Magic is an App | Book 1 | Chapter 6
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CHAPTER SIX
I get drafted into a cause too heavy for my shoulders
I didn’t know enough about magic to be convinced it wasn’t my fault that Shirtless turned into a drooling idiot. Perhaps the sudden rush of anger I’d felt at his taunts made me unconsciously scramble his brains. I didn’t know, but I had to find out.
So, while helping Dre tie up the gladiators with some iron chains we’d found lying around the classroom floor, I snuck a peek at the messages that had piled up on my smartphone. Or at least I tried to. But these messages must have hated being ignored, because they called me out on my procrastination before I could. Literally.
“Congratulations, you’ve succeeded using your first spell, earning you a bonus of fifty astral gems!” barked a bright, child-like voice.
I got so freaked out that I threw my phone into the air but also caught it before it fell to the floor. Obviously, Dre noticed, and he was now looking at me with a bushy eyebrow raised.
“You okay, amigo?”
“You didn’t…?”
I glanced down at my phone. Then back up at him.
“Um, it’s nothing.” I gestured around me. “This place…it’s just…it’s getting to me.”
“Yeah, I feel you. I’ve got the jitters too.”
Dre’s jitters must be buried deep inside him though, because he didn’t seem frazzled like I was. He just went back to tying the lanky gladiator’s hands and feet together while looking all cool and unfazed, which I wished I could be, but I had other things to stress over, like the voice from my phone that only I could hear.
“Hello?” I whispered.
No answer.
I glanced down at my phone. The notifications were still there.
“Are you there?”
Still nothing.
But just as I was about to shake my phone in frustration, the cherub-like voice came back.
“Congratulations on successfully installing the Grimoire app. You get a hundred astral gems as a first-time user bonus!”
“Magical capitalism, seriously?” A slew of terrible memories of my overusing Mom’s credit card to buy skins for a game and the fallout of those poor choices swirled in my mind. “I guess even in hell, the universe wants to hit me with a paywall.”
The cherub voice didn’t care about my issues, though, encouraging me to open the app on my phone so that I could learn about its many astonishing, life-altering features.
“Hey, you’re talking to me, right?”
No response. Typical. App developers were never around whenever a customer has questions.
I glanced over my shoulder.
Dre was busy binding Shirtless’s feet with iron chains at the other end of the classroom, meaning more time for me to learn about the mechanics of this grimoire I’d basically downloaded from an unknown source without him noticing.
Sure, he and I had helped each other out in a moment of crisis, but this magic thing felt too big to share with someone I didn’t know well. Hell, even if we were friends, I still wasn’t sure I would have shared it. I learned the hard way that trusting the wrong person can ruin lives. Mine and theirs.
So, having convinced myself to keep Dre in the dark, I listened to the disembodied voice in my head and opened the Grimoire app. It was hard to miss the icon of a stylish pentacle that seemed to shift and pulse with an inner light. Especially since its size dominated my phone’s screen.
“Someone’s an attention seeker.”
The app loaded quickly, turning into the sort of welcome message a user might find when opening an app for the first time. Its message was far from standard, though.
Hello Oliver!
Congratulations on becoming a magician in the 21*^(st)* century!
You are one of the chosen successors who must fulfill the duty that we few cannot forswear—protecting the magical Shroud separating the mortal world from the astral realm where spirits, demons, and other great beings dwell.
So that you might acclimate to your new role, I have condensed thousands of grimoires, scrolls, and all kinds of magical baubles and relics into a digital repository. That’s what Grimoire is—an app that makes magic accessible to one possessing modern sensibilities.
You can use Grimoire to learn magic, store your arcane knowledge, cast spells, summon familiars, conjure weapons and shields, or purchase spell cards and other magical items for later use.
Grimoire may also provide you with quests for training your magic talents, or offer you missions directly tied to your primary duties as a guardian of the Shroud and the mortal world.
Make no mistake, the duty I’ve placed on your shoulders is a heavy burden, but you, who’ve found the will to rebel against a crooked destiny, hold strength enough to endure it.
I believe in you.
Briar Rose
Earth’s Last Grand Magician
P.S. Magic is supposed to be fun and exciting, and I encourage you to enjoy yourself when performing your duties.
In my head, I quickly organized the facts I’d learned from this insane message.
First, I was now a magician, or, more likely, a magician’s apprentice. Second, the app was a literal digital spellbook that made magic accessible to a guy like me. Finally, Earth’s last grand magician just drafted me to the mother-of-all causes, one so over-the-top that it sounded like the premise to a low-budget Disney Plus show.
The hand that held my phone shook, and I couldn’t help but feel anxious. Terrified even.
I’d be the first to say it—I was no hero. Not like Dad had been. I was just a sixteen-year-old teenager who’d become a magnet for trouble, a busybody who sucked at following rules. This was a dangerous combination, at least according to the judge who’d sentenced me back in juvenile court. But now I was a magician’s apprentice, chosen by Earth’s last grand magician? Me, of all people?
“Seriously?”
Who was Briar Rose? Was she the voice I heard in my head? Probably not. And sure, it flattered me to think that there was one person in the whole wide world who claimed to believe in me—something my own mother couldn’t do—but I’ve never met Earth’s last grand magician. I didn’t know her. So how could I trust what she’d written?
I shouldn’t. But I couldn’t help wanting to.
Uncertainty gnawed at the edges of my thoughts, but Briar Rose’s message replayed in my mind. Magic, she’d written, was about imagination. Intent. Could I muster enough of either?
My trembling hands hovered over my phone screen, itching to test her claim, eager yet hesitant.
“What if I failed?” I asked no one in particular. “What if I make things worse?”
Hesitation didn’t seem like an option, though. Certainly not while I was stuck in this bizarre reflection of the real world. But also, if I took Briar Rose’s message objectively—which meant taking out all my personal baggage and just focusing on the facts staring me in the face—then I might have become part of something far bigger than myself, a cause too extraordinary to ignore. And if Earth’s last grand magician believed I could rise to the challenge, maybe—just maybe—I could learn to believe it too.
Okay, hold on, it’s not like I was accepting the role of magician right away. There were plenty more questions than that welcome message answered. But at least a spark of determination ignited within me, empowering me enough to explore the app’s features some more.
“Hey, voice in my phone, wanna give me advice?”
The cherub-like voice didn’t respond again, so I guess it didn’t have any advice to give or care about my peace of mind. Instead, while I scrolled, I got an instructional pop-up that advised me on how astral gems were used to unlock spell tutorials, purchase enchanted items, or even upgrade the potency of existing magic.
“Great,” I muttered. “I’m a magician with micro-transactions.”
“Micro-transactions?” spoke a voice from over my shoulder. “How’d you get your phone to work?”
I nearly dropped my phone in surprise, but I casually slipped it into my pocket instead, so Dre couldn’t see what was on its screen.
“You got a signal?” he asked, grinning with relief. “Maybe we can call—”
“It just turned on its own, but nothing’s working.”
Yes, I was a terrible liar. But, surprisingly, Dre didn’t press further. He let the subject drop as if it didn’t matter, though the glint in his eyes said differently. His curiosity hung in the air like an unanswered question, and I struggled for a moment to decide if I should tell him. In the end, I chose not to, making up excuses in my head about needing more time to sort out my thoughts, or that this classroom from hell wasn’t the place to have a long conversation about world-altering truths.
“Are you done?” I asked.
Dre nodded. “They’ll have a hard time getting out.”
Meaning they could escape their bonds, given time and some effort. He didn’t have to do it, but this was Dre showing mercy to the assholes who beat him so badly that he was limping on one foot. It spoke volumes about his character, making the confession simmering just below the surface harder to suppress.
“Do the shoes fit?” I asked.
Having lost one of his loafers, Dre traded his remaining shoe for a pair of yellow kicks he’d taken from our enemies.
“Not my style,” he shrugged, “but they’ll do in a pinch.”
I noticed that he also needed Hank’s junkyard mace to stay upright, which meant we would be slow-going on our way to the exit Shirtless told us about. Not that I was faring much better. I no longer felt the residual chill in my organs and bones, but I still felt immensely tired, like I’d run a marathon while experiencing a fever that hadn’t come down yet.
“Oh, I also got us these.” Dre showed me the iron chains he hung over one shoulder like a short length of rope. “Might come in handy if we run into any more problems.”
“So long as they don’t make noise and attract trouble,” I countered.
I didn’t mention that I had also taken a souvenir, though the thought of Hank’s broken mask inside my coat’s pocket was another secret burning at my conscience. I wasn’t sure why I’d taken it when I saw it lying on the ground earlier, but I figured the mask might be a clue to this shrine Shirtless had mentioned. It looked valuable too, and I might find a use for it later.
As for Hank and Shirtless, they were both still unconscious, though stable enough that my conscience didn’t feel too guilty when we left the classroom. I didn’t like them, but that didn’t mean I wanted another bully hospitalized because of me.
“You alright, amigo?”
I had lent Dre my shoulder to help him walk faster, so he was close enough to notice how pale my face had become.
“It’s just nerves.”
Nerves, guilt, and a dose of introspection about my new fate. But he didn’t need to hear any of that.
“You didn’t look nervous when you were using Hank and his goon squad for punching bags.” Dre grinned, and then grunted, as if smiling had been painful. “That wasn’t your first fight.”
“It wasn’t,” I admitted. “I just don’t like the aftermath.”
Honestly, the fighting part was as easy as breathing. I had a natural talent for it. But when the fight’s over, I always react the same way; numb, regretful, like I’d given in to my worst impulses while using Dad’s ideals as my excuse.
“I get it.” Dre chuckled, though the sound carried no genuine humor. “Aftermath’s always the worst. That’s when reality hits like a freight train, and we realize we’ve made a fucking mess we can’t undo.”
Dre looked conflicted, like he’d been speaking from experience. We were more alike than I thought. I didn’t press him for his backstory, though I’d heard some of it from Hank’s gang, and Dre didn’t seem eager to share more.
Anyway, we sneaked our way across floating debris that barely resembled the hallways Dre remembered from reality’s version of Brook-Sci; broken walls and cracked floors held together by the pulsing, red vines clinging to them like overgrown roots. We were careful not to step on these, slowing our trek even more. Bizarro Brook-Sci seemed alive, pulsing with an eerie rhythm that mirrored the frantic thump of my heart. Dre’s grip on my shoulder tightened as we pressed forward, the air so thick it felt as though the walls themselves were holding their breath. Whispers a lot like the ones I heard while intangible echoed from around the corners, faint but insistent, like fragments of scattered alien conversation.
“Can you hear that?” I asked.
“You mean the whispering walls?” Dre guessed. “They’re hard to miss.”
Good, it wasn’t just me. I honestly couldn’t tell if they were real or if my mind was playing cruel tricks. It helped my nerves to know he could hear them, too.
Despite looking like the backdrop for a disaster movie, the school campus looked mostly the same, at least in terms of where important locations were supposed to be, according to Dre. This made him the best navigator to find our way from the second floor, where the torture classroom was—which Dre claimed was the sophomore year’s delinquent classroom in our world—and down to the basement where we could find this supposed exit.
“Hey, where’d you learn to fight?” Dre asked.
I’d noticed this back when he’d guided me into Brook-Sci, but he had a talent for staying calm under pressure. As for his question, it wasn’t something I could answer easily. Mostly because my answer was also tied to my past trauma.
See, witnessing Dad’s death had been the most hopeless moment of my life, and I never wanted to feel that helpless ever again. After months stuck in depression, I’d woken up from my stupor and convinced Mom to let me enroll in a martial arts gym. I started with karate, which was popular in ‘The Valley’ where we’d moved after Dad’s death. When karate got boring, I moved on to other martial arts. Eventually, I found boxing, and I stuck with it because I discovered I had a knack for punching things decisively. As recent experiences reflected, I enjoyed it, too.
Don’t get me wrong, I was no Batman. I hadn’t learned fancy stuff like spy craft or built my own super cave. Reality wouldn’t let a child do anything too crazy. But I did my best to grow up as someone who would never again be helpless when violence stared me in the face. Not that it mattered in the end. Like I mentioned, I was no Batman, because the law had labeled me a villain.
Dre didn’t need to hear my sad backstory. I gave him the cliff-notes version instead, which was basically just, “I trained at a gym because I didn’t want to get bullied.”
Short and quick, I’d fit in with the other future CEOs of Brook-Sci. We had no time for banter anyway.
Turned out, Shirtless hadn’t lied to us. There were plenty more teen gladiators roaming Bizarro Brook-Sci, and we would’ve run into a trio of them as we made our way down the first floor if Dre hadn’t pushed me into a closet at the last second. It was a supply closet that had us squished together alongside cleaning supplies that smelled of vomit and shit and other revolting scents cleaning supplies shouldn’t have. The stench was awful, overpowering, and we gagged on it, nearly exposing ourselves to the gladiators passing outside.
Luckily, we held on just long enough to avoid getting caught, but the stale air in the outside hallway was like a breath of fresh air to my lungs. I gulped down as much of it as I could manage before we trudged further down this distorted version of our school.
Eventually, we found the boiler room, but it wasn’t like any boiler room I’d ever seen.
The boiler room stretched before us, a cavernous expanse that defied logic. Massive, pulsating structures resembling machinery loomed in the shadows, though their grotesque organic appearances suggested they were more alive than mechanical. Pulsing vines wove through the ceilings and walls like piping, and I could imagine them pumping blood into those machines. There was a metallic tang in the air, and warmth radiated everywhere, as if this boiler room was experiencing a feverish state like I did.
Dre and I exchanged a glance. Neither of us dared voice the dread shimmering between us, but it was palpable, clinging to us like dirt on our skin.
“Stay close,” I muttered, my voice barely audible over the rhythmic thrum of the boiler room’s symphony.
Dre nodded distractedly.
Something moved—a flicker of shadows that vanished as quickly as it appeared.
“Did you see that?” I whispered.
“He said there’d be a guard,” Dre answered.
My brow creased. “Sure, but…he didn’t say if they’d be another gladiator, did he?”
Dre shook his head. “Nothing specific…Why, are you saying there’s something other than unhinged, bloodthirsty Brook-Sci kids roaming this place?”
I didn’t need to answer that. I was sure Dre could see the unease in my expression.
We moved deeper into the boiler room’s labyrinth, our gazes sharpening at every flickering shadow. Further in, the walls seemed to close in, as if discouraging us from turning back.
“Should we keep going?” he asked.
“We’re already here,” I answered.
I gestured toward a faint light, its soft glow cutting through the gloom like a red stop sign.
“That’s our way out.”
Floating between two giant heating machines was a garish red scar, like a festering wound in space.
“I don’t know, amigo,” Dre’s brow creased, “maybe we wait for the next train…”
New York humor—I got it. I think.
Shirtless swore it would be the creepiest door we’d ever seen, but I think he undersold it. ‘Creepy’ didn’t seem accurate enough to describe what we saw.
This door was like a floating eye with tendrils flowing out to spread to its surroundings, clinging onto every surface like a giant spider web.
“How do we open it?” Dre asked.
We never got to that part of the interrogation. Shirtless had gone mad before we could ask him.
My brow creased. “Let’s get closer. Maybe there’s a handle or…”
“Maybe we push through?”
“Right.”
Our gazes fixed toward the pulsing light within that eye, its glow cutting through the gloom like a fragile promise of safety. But safety was an illusion. As we stepped toward the light, it became clear we weren’t alone. Emerging from the shadows was a figure that wasn’t human, yet eerily humanoid in its blurred outline. Its movements were slow, deliberate, as if savoring the moment before revealing itself fully, a figure wrapped in a red fog that clung to its shoulders like a hooded cloak.
Dre froze, his breath hitching—and I couldn’t blame him. I had the same experience the first time I laid eyes on a specter.
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Posted Nov 16, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC