DARK WIZARD

1

Gabriel was a charming, restless, mischievous, and extraordinarily curious boy. At just seven years old, he already displayed an intelligence that could have easily earned him a grade skip at school. Once he learned to read, he delved into storybooks and comic books, discovering an alternate world that he explored with his lush imagination.

In school, these qualities caused him trouble, as he quickly grew bored in class and drifted into daydreams, weaving stories and traveling to distant worlds in his mind. These "journeys" were the cause of constant reprimands from the teacher, which often resulted in punishments at home.

Gabriel was the only child of hardworking parents who struggled day by day to make ends meet, covering basic needs like food, clothing, and paying off debts, with the occasional hope of enjoying a weekend trip to the cinema.They resided in a modest house, not far from the city center, where Gabriel had his own corner. His room was a mess: clothes scattered on the floor, toys, magazines, and posters of his cartoon heroes adorned the walls.At the age of eight, he stumbled upon his first book by Julio Verne: "Journey to the Center of the Earth." The story captivated him, filling his mind with images of vast caverns, subterranean seas, and prehistoric creatures. This encounter marked the beginning of his fascination with the brilliant French writer.

During those days, when he was about to finish reading that masterpiece and carried it with him everywhere, his mother sent him to the corner store to buy some groceries. Reluctantly, Gabriel obeyed; he was eager to finish the last pages, so, walking absentmindedly, he stumbled time and again, mesmerized by the epilogue of that extraordinary story.At Don Carlos' store, while waiting his turn to be attended, he was startled in his reading by the raspy voice of an elderly man whom he had never seen in the neighborhood before. The man was also waiting his turn, and upon seeing the boy so engrossed in his reading, he approached and said:

—That's a good book! Old Verne listened to me!

Gabriel startled and looked away from the pages of the book. He observed the elderly man with a kindly face, his wide nose, rosy cheeks, and thick eyebrows protruding over his glasses. A pipe, threatening to fall from his mouth, hidden behind a thick mustache, emitted the strong sweet scent of tobacco. The boy returned a smile, but before he could say anything, it was his turn to buy, and he was forced to leave the conversation.

—A kilo of bread, Don Carlos.—A kilo of bread... Anything else, Gabriel?—No, nothing else.

The shopkeeper placed the bread in the bag and, noticing that the elderly man was distracted looking at the prices of the fruits, he bent down to the boy's level and whispered in his ear:

—Be careful, kid! Don't get too close to that old lunatic! —As he spoke, he gestured with his eyes towards the stranger, who was now sampling some grapes.

Gabriel, feeling nervous, glanced sideways at the old man. He grabbed his bag, paid for the bread, and, without taking his eyes off the old man, headed towards the exit. Before stepping through it, the old man gave him a smile and, with his pipe in his right hand, greeted him.In the following months, he crossed paths with him a couple more times, and each time received the same friendly greeting as in the store. Gabriel had heard from the neighborhood gossips that the old man was a foreigner, who had escaped from the Second World War (though others said he had actually fled the First) and that he was somewhat eccentric. Some of his friends commented that they had seen him eating shoe soles and even that he went out at night to hunt rats and cats to prepare his favorite stew.

While the neighborhood's gossip and imagination knew no bounds when it came to the old man, this was largely because nothing was known about his background. He had appeared in the area a few years back, had no friends, although he greeted everyone kindly, and no relatives were known. He was considered an old lunatic and was somewhat distrusted, but the same people contributed to his subsistence with his small watchmaking business; he was skilled at his trade and charged very little, repairing everything from battered wristwatches to alarm clocks and wall clocks; in short, all kinds of timepieces, from the good ones to mostly old junk that was more fit for the trash.

No one knew his age, so many argued that he was older than Methuselah and even claimed he had escaped the sinking of the Titanic. All this flurry of stories was amplified the day a uncle of Doña Clara – the neighborhood's most gossiping old lady – arrived from Europe to visit his only living relative. The foreigner, around seventy years old, told stories of his native Switzerland that left half the world dumbfounded. Where he had lived practically all his life, around the fifties, he had known a watchmaker whose face was identical to that of the strange neighbor. What was surprising was that even back then this man had the same gray hair and wrinkles. Coming from Doña Clara's family line, a terrible gossip and liar, many did not take this story seriously, but others let their imagination run wild.

Gabriel's life passed without major incidents in the subsequent years. In school, he remained just as distracted, but always managed to advance to the next grade without any issues. He continued reading new stories by Verne: "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," "From the Earth to the Moon," "Around the World in Eighty Days," which only fueled his hope of experiencing astonishing adventures in the future. However, when he turned eleven, an event occurred that changed his life and shattered the idyllic image he had of it. Suddenly, his entire fantasy world seemed to crumble like a house of cards with a single breath.

That morning, no one in Gabriel's house woke up. Neither Gabriel was awakened by his mother as usual to have breakfast and go to school, nor did his father go to work; the phone rang several times – Gabriel's father never missed work even in the worst circumstances of a cold. No one answered. Immediately, sensing something wrong on that harsh winter morning, the head of personnel and a friend of Gabriel's father made the decision to go to the house to see what was happening. Upon arriving at the house, and after knocking insistently on the door, he looked through the keyhole and saw that the key was still in place. He called the police, they forced the lock, and as soon as they entered, they could smell a gas leak. The water heater had stopped working and flooded everything with carbon monoxide. Fate, chance, or who knows what special circumstances intervened, so that the only survivor of the tragedy was Gabriel. He was rushed to the hospital where they managed to reverse the level of poisoning, he had suffered.

He recovered; he overcame the poisoning, but the largest wound imaginable opened in his heart. With the death of his parents, his life was shattered. He had no more direct relatives, no one else. It was just him with his memories of a happy childhood abruptly broken. In these circumstances, he was sent to an orphanage until he reached adulthood.