Thorns of a Rose #1 (Howl's Moving Castle fanfiction)

Chapter 18: Pause

Sometimes, in the middle of a traumatic event, time suddenly stops. The world becomes a picture and everything is frozen in space, like a scene in a film paused for a long time. You remember what the room smelled like, or what you were wearing from the shirt color to if your shoes were tied or not, and you remember the emotions felt. You remember the emotions more than anything else.

Markl's world paused and he remembered it all - Howl unconscious in Kenta's arms, Kenta slapping his face and chest and yelling at Howl to wake up. He smelled the rancid sweat building up inside; he heard the excruciating pain in Kenta'a cries; and he saw the tightness of the space as the cage felt like it was growing smaller by the second.

But worst of all, worse than anything the young boy had witnessed, were the monsters.

The smell of their uncleansed breath, like the smell of sewer water, breathing through the tiny windows that lined the cage. Markl felt their jagged claws grazing against the metal that sheltered them from the outside. His skin crawled with bumps at the sound of each scratch. It was like hearing nails on a chalkboard over and over and over again.

Kenta's voice was loud, Markl knew that. But for some reason, his thoughts rang louder in his head. The older magician's voice faded away as Markl's mind turned to his newfound adrenaline, calculating each and every possible solution.

The nightmare spell, the titan's strength spell, even the noteva and sadi enchantments in a combination to create the gavidere curse, a simple way to render the monsters powerless. Just from his memory, those were some of the most effective and exceptional spells for the situation at hand.

Yet Markl only remembered their names - not the chantings.

One monster slobbered through the tiny slits on the cage. The saliva dripped down the side, but Markl scooted to the middle of the cage to avoid the drops. He thought about Heen's drools and how disgusted he was whenever he found something the dog had salivated on - usually something of Markl's. Even with that nasty remembrance, these slobbers were far more repulsive than Heen.

Focus, the boy thought. Focus on the spell book. Markl racked his brain, trying to recall the lines of the spells he studied right before Gwenda entered the flower shop the previous day. Even though none of them would help Howl heal from this, Markl remembered at least one or two that may get them out of this mess. Though Howl had wanted to teach these himself, Markl was too eager and wanted to learn on his own.

So he had borrowed Howl's mage spell book.

The mage's spells were powerful. Howl had used a countless number of these old rituals around him, and Markl was always enthralled by them. After Howl provided the young boy a demonstration of the spells, Markl then snuck up to his room to try them himself.

Though most of them never worked, he remembered two that did. The first one, he turned his room into the galaxy, where stars and planets surrounded him. He was able to touch the blinding lights and push the planets around with a light touch of his fingers.

It felt strangely familiar to be in the presence of stars, almost like how Calcifer felt remembering his years as an actual star. Markl had never seen such beauty in his room.

The last one, Markl found more appropriate for this situation. He used this spell to revive a small rodent that was on its last leg, cursed by Howl and left for dead. And before Gwenda interrupted him in the flower shop earlier the day before, he had just gone through that exact spell...

"Come on, Howl. You must fight." Kenta said, holding back a stream of tears. "You can come back from this. I know it." Kenta was working on only one plan: waiting for Howl to somehow get out of this mess on his own. His emotions almost never clouded his training; he relied on logic to guide his years of studying magic and perfecting his form and trying to be one step ahead of everyone in their class.