Dead Pages

Is it such a bad thing? Dying, I mean. Simple question. Complicated answer. No one answer is true or right, false or wrong. It all depends on perspective, and there are countless different viewpoints. It'd be impossible to discuss them all, or to even make sense of most of them.

Greetings. My name is Samuel, hailing from Hallstatt, Germany, and I'm terrible at introductions, if that wasn't clear. Imagine, a gentleman like myself, terrible at first impressions. Ungodly thought. I wanted to start by saying that I've known loss. Haven't we all? Our parents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins...dying before us. Before we could understand what dying was. Being born after everyone else invites pain and misery after a falsetto of a happy long life.

Allow me to present another odd question for you: What if you could turn back the clock? Bring those back who you've lost? Resurrect those you never got to say goodbye to, or who you said the wrong last words to and never got to apologize, or hug them, kiss them, what have you? You would think the answer is an easy one. The only right answer? It's a very exciting question, of course. However, with any fabulous question posed that also subtly poses an invitation, nobody ever stops to think of the consequences. The effect of the cause. In that moment it doesn't feel like it matters, hmm? Though when it comes to life and death, people stop in their tracks. Frozen. Like corpses. Is it foolishness? Bravery? You can't have one without the other.

I, too, was quite tempted with such a dangerous question, and with everything that happened in so short a span, what more did I have to lose but my own life? I will tell you, it's an easy question to answer. There is only one right answer. Nothing. I dove headfirst further into a nightmare I was thrown into by the cruel touch of fate, and I didn't bat an eye. Foolishness? Bravery? No, it was neither of those things. In that moment, the reason my feet could move freely and without hesitation, was simply because I did not care anymore.

Two of debilitating cancer, one of a ruthless car accident, one of relentless domestic abuse, one of failed carriage, one of suicide. In six months. A proper annihilation of human life in what felt like an instant. As they fell around me I could but stand there, fists clenched, tears falling, throat in knots, head pounding, as was my heart. Until my heartbeat became quieter, quieter, ever more quiet. Then it stopped beating altogether. It was in that very moment that death became quite fond of me, in a different way than it had with everyone around me. And I became fond of it in return. At nine years of age I, Samuel der Zeichen, fell in love with loss.

You see, I wasn't always a gentleman. I wasn't careless, conniving, and certainly would not smile in the face of death. I was a boy who loved studying bugs near and far, his time with family, eating the occasional pear, and fiddling with the standard playing card and chess. I loved competition, I enjoyed taking the neighborhood children's allowances by challenging them to marbles. I studied diligently when I wasn't outside. The world fascinated me with its life and vast, unending knowledge to be gained from it.

I was especially fond of Chrysanthemums, and in Germany there was an entire festival dedicated to them and the town the festival takes place in. Six hours from Hallstatt, Austria, to Lahr, Germany, and my mother and father would drive me there year after year to appease my desire to bask in these flora. On cars, houses, and forming archways they did, in all colors, blooming like nightshade would in a cemetery. Chrysanthemums were a flower of respect and honor in the states, I had heard. I honored and respected my family. There in Germany, however, they signify loss. Fitting, then, that I clutched onto these mums so very tightly at so young an age.

A forewarning, they were. An omen. As the brightly-colored Monarch butterfly or the Velvet ant, both bright and beautiful, scream danger, so too did these flora I loved so dearly. Due to the love my mother felt for me, they now grow along my estate. She had begged the caretakers of that massive, wonderful garden to allow her to take some seeds back home with us, the same year I lost her. They now feel like a replacement.

The most important piece of information, the bit that ties this sob story all together, is that this wasn't some random twist of fate. Oh no, how could that possibly be? It was brought about by one small material thing. Of withered spine and crinkled interior. Of black binding. Of silver words uttered by silver tongue etched inside the front cover. Encoded by the living but not for the living, of course. Indecipherable but to the dead. A message for the corpses whose skinless, marrowy fingers cling to its pages. Absorbed by this book, entwined in it's very being, wrapped in veiny vines and pulled to the black. They cease to exist. Their very memories, once safely secured in the minds of their mourning loved ones, shredded and burned. Forgotten.

It was because of this book that I inherited everything, and the reason I am alone. In these pages are the skin and souls of many victims, innocent and deserving, who could not look away, or put it down. It comes into a life, and everything around that life disappears. They are left with nothing but themselves...and a positively copious amount of money. My family was not rich. My mother and father scraped by but always found happiness with nearly nothing but each other, and me. Though, after their death, an inheritance of countless bills (to a child) was dropped into an account, and kept safe for me until I became of age. I had nobody to ask where this money came from besides the bank, and either they knew nothing or did not wish for me to know. All I knew was that I was, for lack of a better word, rich. Very, very rich.

I was placed in a foster home shortly after discovering my inheritance, and did what I had to do to persevere through these long years before my adolescence. I was to do chores, get along with the other foster children, brush my teeth, eat dinner, watch tv, and so on. Homeschooling was another aspect of this home, though I was not very fond of it. I was not interested in the history of the United States or the amount of nonsense that goes with mathematical equations and the like. I did, however, enjoy my own time of playing with bugs, scaring the other children with them, reading about science and some old short horror story books I had found in the attic of that very bright, friendly home.

It wasn't until I turned twelve, three years after being placed here, that things changed drastically in the home. I was awoken by a crash one night, late, and yelling. Screaming. It was the "mother" and "father" of these children. I could not quite make out what they were saying at first, not until I crept closer to the slightly-cracked doorway of my room. Then the words became ever so clear. "Money", "murder", "children" were key words in this conflict of the two, and it was obvious what had happened. They were informed in some way or another of my inheritance, and that little black book took over their minds. It was no coincidence that I'd seen it tucked haphazardly underneath piles of paper in their kitchen. I paid no attention to what it was at the time. Though, knowing now just what that small, beautiful thing was capable of made it clear to me.

The book changes people.

It drove them to kill. Such as the case was with this "family", where they were sentenced to life in prison for murdering every child they had in their care, still screaming "TELL US!" in the lifeless face of poor Maggie. I will miss her music dearly. That girl had an angel's voice.

I was taken from there and placed in another home. This one was different, mainly and most importantly in the way that I was the only child there. Nothing spectacularly devastating occurred and I did not see the book for eight years. I left foster care after six years and at the same time my vast wealth became available to me. After two more I finalized the purchase of an estate in Western Germany, in the countryside, and that was the day it showed itself to me again.

When I first stepped foot into this place, the light of the heavens bursting in through the dark oak doorway, the book lie in front of me. Black as night, silent. Word of a whisper my mind thought it heard. At that point I was overwhelmed by everything that had happened, and was brought to reality in full. No family left, no worries about this or that, no ties. Despite all the trauma and hurt I had endured, I was happy. Happy to carry on doing what I loved, and to continue to honor my family as I always had. Always thinking of dear old mum and dad.

However, after so long a time, loneliness changes people. Or that's what they say. I know better in my case. As I said, it was always the book. It had changed me, and I knew very well when. Without full awareness of one's actions it is easy to say that things happen in an instant, like a blur. I myself seeped slowly into madness. Trading marbles and cards for eyeballs and skin, trading chess pieces for fingers. I did not enjoy company, not of the living. I kept my fascination for bugs, though I used them instead of just observing them. Experiments of host manipulation and zombification were among the most noted of my sciences. How exciting it was. How very exciting.

Listen to me, prattling on, hmm? I'm certain you've heard enough of old Samuel. Or have you? My story is far from over, oh yes. I've made quite sure of that. How much more you hear all depends on the bindings of a certain book. Oh, and...if you see it? Do be a good reader and return it to me, will you? Much obliged.