Second Face Part 1: Burned Books
I wish I'd never opened this thing
In the abandoned halls of a house, I stood alone with a flashlight in tow studying the framework of this ancient tapestry. I sprayed a corner with light. Dust scattered like little pixies attempting to hide from view. The cracks of some kind of entrance immediately stood out in my mind, but on top of it, there lay a pile of junk. I carefully checked each thing, hoping the space wasn’t locked or that the handle hadn’t been broken off. If there was something valuable to hide, it’d be somewhere like this. Maybe I’d find some bribe money or an old antique that’d sell for a lot. It’s either that or just a faceful of dirt and spiders. One time, I even found a raccoon’s skeleton. Yes, for real. After I removed the stuff, I pulled the handle. It gave with no resistance.
Jackpot! I didn’t even need to crawl inside.
Directly in my field of view was an old travel bag, scratched and worn but not terribly so. With one hefty tug, I pulled the bag out. It was horribly heavy for some reason. Hopefully, I won't find a body in here. Tentatively, I placed my hand on the zipper. Here goes nothing. As I unzipped the bag, the familiar and often disappointing smell of old books hissed from the gaps in the zipper. It wasn’t exactly a jackpot, but I did like to take these old books home. I flipped it open and a thick sheet of dust covered the book on top. Even touching it coated my finger. Cautiously, I picked it up and dusted it off, holding it far away from my face which revealed something I was unwilling to admit to myself.
“Someone’s Second Life by Hans A. Spiegel”
For a minute, it caught me off guard. I investigated the book before opening it. The dark dusty pages were caked with dirt. It was almost impossible to read, but I certainly tried. The more I looked at the book, the less it made sense. It wasn’t just the dirt making it harder to read, but an intangible feeling of unfamiliarity I couldn’t shake. Besides, why should I spend all day in an abandoned house reading a book all day? Maybe there was still something worth the risk in this place.
I closed the book and delved deeper into the home. Something was calling me back to that book.
But I ignored it and continued looking. And all I found was nothing. And I looked. And the more nothing I found the stronger I felt the call back to that book, but for the life of me I couldn't find out why it was so interesting.
Whatever, I'm not gonna waste my time on it, there’s gotta be something more valuable in this house. It's not even like I can read it anyways. I left the room and tried not to think about it too much. Hopefully whatever pull it had on me,was gone. In fact, I think leaving the room had the opposite of the intended effect.
Am I going crazy?
I place my hand on my head. I turn back to the room and slowly walk towards it. As I walk towards the book the voice quiets down. I get it now. My breath hitches, I sigh in defeat and pick up the book again. I dust it off, again, and open it up to the first page.
“To the real me, I’m sorry”
I felt as though a string I didn’t even know I had was strummed. It was uncomfortable and violating in a way I couldn’t exactly put my finger on. I considered putting the book down for a moment. I considered how it insisted on being read, I continued flipping the pages and wondered what other strings it'd strum.
“The first thing I knew was my own mortality. Then it was gone. In an instant, I lost all connection with who I was before.”
I keep reading. Strangely, whereas before the text was illegible, now it seemed perfectly readable. It’s as though my mind has adjusted to dirt encrusted pages. I could much more easily make out the words. The book felt like an autopsy of the Han's life. As though it were trying to dissect what had gone wrong.Yet each word, felt like it was building towards a tragedy. The Hans seemed like a good person, trying to create peace. Every time they talked about themselves, there was resentment and hatred and even loss. It was a resentment I felt within myself at times. It ignited me like tossing a lit matchstick into an abandoned building. I felt like I wanted to do something to help them, desperately so, but I couldn’t.
Before I could get too intrigued by the book, I smelled the faintest scent of smoke. That’s usually a bad sign, I creased the corner of the page I was on, since I didn’t have a book mark. I had learned my lesson. I put the book down and went to check it out. The sense of dread I wanted to suppress quickly overcame me. I didn’t believe in ghosts, that’s half the reason why I could walk into places like this without a problem, but maybe this book really was haunted. I walked out of the room and towards the direction of the smoke cloud that was quickly building in the other room.
I turned to the room where I left the book and then back again. It was a fascinating book, but it wasn’t worth my life. I kicked the already weak door down in a room and made a break for the window and bailed out of it. Protecting my face from the impact with my hands. I didn’t want to be seen leaving this place, I certainly didn’t want to see whatever arsonist decided to burn this place down. It’s sad, since I really wanted to read that book but I guess it’s gone now.
I shrunk into the overgrown grass. I popped up and saw the arsonists, just a bunch of stupid kids. 3 of them, to be exact. The other two were laughing but one couldn’t quite hide his guilt. It seemed like he didn’t want to be there. I dipped back into the grass and called the fire department. Then I hopped the fence into the next yard over. I took a quick peek at the backyard door, it was closed. But I did see the owner of that house walking outside to check out the fire. Luckily, I laid just out of sight since he was much more focused on the ramping sounds of fire from next door. This was going to get really bad, really fast. Fortunately, I moved just as quickly hopping this guy's fence into the alleyway. Only when I made it onto the sidewalk that I could finally slip under the veil of normalcy and head back home.
A sigh of relief, having not been caught. This was my fourth time exploring an abandoned house, but my first one ever seeing one burned down. What could have possessed someone to do something like that? I’m just glad I got out unseen and unscathed. When I arrived home, I decided to look for this book on google. I found a whole lot of things that weren't in the book. I found something that was a book but wasn’t the book I was looking for. I changed the wording. Hell, I even tried describing the book. Still nothing. So I looked up the author’s. I couldn’t find the book itself, but I stumbled upon something even more interesting on an internet forum.
The first thread was about how the '“Hans A. Spiegel” was a pen name. He had written several other books like the one I read. He had them all printed and bound, even made a few copies of the other books, but never actually got his work published.
But how did he get these books produced? Were there any other copies of “Someone’s Second Life” produced? If so, why aren’t they talked about? Why did I find them in this house? And most importantly, who was this guy?
My mind continued to churn out questions I couldn’t possibly know the answers to at the moment. It was a long day. Eventually, exhaustion won the war.
During my dream, the view of a woman's eye filling my entire visual field invaded. As I pulled away from her it appeared like a planet and I was watching from the far edges of its atmosphere barely held by gravity. I saw the depths of her obsession in the void that was her pupils. The mounting sensation of madness forced me awake. I almost scarred my throat screaming so loudly. It felt like something was crawling under my skin. Like it wanted to live inside of me. But there was nothing. I kept checking for lumps or bumps or anything like that on my skin. I couldn’t shake this dirty feeling. The only other thing I felt was a familiar call. I got up and opened the door. The blinding rays of the sun sealed my eyes shut. I turned to the left and opened them slowly.
I saw the same, dusty old book sitting comfortably on the table on my porch.
This is my first story I’ve written and published in a long time. I really hope you guys enjoyed this. Thank you all for reading if you have. All of the stories on this newsletter share the same universe.