This is a story i wrote for an English assignment. We had a prompt where we had to use 2 certain words. I have no recollection of what those words were, but they are in there somewhere. The title “Renovatio” is Latin for “re-birth”. By the end you will understand why I picked it.
He awoke, still drowsy. Not fully conscious, not conscious enough to recognize his surroundings. The textureless walls, the color of dirty socks, the white rug that he had been lying on, the cluster of small pale stones arranged in circular patterns around the black skull. He became aware. How did he get to this place? He had had dreams in his sleep, but he could not remember them, he could not remember anything.
He looked at the skull and had a brief flash of memory. A house, no a neighborhood, a passing car. What color was the car? He couldn’t remember. The flash was gone as soon as it had come. Coming back to reality, at least this reality, he realized he was no longer looking at the skull. He had a headache now. Not a simple sinus headache, in the front behind the eyes, and not a strain headache, in the back at the top of the neck, but a pulsing pain that seemed to emerge from the very core of his brain.
He resolved not to look at the skull again. But what else was there to look at. The bare walls held no points of interest, no tiny imperfections to be picked at. The rug had no loose threads to tug upon. The stones. Avoiding eye contact with the skull he reached for a stone. His hand moved slowly, creeping along as if he were a child trying to capture a toad sitting in the grass, knowing at any moment it could hop away. But the stone did not hop away. He grabbed it between his thumb and middle finger. The pain of the headache eased a little, no longer penetrating so far into his mind as to eliminate all conscious thought.
Then he noticed something. Where was the light coming from? There was a dim light that filled the room, fading away at the corners making them dark holes of the unknown. But the light seemed to come from nowhere. How was that possible? How was any of this possible? It was almost an aura that was emanating from the air itself.
He reached for another stone, the same color as the last. They were all the same color, a slightly paler gray than the walls, floor, and ceiling. It was as if he was seeing the world, this world, in black and white. Even his skin was pale. Not quite white, but close. He realized for the first time that he was wearing clothes. He dropped the first stone and his hand receded from the second. His headache did not get worse.
His shirt and pants were the same color as the rug. The was shirt tight to his skin, meanwhile his pants were baggy. He looked closer and saw wrinkles and folds in the pants, but there were no shadows to make the folds clearly visible. He looked up. The stones had no shadows either. And the skull…
Another flash of memory. Tall buildings, buildings that seemed to scrape the sky. This time there was not just one passing car, but many, all different colors, shapes, and sizes.
the intensity of the headache increased. As he grabbed the first stone he had picked up, he realized it had no affect. He began gathering the stones one, two, three… the headache eased its way back into submission. He stopped. What if he looked at it again, and he had touched all the stones? He estimated that there were about twenty of them, and he had touched four. He amused himself with the four used stones. Rolling them, throwing them. They made no sound when they struck the wall. He tried to talk, tried to scream, but found himself unable. No sound, no color. But the vision had color and sound.He was curious as to what the next thing he would see would be if he were to look at the skull for a third time. He willed himself not to, but his willpower did not last long with only the four stones to distract him from the black relic that lay in the center of the room. This vision was more vivid than the others, he was on top of one of the buildings now. He could feel the breeze. From the view he could see a whole jungle of buildings. It began to rain. Cool drops splashing to the ground all around him. Soaking his hair, his shirt, his pants.
He was then transported back into his body. His head felt as if it was about to split open, an egg about to hatch, and the chick inside was pecking away at the inside of his skull with the force of a jackhammer. He swung his arm in a wide arc, grabbing five of six stones in the process. The headaches were getting exponentially worse. The pain subsided only to be replaced by more curiosity. The curiosity about what would happen in the next vision, for there must be another vision to follow the last. Although he did not know if the remaining stones would be able to defeat the pain the would inevitably ensue. He was kneeling like a man in prayer. His knees and toes touching the ground his buttocks resting on his heels. A puddle had formed around him, and his hair and clothes were saturated with water. He caught a few drops that fell from his hair. It was not salty as sweat was, but pure water, rainwater.
His curiosity grew.
With no other means to dispel his boredom he gave the skull one last glance. His mind exploded in a black flash of pain, his eyes locked on the skull. He found himself unable to divert his vision. The pain was so intense he could not stand. He crawled slowly toward the skull. His mouth opened and he let out a silent scream of agony. He grabbed the remaining stones, but they did little to slow the constant crashing of waves of pain. He continued crawling toward the skull, the only direction he could move. Why hadn’t a vision appeared? Blackness began to crawl in from the edges of his peripheral vision. His arms and legs gave out simultaneously. The skull lay two feet in front of his head, black as death. He reached for it, his thumb penetrating the right eye socket as the rest of his hand gripped the crown of the skull like a baseball.
He was standing on the building again. He felt two strong hands on the small of his back, pushing him forward, propelling him over the edge of the building . The street below, with all the passing cars, grew closer and closer. Then darkness, not the morbid darkness of the skull, but a soft darkness, nothingness.
He awoke in the arms of a woman he did not recognize. He was crying, but he did not know why. He felt small and insignificant. He had no recollection of the room, the stones, the skull, or the life that he had had before that. He stopped crying and looked around. There were other women he did not recognize. They all had red crosses across their chests. Then he looked up at his mother and smiled.
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