Don't Wake Me Up | Chapter 2

            He had a picture of Ansel in his pocket. It had been there since January of 2017. Since it was merely the corner of a piece of paper, onto which a picture taken with his phone had been printed for ease of access, it had faded somewhat due to how often Darcy would pull it out and hold it. He wouldn’t deny that, early on, he had taken to talking to the picture. He was just so lonely.

            The picture in question had been taken in October of 2016. Ansel’s hair was shorter and wilder than it had been when he died, and he had facial hair: a mustache, small soul patch, and a chin strap. He still remembered the backstory of the photo: Ansel had been trying to get an early start to No-Shave November. However, Darcy had off-handedly remarked that he liked Ansel better clean-shaven, so he agreed to shave only if Darcy agreed to take a picture of him. It was the only picture of Ansel he had anymore, having deleted the few others he had taken since they were too painful to look at, because he couldn’t bring himself to delete it. It had been the only picture of Ansel he had where the man wasn’t making some sort of funny-yet-unappealing face. He looked… content.

            Staring at the picture late in the afternoon on that day made his heart race with mixed emotions. It had been almost two years since Ansel died. He felt like it was his fault. He had been the one who missed the obvious and diagnosed the young man with mere insomnia. What he couldn’t understand was what had happened prior. He knew he had died. What had happened to bring him back unharmed? Why had Ansel’s health declined so rapidly? There was a bigger picture, and he was missing it.

            “Is that him?”

            The sound of Bradley Carlisle’s voice across the round table from him made him look up from the photo of his best friend. Bradley seemed like a nice guy, but clearly, he had some dark secrets. Sitting in front of the young teacher was his book of black magic rituals. When Darcy first saw the book less than half an hour earlier, an idea had struck him like a brick wall.

            Just two years earlier, Darcy didn’t believe in magic, or even in the supernatural. That was before Ansel’s prior best friend, a man named James Thorne (or just “Jay”), used black magic to summon a demon that posed as him before killing his parents. Ansel had been the one to stop the demon, after Darcy died. Somehow, that had brought him back. However, to return to the idea: upon seeing the book, it dawned on Darcy that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to be alone. He could undo his mistakes.

            He could bring Ansel back from the dead.

            It was a crazy idea�"absolutely insane�"that much he knew. Yet, he didn’t care. He didn’t care that black magic had taken his parents from him, or that he was obviously about to play with fire. He just wanted his best friend back.

            “Darcy?” Bradley speaking again snapped him from his trance, and the former doctor shook his head to clear it.

            “Sorry. Yeah, this…” Darcy put the scrap of paper down on the table, turned it toward Bradley, and then pushed it toward the man. “This is him.”

            Bradley picked up the picture and examined it with his mouth in a firm line. After exhaling deeply from his nose, he reciprocated exactly what Darcy had just done for him, and clasped his hands in front of his mouth. He tapped his thumbs together quietly, watching Darcy pick the photo up, and after the nurse stuffed it into his pant pocket, finally the computer teacher began to talk. “I don’t think you know what you’re asking me to do.” He warned. “Necromancy is very shady. There are many things we’d need to discuss before you go all gung-ho about bringing your friend back from beyond the grave, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the strings attached make you reconsider.”

            “I won’t reconsider.” Darcy declared. “I want to make things right. I’ll do whatever it takes to bring Ansel back.”

            Bradley shook his head. “I think you’ll find that bringing him back from the dead might not be ‘right’. In fact, many may call it ‘immoral’.”

            “Bradley,” the doctor pleaded, “Ansel didn’t deserve to die the way he did. He was too young. He was single, for crying out loud. Twenty-seven years old, single and living with another bachelor. His life hadn’t even really started.” He ran his fingers through his messy hair, taking an uneasy breath and continuing, “And I think he died for me. Somehow, I killed him. I can’t live with that, man. I need to talk to him again. I need to see him alive.”

            “How did he die?” Bradley inquired. Then, realizing how insensitive he sounded, he stuttered, “I mean, if you’re okay with sharing that.”

            Darcy lowered his head. It was painful to look back on Ansel’s death, but he figured that Bradley deserved to know, especially if he was about to attempt to bring the insomniac back from the dead. “He… He was in the hospital. He was very sick. Fatal familial insomnia. Ever heard of that?”

            Bradley shook his head.

            “Neither had I. Turns out,” he did a hand gesture, frowning as he kept talking, “it’s really rare. It usually doesn’t kick in until the victim is about fifty years old, but Ansel was only twenty-seven. Like, just our luck, right?” He scoffed, but then pouted again. “It was killing him, and it was killing me to see it killing him. Then he just… called me, on the night of the 24^th. Told me he’d checked out, and…” His eyes began to well up, but he struggled to keep going. “And that he knew he was staring his death in the face. He didn’t want to die in the hospital. He… He wanted to die beside me. And… die beside me he did…” He buried his face in his hand and took a deep breath. “I sat him down on the couch, and he laid his head on my lap, and… then he went to sleep, for the first time in four months, and he just… didn’t wake up.”

            Bradley let out a troubled sigh of his own. “Man,” he mourned, “I’m sorry. That sounds terrible.”

            Darcy managed to chuckle through his tears. “Tell me about it,” he responded.

            “It’s just, I want you to really�"”

            “No. I don’t need the whole ‘black magic is bad’ spiel, okay? I know what I’m asking you to do. I know it’s insane, but I don’t�"care. Can you bring him back or not?”

            Defeated, Bradley rolled his eyes. “Well, I’ll need his corpse.”

            Darcy just stared at him for a long moment. “His… His what now?”

            “His body. I can’t bring his soul back into his body while his body’s six-feet under.”

            The doctor felt himself start to sweat. “His body isn’t six-feet under…” He mumbled. “I… had him cremated.”

            Bradley met his eye, and they did nothing but stare unblinkingly at each other for at least thirty seconds. The computer teacher said nothing, so Darcy took it upon himself to continue the discussion.

            “Is there another way?”

            He seemed really sarcastic about it, but Bradley did answer: “Uh, not without summoning a demon with him. I mean, without a body, I’m not left with a whole lot of other options.”

            “So, what,” the former doctor began, “if you merge his soul or whatever with a demon, the demon can make him a new body and he can live?”

            “Pfft, if you want to call that ‘living’.” There was a beat of silence during which Bradley’s playful smirk soured into a deep frown. “Look, I�"I was kidding, you know that, right?”

            “Is it possible? What you recommended?”

            “Um, sure! Yeah, let me just call my buddy Lucifer.”

            “Is it possible?”

            The computer teacher huffed, “Maybe? I don’t know. I’m sure as heck not going to summon a demon, though. Do you have any idea how difficult black magic demons are to control?”

            “I have an idea,” Darcy thought, but he shook his head instead of admitting to what little he knew out loud.

            “If I did go through with that, there would be so many more strings attached. There’s no guaranteeing that the result would even be entirely him. It would be part demon. Lord knows what it would do in your best friend’s skin.”

            “I only half follow.”

            “Imagine this,” the teacher started. “You’re sitting at home one day. You’ve got a nuclear family or something; you know, wife, kids, pet. All of the sudden, your body gets up against your will, and then you’re killing the family dog.”

            “Jesus!” Darcy recoiled in disgust. “Bradley!”

            “What I’m trying to say is that we’re walking a really fine line here!” He argued. “Assuming we go through with this and it works, one second he’ll be your friend, and the next, he’ll be helplessly watching himself commit the most atrocious of sins!”

            “But that’s just a hypothesis,” Darcy noted anxiously.

            “It’s an educated guess. I could be wrong, but I could also be bang on. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”

            Darcy looked at Bradley, determination carved into his thin face. “Yes,” he decided, “it is.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “I don’t think you understand just how much I’d risk to have him back.”

---

 

            For a moment, Bradley wondered what the hell he was doing. Darcy Adair was practically a stranger, and he knew even less about this “Ansel” fellow. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t use magic anymore, yet there he was, quietly gathering candles and chalk from a cabinet in the dining room that hadn’t been opened in forever.

            His fiancée was asleep in their bedroom upstairs. He had snuck out of the room quietly, and had taken his sweet time going down the stairs since they creaked. She would be absolutely furious if she knew what he was doing, even if it wasn’t for someone he’d only met a week prior. Yet, he found himself unable to refuse.

            Darcy seemed like a nice guy, deep down. He just hadn’t been able to cope with Ansel’s death. For some reason, he was the exception to Bradley’s rule. After all of the terrible things his use of black magic had caused in the past�"all of the grief�"he wanted a way to make amends. He wanted to find a way to use it for something good. Whether or not it was possible, he was staring right at what might quite possibly be his only opportunity. If he could just find a way to bring Ansel back without putting anybody at risk, he felt like he could forgive himself for his past misdeeds. He would save someone’s life. Hell, two people’s lives.

            He couldn’t deny that he was terribly conflicted. Every fiber of his being told him not to do it. His instinct told him that trying to bring someone back from the dead would be the worst mistake of his life�"otherwise everyone would be doing it! Death would be unknown to society and immortality would reign. Because neither of those statements were currently true, he knew that he was probably about to screw everything up. But then, there was a part of his brain, the overly-confident part that didn’t often win in his inner arguments, which suggested that perhaps he could find a way; some sort of loophole to find a way to make everything work out in his favor. There had to be a way… right? It was that line of thought that made him continue in what he knew to be a naïve endeavor. He just hoped that if things had to go south, that they wouldn’t do so catastrophically.

            There was a knock on the front door, so he quickly rushed over and yanked it open. Before him stood Darcy, who was holding a bundle of clothing under his arm, including (most notably) a zip-up purple hoodie. “I brought what you asked for.” The nurse told him quietly.

            Bradley nodded his head and brought his finger to his lips, gesturing for Darcy to be quiet. “Come on.” He whispered. “Down to the basement. We’ve got to be discreet. My fiancée will be pissed if she finds out what I’m doing.”

            Darcy followed him down into the basement. Bradley pulled the string above them to turn on the light, and then he put down the candles and chalk he’d brought. It had been a while since he’d done anything like this, so he grabbed the book from under his arm and began skimming through it until he found a picture of the ritual circle he had to draw. Then, he grabbed the chalk, beginning to sketch the image in white onto the floor. Darcy watched him anxiously, pulling the clothes he’d brought for Ansel closer to his chest.

            If everything worked out, he wouldn’t be alone anymore. He could have a second chance with Ansel. Though November 28^th of 2016 had been one of the worst days of his life, there was no denying that it was the day during which he did the most bonding with his friend. It was a tragedy that it was also the beginning of the end. He wanted to have a chance to continue their friendship; to grow closer still with the amusing young man.

            Bradley stood up when he finished the circle. As he began lighting the candles and placing them around the circumference of the chalk outline, he asked Darcy, “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

            “I’m here, aren’t I?” The former doctor replied.

            Soon, the two were sitting down, holding hands with each other. Bradley had told Darcy to close his eyes and think as hard as he could about Ansel, so the doctor did that. He thought long and hard about every moment they’d ever shared; about their first meeting, their stupid inside jokes, shopping together, their conversations… Ansel had given his life so much meaning, and he wanted it back.

            After about five minutes, Bradley started to chant, keeping his eyes shut. “I call to the spirits,” he announced, “I call to the dead to let us see Ansel Hunnisett again. I call to thee: come to us, and return to life once more.” He repeated this twice more before beginning to speak in Latin. Darcy didn’t know what he was saying, but he gave Bradley the benefit of the doubt and assumed he knew what he was doing. However, Bradley did not. In all honesty, he was confused. There was no demon he knew of that would bring anyone back in a physical form, and the resurrection spell only worked for brief spiritual meetings. So, he was stuck using an idea that he had to convince himself would work out well; he had no name to call, so he just had to reach out to as many demons as he could. It was risky, but perhaps he could find one that would be willing to help�"and wouldn’t destroy humanity as a result. It didn’t help that his Latin was rusty. He tried to speak the equivalent of: “I beg the demons of the underworld to lend me their assistance. I beseech any who will listen. Please give this lost spirit a vessel to inhabit so he may live yet again,” but he wasn’t sure if he was making any sense. All he could hope was that he wasn’t accidentally saying something entirely different from what he meant, given that Latin was a language that relied heavily on metaphors and dual meanings.

            The computer teacher repeated the Latin twice, then the regular English summoning ritual twice, and then the Latin again. He did this over and over for what felt like an eternity before something finally started to happen. It got very cold in the basement, much colder than it had been before, and Darcy shivered. It felt like the floor was beginning to quiver beneath them, and that slight tremble soon turned into a full-fledged shaking. There was no stopping the ritual now. Bradley continued, beginning to shout his words.

            “I call to the spirits! I call to the dead to let us see Ansel Hunnisett again! I call to thee: come to us, and return to life once more!”

            The rumbling’s intensity spiked, and suddenly the basement’s only lightbulb exploded over their heads, earning a quick and startled shout from Darcy. Then, the candlesticks, their only remaining lights, were all blown out and knocked over by a heavy wind that suddenly pushed against them, and it was so strong that Darcy felt like he couldn’t breathe. Just as suddenly as everything happened, however, it stopped. Everything was quiet in the darkness around them, and, unable to see anything at all, Darcy just panted and clutched Bradley’s hands tighter.

            “Is it over?” The doctor asked.

            “It seems so,” Bradley answered.

            “Is Ansel back?”

            “I can’t see anything.”

            “Brad?” He could hear his wife-to-be calling his name all the way from upstairs. After he finally got a hold of himself, he hollered back up at her.

            “Yes?”

            “Brad,” she began in a scolding tone, “you didn’t summon a demon again, did you?”

            Bradley sighed nervously. “No, honey.” He called back.

            Darcy stared in the direction where Bradley’s voice was coming from. If he wasn’t so shaken by the ritual, he might have laughed at how casually the teacher’s fiancée asked if he’d summoned a demon, as if this was a common, everyday activity for them that they had merely agreed not to do anymore. However, it dawned on him that it was quite likely that the thought, albeit a joke, was the actual truth. Who carried around a book of dark magic if he didn’t use it often?

            The floorboards creaked far over their heads, the sound of his fiancée walking back toward their bedroom on the second floor, and with them, Bradley reached his hand forward in the darkness. There was definitely something in front of them. With his heart pounding nervously in his chest, he pulled out his lighter and struck a light. Cautiously, he held out his arm, bringing it closer to see what was lying before them.

            To his slight relief, it was human, at least; the naked body of a tall and somewhat stocky young man. He moved the light further up the chest, illuminating the unconscious man’s head. Darcy wasn’t sure what exactly he felt when Bradley’s lighter revealed Ansel’s face, exactly as it looked in the photograph he still had in his pocket. It was better than him looking like he had the last moment he’d been alive, since the former doctor knew he probably wouldn’t be able to handle seeing Ansel clean-shaven ever again without bursting into hysterics, but he found it a bit interesting that his friend had taken on the look of the only image Bradley had to go on.

            “You still have those clothes?” Bradley quietly asked him.

            “Yeah,” Darcy stammered.

            “Get him dressed and leave out the back door. She’ll kill me if she sees you.”

            Darcy nodded and got to it. It was awkward enough to have to dress Ansel, who was completely nude, while he was unconscious, but it didn’t help that there was no light. Not soon enough, Bradley found one of the knocked over candles and lit it, using it as a source of light for the nurse to work with. It took him a few minutes, but the doctor eventually decided he had done the best he could to dress his friend, and he tried to lift Ansel, but had difficulty.

            “What’s the matter?” Bradley.

            “I forgot that he weighs almost two-hundred twenty pounds,” Darcy choked. Carrying Ansel wasn’t exactly an easy option for him, since he was too weak, weighing only around one-hundred fifty pounds, so instead, he wrapped the man’s arm around his shoulders and managed to pull him up that way. Dragging him along would be difficult as well, but it was his only option.

            Bradley helped him carry Ansel up the stairs, and then led him to the back door, opening it for him. Along the way, he noticed that the candlestick he held was green, despite the fact that he could have sworn they were all white, but he ignored it, assuming he was just remembering wrong. “I’ll be at your office tomorrow at noon.” He told the doctor in a hushed rush. “Please be there. Bring him if he’s… you know, himself. If you don’t show, I’m going to assume something went wrong, and I’ll call the cops.”

            Darcy nodded. “Thank you,” he whimpered gratefully, “thank you so much.”

            “Just go. Be careful.” As Darcy was making his way into the backyard, he quietly shouted after him, “Don’t tell him he died!” Then, he was alone. Unconsciously, the teacher began chewing on his lower lip in mild distress. Despite his relief that the ritual seemed to have been successful, and the good feeling that flooded his system to see that he had made someone happy, something felt off somehow. “I really hope I won’t regret this…” He fretted before closing the door and returning upstairs, all the while thinking about what excuse to tell his fiancée to account for the rumbling in the basement.