"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."
"One of the most famous sentences attributed with Zocrates the Philosopher signifies that genuine wisdom begins with recognizing just how vast our ignorance is and opening our minds to learning new things we don't know rather than thinking we've achieved all of the knowledge this world has to offer."
"Mr. Myers?"
"Yes?"
"So you're saying we can become smarter by being dumb?"
Various chuckles and giggles filled the classroom.
"Haha, well I wouldn't put it like that. What's meant is, when you acknowledge that you have room to grow, even when you're completely satisfied with something, your mind progresses further and that's where true wisdom begins. It's a very simple concept yet I believe it's very important to remember. Especially for young students such as yourselves."
Ding Dong Ding Dong
A rhythmic bell rang across the room.
"Looks like that's all the time we have today. I will see you tomorrow. Have a good day everyone."
Students packed their things and exited the classroom one by one. The brown-haired teacher, wearing glasses, a burgundy dress shirt and black suit pants, packed his bag with papers and pens that were lying on his desk. He then checked his watch. "Ah— better get going."
The man exited the classroom and walked through different corridors before arriving at a library. He walked in and approached a table.
"Oh great, looks like you're already here." The man took a seat. "I'm Mr. Myers but you may call me Evan, I don't mind. Let's carry on our conversation from earlier."
On the other side of the table sat Lucen. "Yeah, I'm interested in hearing more about that… book."
~Earlier That Morning~
Lucen walked down the hallway deep in thought.
Since we handled the issue at the park, I wonder what's going to happen with the investigation. There's no way the police would believe me if I told them the problem was just suddenly… handled. Still, there are devils out there killing humans. Khara's father and all the people from the park. Speaking of Khara, I should check in on her.
Lucen opened his phone and began texting Khara, although this meant he wasn't looking where he was walking.
"OOMPH-"
"GAH-"
Lucen collided into a brown-haired man wearing glasses. Evan Myers, 28 years old. His bag dropped to the floor and its contents fell out of it.
"Shoot— I'm sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going!" Lucen said, trying to help Evan pick up his belongings.
"Don't worry, it's okay. I should've been more careful as well."
Lucen eyes, while he picked up various items and returned them back to Evan's bag, landed on a book titled "The Hollow Crown".
"Hm? What's this book?" Lucen asked.
"Oh this? It's quite an interesting story. Would you like to hear about it?"
"Yeah, what's it about?"
"The book is about these creatures called devils."
"Devils?!"
"Yes, the story describes them as creatures with supernatural powers who reside in a place separate from our normal world called the Underworld but they're not like the ones you're probably familiar with. They were a lot like us humans."
That sounds exactly like…
Ding Dong Ding Dong
The school's bell rang signaling the beginning of class time.
"Oh— I'd better get going before I'm late. Would you like to meet in the library later? I can tell you more about the book."
"Yeah, I'll meet you there after class ends."
The man jogged off in the other direction.
Is he a new teacher? I've never seen him before. Still that book… The Hollow Crown? Now that I think about it, isn't it kinda strange? If there's books out there that have information on real devils, why is the perception of what they actually are so different from reality? Anyways, I'll have to learn more about that book.
~2 Hours Later in the Library~
Evan pulled out the book from his bag and set it on the table.
"Here we are. So, I'll start from the beginning so you have some context. The story begins explaining that we, humans and devils, fought at war for centuries. How the conflict started, no one had a clue, all that was known was fighting."
A war? Wait, haven't I heard about that before? Ah— that's right. The girl in the white room, Auribel, said she was apparently killed during a war. Is this the same war?
"For hundreds of years, no side claimed a victory over the other and the war continued on, seemingly never ending. That was until 1991, where the war would come to an abrupt end with the death of Dekir Azaroth."
Wait… Azaroth?
"Who's Dekir Azaroth?"
"He was the former Devil King. An unstoppable and immortal devil considered one of the strongest devils in recent history."
"A Devil King? Like a king of all devils?"
"Well, that's what one would think, although the story describes the Devil King position as simply a position filled by a devil who rises above the rest with their power. Very few actually followed Dekir though."
"So how did Dekir die? You said he was immortal, right?"
"That's the thing. The story doesn't go into depth about that at all. There's one big flaw about The Hollow Crown and that it's a book that leaves out a lot of details about what actually went down then."
"That's strange…"
"Know what's even stranger? This book has no known author or publisher. According to a few people, some copies of The Hollow Crown just randomly appeared in different libraries. Nobody knows who placed them there at all. Fun fact, this is actually one of the only twenty copies in Velstrea entirely."
"Seriously?? So it's a pretty rare book then? Are the copies valuable?"
"Well not really. The thing is, nobody really cares about the book at all. When I picked this one up, it was just sitting there in the library, untouched. Mostly because, like I said earlier, how much details were left out. Made a huge portion of the book just feel redundant and people wrote it off as just a bad story. But me? I see something in this that nobody else is seeing. I believe this book exists for a reason. That's why I've been holding onto it."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well… I'm working to prove that devils do exist."
"Really? That's kind of a wild thing to try and do. How are you so sure they do actually exist though?"
"Well, I do have an idea on—"
Ding Dong Ding Dong
The bell signaling the end of lunch break rang across the library.
"Cut off by the bell again?"
"Looks like we'll have to continue this talk another time as I do have a class to teach but thanks for having this conversation with me. Feels like anyone I try to talk about this stuff with, they call me crazy, haha."
"Yeah…" This book… I'll have to ask Lia about it.
"Have a good one." Evan walked off and out of the library.
Well, better get to cla— UGH!
As Lucen stood up, suddenly a sharp pain rushed to his head causing him to buckle and drop to the floor.
What the hell is… happening?! Damn it…! My… head…
Lucen dropped to the floor and passed out.
…
…
Ugh…What happened…
Lucen opened his eyes to be met in the same white room that's been appearing in his sleep for the past few days again.
I'm back… Where's…
Lucen looked around and spotted Auribel in the distance. She was crouched down on the floor, covering her ears, and was visibly shaking.
"Hey! Are you okay?!" Lucen got up and shouted.
Will the room go dark again if I go over there? Well, only one way to find out.
Lucen approached Auribel. Surprisingly, the room did not change this time.
"Hey…"
"No…No no no… Please no…"
"Hey Auribel…?"
Auribel remained crouched, seemingly unaware of Lucen's presence next to her. Lucen lightly tapped her shoulder and she flinched and looked up.
"L-Lucen…?"
"Yo…"
"I'm sorry…"
"Don't apologize, please. Uh, listen, I'm here, alright… If you need to talk."
"I…"
"Actually, no. You don't need to. Here, I'll sit next to you."
Lucen sat down next to Auribel who was still crouched down. He sat for a bit as he tried thinking up ways to distract her from whatever was going on.
"Okay, story time. So one day me and my friends were…"
~5 Minutes Later~
"And then Jace, the idiot he is, jumped on a random car while screaming. All over a tiny little dog. You should've heard him, he sounded like a little girl, haha."
"Pffft."
Lucen looked at Auribel's face and saw a small little smile.
Well well, looks like someone can smile.
"Feeling better?"
"Yes, thank you…"
"My ma taught me that sometimes, you just need someone to talk to."
Lucen thought back to what Laura told him.
"Listen Lucen, whenever you're feeling down, just talk to someone. It's lonely to bottle up everything inside. You don't even have to just talk about your problems. You can talk about anything. As long as you have someone to talk to and listen to, you'll always end up feeling better."
That was the day after she took me in. I remember not talking all that much. Luckily for me, Laura was pretty patient. Auribel sort of reminds me of myself back then.
"Your mom sounds like a really kind person…"
"Yeah, she is. She's— Ah come on, not again…"
The room began turning dark.
"I guess I'll be back?"
Lucen's vision became shrouded in dark yet again, signaling he's waking up.