NOTE: In class writing again. Not as long as I would have liked, but still. I hope you all appreciate this. My favourite class is Drama class, but it's also the only class that I have enough time to write something substantial, so...enjoy!!

-Momo

...AND THERE WAS LIGHT.

Weeks passed. Months. It was the same each day, every day. He would spend hours upon hours in the basement, working, experimenting, reading, researching the lost secrets of Johann Faust the First, then every once in a while he would remember life was still taking place and he'd go up and eat something or get dressed, wash off. The material things that he had to do to stay alive. He grew paler, thinner, malnurished. His health meant nothing to him. He devoted his full concentration on the ressurection of Eliza. Nothing else mattered.

People would come to his door. Neighbours, friends, the like, and he would leave them to no answer. The mailbox was overflowing. The bills came, and that was the only thing he really needed to worry about, but he never used water, power, anything. Sometimes he'd read by candle light when the lightbulb went out and he didn't make time to change it. The things around him blurred, he became something that he never was. Detatched.

He would never sleep, or maybe sleep for an hour at most every few days or so. He'd eat what was needed to stay alive. He dropped over 20 pounds in a matter of an week and a half. His colour pigment in his eyes, hair, skin, lips...it was fading. His skin was almost white due to lack of exposure to the sun. His eyes, once a deep blue, were now a light, icy cool blue with a hint of purple. A violent stare came with those eyes. His hair had become almost bleached blonde, much lighter than his original yellow. His lips turned a light blue, due to lack of nutrients. He was the perfect horror, and things were about to get much worse.

After almost a year and a few months of this routine study, he was ready to test his power. But what on? He had taken to, a while back, going to his in-laws' house and seeing to it that everything was taken care of. Eliza's dog, Frankie, was living with him now. Needless to say, the dog wasn't in great condition. Faust didn't have time to worry about him, and when he did, Frankie was fed and such, but always on edge to the new person that had now taken over.

He would admit though that it was comforting at times to be sitting alone in bed, crying and lonely, and have another living, breathing thing curl up next to you. He found in the dog a slight shred of his old self, a gentle, caring man that loved passionately and thought deeply, now a raging lunatic hungry to try out his powers.

Needless to say, the closest thing to test was, in fact, Frankie himself. Faust, despite his care for the animal, found it a mercy to kill the dog for the cause of his late wife. Not to mention that he figured the dog wouldn't last too much longer, anyway. He did it humanely, injecting Frankie with enough drugs to kill him painlessly.

After said deed was complete, he began his experiment.

"Test one, Frankie the dog," he said to himself, writing it down in the last few blank pages of his ancestor's journal. "Dog has been dead for at least one hour. Body is still moderately warm. All bones in tact."

He switched to another book and read silently, following instructions as he went along. He placed his hands over the dead dog's body. He looked at it and then closed his eyes. He focused all his power, which he now addressed as his mana, the correct term for it, into the corpse.

After trial and error and trial and error, he had managed to get the dog to flinch once or twice. He found it a huge success, but not good enough. He worked all day. He worked all night. His mana grew stronger and stronger due to the strain. He pushed harder and harder, he tried over and over again.

By the end of the second day of tests, he still had two corpses in his basement, and he was losing hope. He sat at his desk and stared long and hard at the dog.

"Come alive," he whispered to it, hands entangled in his hair. "Please, come alive...move, breathe, something!"

He waited, half-expecting it to do so, but it lay there still, dead. His eye twitched and he groaned, and after a beat, he slammed his hands flat on the dog's body and roared.

"Come alive!"

His eyes were tightly shut and he panted, shaking slightly. He was so angry! Why, how was he going to see her again if he couldn't even resurrect a dog! He moaned and lay his head on the desk. He pet the dead dog gently. Then, he felt something licking his hand. He thought nothing of it at first.

"Not now, Frankie..." he mumbled. Then he froze. He picked his head up and looked at Frankie. He was licking at his hand, sniffing and when he noticed that Faust was looking at him, mouth agape, he panted and licked his nose. Faust was still. He couldn't move. Then he spoke gently.

"You're...alive..." he said, taking the dog's head into his hands. "Alive...alive, yes! Yes you are alive! Alive alive alive! ALIVE!!"

He screamed out laughter as he hugged the dog tightly, trembling at the same time. Tears of joy streamed down his face. He'd done it! He'd done the impossible! He brought a creature back from the dead!

And this was only the beginning.

TBC