10: Goodbye Lovers And Friends (Neal I)

A tingle.

That was all that Neal Neumann felt when it happened. And – I kid you not - he was quite confused, but who wouldn't? At first he thought that the exam he was going to take in about ten minutes was causing him a panic attack – it was a clearly plausible possibility since he had been too lazy to actually prepare for the test despite knowing quite well that it wasn't possible to master classical cryptography in one night. But then again - he remembered that he actually had kinda enjoyed this subject and that he didn't really need to prepare much for this exam since the exam itself was going to give only 40% of the final score, the other 60% he had somehow gotten during the term, so technically all he had to do to pass the exam was to show up to it.

So no worries. He got this.

Life was good and so on.

So if it wasn't a panic attack about the exam, than it... should be a different medical condition or maybe just some bizarre phantom pain…?

Neal certainly hoped so.

He opened his notes in a page about the functions in cyphering machines and tried his damn best to ignore the tingle that started to become increasingly more annoying. Let's see... the key-space K, the staring alphabet X... the function for changing the key...

Read, read, read.

Damn.

That tingle.

It wasn't possible to ignore it anymore.

Neal's face now had an expression that clearly showed he wasn't amused by the situation – something between a sneer and a scowl. As soon as the exam's over, I will just... go to my ex-classmate Louise, she's studying to become a doctor, she can just tell if there's anything to worry about. Finals are more important than my health anyw--

His eyes suddenly became an impression of saucers as he realized that it was not just a tingle anymore – it had become rather painful, as if someone had set an army of fire ants on him and afterwards decided to run him over by a car as an extra serivce. After having gasped in pain and collapsed to his knees, Neal noticed that there was some sort of a bloody (literally and figuratively) pentacle beneath his feet – all complete with some damn bloody runes, circles, and a star that gave him a diablotical impression.

A sudden blood red light engulfed him (“Oh, goodbye, cruel world! For it is time for me to go.”), leaving only his cryptography notes in a middle of a burned-out pentacle and extremely confused fellow students behind.