townspeople were screaming with terror. Tavish and the boys who stayed looked at it in astonishment. Slowly, the water came down, drop by drop. It fell to the surface slowly, and when it did, a loud thunder was heard in the distance. Tavish was nervous. The best performance of his life, and everyone was silent. He closed his eyes and was prepared to be insulted mercilessly.
To his amazement, the boys started ecstatically screaming, Damon included. In fact, Damon picked him up on his shoulders along with two other classmates. The boys chanted his name and looked up at him like he was a God. The celebration didn't last long, as the boys had to run back to their houses, called by their hysterical mothers peeking through the windows of the old cottages. Tavish was pleased with himself. He took his launcher in his other hand and looked into the distance.
"That was very pretty."
Tavish turned around, almost insulted by that remark. There stood a girl; the same girl he saw earlier. The girl smiling at him behind her protective mother. She was about his age; her long blonde hair was scooped up in a pony tail and decorated with a big black velvet bow. Her skin was like porcelain, and Tavish thought that she was a ghost, at first. Her long white dress swayed in the wind. She looked into the distance, possibly looking forward to another explosion. Tavish protested.
"Pretty? There's nothing pretty about it, lass!" he stomped; "It's an explosion, explosions aren't pretty." He walked up to her. She barely looked at him with her deep blue eyes. Her eyes were extremely light blue, almost white. She pouted her lips slightly. Those red lips of hers absorbed all the color she was supposed to have in her face and body, apparently. And it was the only way Tavish could know for sure that she wasn't a ghost.
"Whatever it was, it was amazing!"
The girl then ran to her house. Tavish was left slightly baffled. He returned to his school, awaiting the scolding of his many teachers. He was taken by the admiration of his schoolmates. Even Damon wasn't so cross with him anymore. He barely even cursed at him, walking past him on the way to his dorm.
Tavish DeGroot; the boy that walked out an outcast, and returned a legend.
Over the next couple of weeks, Tavish became somewhat of a local legend. His name appeared in many papers, and, suddenly, kids stopped avoiding him, and started asking for his autograph. Sister Florence was not pleased with him using arms as a mean to entertain his friends, and neither was dean McEwan. This could've led to Tavish being expelled, if it weren't for the press, who made Tavish and The Crypt Grammas School constantly in the public eye. This gave them a reputation of creating legends, which are smart enough to construct a grenade at the age of seven. Thanks to the newly found interest in the miraculous school, many talented young men started enlisting. Dean McEwan decided to keep Tavish enlisted, just for the sake of being a poster child for The Crypt Grammar School. He needed to promise that he would never manufacture or display his artillery in such a manner again. And he didn't… publicly, at least.
Tavish became somewhat of a marvel, and word of his greatness spread far beyond the borders of Ullapool.
It was a chilly October night, and Tavish was with the girl he met on that marvelous September evening. She stood on the hill, her long hair flowing in the mid-autumn wind. Tavish liked being around her. He talked to her about his newest creations and plans for them, and she just stood there, quietly.
"I never asked ye…." He stopped bouncing around her excitedly; "what is yer name, lass?"
She smiled, not looking at him, but looking at the gray surface of the loch.
"Adelaide." She said softly.
"That's a dumb name, it is."
"Well, so is Tavish, then." Tavish frowned at her. Adelaide stared into her black lacquered shoes.
"I like you." She said silently.
And, with that, she hopped back home. Tavish really fancied her. To him, she was one of his most loyal fans. He always felt a strange surge of sadness, watching her leave. He looked down at the mushy greenish mud and began walking on it, back to the Crypt.
A few townspeople greeted him along the way. It was as if they had forgotten about him killing his adoptive parents. People are easy to change, he thought to himself. They just need a distraction from what you did and what you are. His footsteps echoed on the long stone road. When he finally got back to the Crypt, Sister Florence smiled at him. She was looking at a couple standing before her. She opened her mouth widely and could barely speak. Tavish ran up to her, trying to take a look at the couple.
"Wot's goin' on, Sister Florence?" he asked loudly. The old bony nun shuddered and almost smacked the boy, stopping herself at the last minute.
"Tavish…" she looked at the couple; "these… these are your birth parents."
Tavish stared at the two figures in bemusement. He couldn't speak at all, and just stood still, his mouth wide open. The two figures were a spitting image of him, both tall and black. Both the mother and the father had dark black hair. The mother wore a pink shirt and a wide checkered skirt, while the father wore a kilt. They were both dressed quite traditionally. These two figures, standing in front of him, had one characteristic that made them different from any other person he ever saw. They were both blind. They wore matching dark sunglasses and carried a white cane.
"Wot the…?" Tavish stuttered.
The woman leaned closer to him, trying to hear where the voice was coming from.
"Is that 'im?" she asked in her Scottish accent, her voice was croaked and loud. Sister Florence cautiously stepped back as the woman got on her knees. She began touching Tavish's face gently, feeling up his chin first, then working her way up to the nose. Tavish really resembled the man, but had his mother's nose.
"He does look a lot like 'is father." She squealed slightly as she talked. Tavish felt the warmth of his mother's hands on his cheeks. Somehow, he didn't find it impossible for this woman to be his mother. He just felt a strange connection.
"'e does, does 'e?" asked the man. His voice was throbbing and extremely powerful. Tavish didn't quite know what was going on.
"Are ye really me birth parents?" he asked the woman, only to get a swift slap from Sister Florence.
"Don't talk to yer mother like that, boy!" Florence was then smacked in the head a couple of times by the woman's long white cane.
"Who gave you the roite to smack me son?" for a blind woman, her aim was very precise, and Tavish couldn't help but to laugh. The woman smiled as well.
"There's that laugh." Her voice went soft, and what seemed like a tear rolled down her face. "There's the laugh of me little boy."
"Wot's goin' on?" Tavish felt disoriented.
"I feel I'm supposed to give ye an explanation." said the tall man, as he kneeled before Tavish with a loud groan.
"You see," he started; "yer mother and me… we, uh…"
"You were born in a glorious family of the DeGroots." continued the mother. "The DeGroots are the best Demomen dis side a the Earth." Tavish felt confused. Demomen?
"Us Demomen are masters of de art of making bombs and explosives." continued the man.
"And we have a very long tradition of abandoning all Demomen at birth."
"Wot!?" Tavish shrieked, only to be smacked by Florence.
"You again!" the mother smacked her square in the eye, leaving her to clutch it, softly weeping. Tavish was confused. What kind of parent would do that?
"Anyway…" the mother continued; "…me and yer father were both abandoned. We have been abandoned at birth, and we were retrieved by our parents when our skills manifested."
"Eye was brought back when I was ten, yer mother at thirteen." The woman shook her head.
"It wasn't that I was bad at it! My folks never seemed to mind what I was doin'. I could've blown up the Queen of England, and they wouldn't know."
Tavish was starting to get the picture. That explains the cot he was abandoned in. His first grenade was made from it. What his parents gave him was actually a starter kit.
"Son…" the mother put her hands on the boy's shoulders; "we never wanted ta leave you. It's just tradition, you'll understand. It's just pointless outdated tradition." Her lip started to quiver. "The point is that… we love you, son."
The boy looked back at the man, who was stroking his thick moustache.
"Whaddya say, boy? Come home with the old folks."
Tavish looked at the both figures. He wanted to say something, anything. But the warmth he felt around them was indescribable. He closed his eyes and fell in his mother's arms. The woman grasped him on her chest. The same woman who had left him alone. This was the same woman who wanted her son to grow up around explosives and various arms. He should have felt betrayed, and yet…
He was home. At that moment he knew that he was home.
On that day, his terrible childhood ended, but his training had just begun.
As a child, Tavish was pressured by his parents to get a job. A seven year old without a job in their family was preposterous. He did menial labor around the neighbors' houses, but in the end, the money he came home with wasn't enough to buy a loaf of bread. His loving parents were very disappointed at him. The first month was like the ultimate test of Demomen. It had to be passed with flying colors. Tavish's bombs were impeccable, but he still didn't have a job, and had one eye too many for his parent's taste. His father called him too cautious, cautious being the ultimate insult a Demoman like himself could think of. Though his parents were demanding, Tavish still loved them. He knew that when he got home, he would go to his home, where he would be greeted by his loving mother, who would then give him his favorite dinner. Their house wasn't much, but to him, it was a home, and that's all that mattered. For once in his life, young Tavish lived in a house that was radiant and his life was filled with love. To top it all off, every day, he would meet with his friends. One friend in particular.
They were sitting on a small hill, the moonlight shining upon them. She wore a black bow in her hair again.
"My parents want me to get a job. Me mum can't stop naggin' 'bout it."
"You should get a job." Adelaide clutched a small platinum crucifix hanging from her neck. "I had a job for two years now. People might start to think that you're… lazy." She said without blinking.
Tavish didn't say anything, but agreed with her. A lazy Scot was the last thing anyone needs, and the last thing his dear mother wanted him to become. It was October 30th, the night before Halloween. The wolves were howling in the distance when he decided that he was going to get a job. And he will get it tomorrow!
It was Halloween, the night the dead would rise, and, according to his mom, possibly jobs for a young lad of seven.
"Come morning those hellish apparitions will be gone. Along with all their jobs. Get ye to the moors, boy!"
He was walking near a haunted castle that seemed to rise far up into the sky. It was completely black, and the tombstones distributed along the path were illuminated. "Help wanted" was engraved on them.
He never did find a ghost that cold October night, but he did find a job. Oh, he did find a job.
"Who dares disturb Merasmus the Magician?" screeched the figure appearing before the old white door. It was a terrifying creature, a skull of a poor animal placed upon his head. His black robe whooshed around him, making him look like a ghost. Poor Tavish was shaking, his vision went dark. The old magician banged upon the floorboard with his large ceremonial stick. The floor shook.
"This is an Eldritch Castle of Dark Magicke! Not a pancake house!"
Tavish gulped before opening his mouth to speak.
"I'm not here for treats, sir. I-I've come about the job."
The creature looked at him, scratching his long chin. He seemed to have no pupils as his gaze pierced through the frail boy.
"A job, hmmm?"
Without another word, he escorted the boy into the house. The first room they walked into was a grimy old library, filled with books and old bottles filled with various potions. A few gargoyles were placed upon the wall, candles coming out of their heads. Maybe it was the dark, maybe it was the smell of myrrh coming off the old man's pale skin, but at one point, Tavish saw a gargoyle move. He felt uneasy, but he was here to do a job, and he will do it one way or the other. He listened to the Magician speak.
"Welcome to the grand library! 'Tis filled with the many corpse dust of the many poor souls who tried to clean it… and failed! Sweep this place and I shall give ye a nickel. But before ye begin, hear me well, child. This library holds a certain book. A book of forbidden knowledge and ancient wickedness…"
Merasmus turned, his long robe whooshing behind him as he disappeared behind a bookshelf, his voice lingering in the dusty air.
"I warn ye…"
"GAZE NOT UPON THIS EVIL TOME!" the magician reappeared, a bright light glowing behind him. Thunder struck outside, letting out a ferocious sound.
"Don't look at the books. Got it." Tavish squinted his eyes not to be blinded by the brightness. Merasmus seemed taken.
"Uh…yes. Good." He coughed. "But…you probably want to, right? Because no matter how tempted ye be…"
"Really, it's fine. I'll just dust." Tavish pointed at one lone broom in the corner.
"That the broom I should use?"
"GAZE NOT UPON THE BROOM!" Merasmus screamed.
"And, yes, that broom."
So he set to work. The witching hour approached as he swept through it. And he kept sweeping until the foul place was cleansed. Suddenly, he heard a terrible cry. A cry coming from right in front of him.
"Read meeee..."
Tavish looked at the crying object. It was a book. The book had eyes on the cover. It spoke through the pages, muffled by the piece of rope it was tied with. Tavish took a closer look. The book appeared to have a mouth, a giant cave filled with sharp fangs.
"Read meee…"
Tavish was intrigued. "You're a book about…bombs?"
The Bombinomicon cried some more.
"But the magician said not to."
The book then started to mock him.
"Oh, the magician said not to. Oh, I'm sorry, that changes everything. I didn't realize some old idiot in a dress told you not to read something." The book howled in its deep hellish voice. Tavish felt slightly insulted.
"Gosh, you better not, then. Here, why don't I just read myself?"
Suddenly, the book opened itself up and started flipping, stopping at certain pages.
"Oh my. That explodes like that, does it? My contents are fascinating and not dangerous at all!" Tavish was burning with the need to grab that damn book and read it cover to cover.
"This information changes everything I thought I knew about bombs and…"
Tavish couldn't take it anymore. He leaned over to the book.
"Well, maybe a little peek…"
Suddenly, a hot rush of energy flew into his eye. Tavish screamed in pain as his vision turned into a blue chaos. The Bombinomicon laughed at him.
"I haunted your eye! I totally did it! This is the greatest moment of my life!"
"What have you done!?" screamed Merasmus as he ran to the frightened Tavish. He was clutching his burning eye.
"Now he'll never shut up about it! I have to live with this book, you know?" Merasmus adjusted his fingers into a claw, blue energy started to come out of his fingers.
"We only have one chance! Brace yourself, boy!"
Tavish grabbed the man's long robe. As the man chanted a spell, the library went into a whirlpool. It spun Tavish around, kicking and screaming. It was like his soul was coming out of his eyeball. He suddenly thumped on the ground. He was laying on the clear moist grass. The magician was gone. The book was gone. The castle was gone. And his eye was gone. He was left with a gaping hole in his skull. He wanted to cry, but didn't want to find out what would happen to his empty eye socket if he did. And, worst of all, he never got his promised nickel.
"Hi, Tavish!"
Tavish recognized that voice. It was of an old friend. She stood close to him, clutching her crucifix tightly. He couldn't let her see him like that. He was missing an eye, and was probably cursed forever. He turned around and greeted her, cursing Merasmus for sending him to this hill. Adelaide placed her skinny arm on his back.
"What's the matter, Tavish?" she sounded concerned. He could've talked about Merasmus. He could've talked about the book. But she would think he was crazy and leave. He didn't want her to leave.
"I'm a monster." He tried not to sigh. Adelaide turned him to her with brute force. He never knew that she was so strong. He reluctantly opened his eye. She squinted at his empty eye socket; the inside of it was completely red. And that was it. Absolutely nothing else was there. Tavish shook as he remembered what had just happened.
"I look like a freak." He smiled. "Happy Halloween." He sat on the ground and looked up at the stars. Thy sky was a magnificent blue, and the stars on it danced. His eye might have been playing tricks on him, but to him, the stars were dancing that night. Suddenly, he felt a soft fabric on his face. It soon covered his good eye.
"Hey!" He protested, trying to get it off.
"Hold still!" she commanded. Finally she tied the black velvet around the side of his head. It covered his gaping eye socket. Tavish recognized the strap she used. It was from her bow.
"Now you look like a pirate!" she smiled as she sat next to him. Tavish looked into her blue eyes, shining brighter than any star he had ever seen. He frowned at her.
"Well, you look like a ghost!"
Adelaide came closer to him, moving her platinum hair off her face. She suddenly pressed her lips against his. She kept them there for merely a second, leaving Tavish to wipe off his lips, unable to speak. She hugged him tightly and squeaked with joy.
"Now we're a pirate ghost!"
Tavish sat there, having this strange, girly creature grasp him. He was shocked. Shocked, but not necessarily sickened. And, somehow, he found himself staying there, in her embrace, a bit longer than he probably intended.