Mina was the sort of girl that was easy to overlook for her peers in college. She was short, barely above 5 feet, and thin, so in a literal sense it was easy to not see that she was there. Her brown hair, usually put in a messy ponytail, and her tendency towards button-up shirts over anything more stylish or revealing, did little to draw attention to her. Even her dark brown eyes, filled with life and curiosity, were usually hidden behind big, square glasses that dominated her face.
When she did receive attention from people her age, it fell into one of three categories. The first type was popular people who would decide they needed to fix her. Sometimes, this was a genuine desire to bring out a beauty they saw in her, and other times, it was a way to make fun of her. The second type was people in her classes who realized she was smart, usually about halfway through the semester. She never talked much, but her essays and test scores usually looked much better than those around her. The better ones wanted free tutoring, the worse ones wanted to cheat on tests.
The third type was the worst. These were men who saw her as an easy target. Sometimes, these men were really unattractive, often weird misogynists who correctly assumed she was a virgin but wrongly thought she might jump at the opportunity to be their doting girlfriend-mom. Other times, they were attractive enough, but the tone in their voice betrayed a patronizing superiority, as if they were kind for wanting to take her on a mediocre date before sleeping with her. Neither of these appealed to her at all.
Nothing interesting happened to Mina in college until the fall semester of sophomore year. Her Latin professor, Dr. Penumbral, had mentioned that the department had recently received a bunch of medieval church manuscripts to translate. After class, she sneaked into the university library archives to look at the historical texts. For the most part, these were pioneer-era records, but this time, they had something interesting.
Normally, Mina didn't do things she wasn't supposed to. She hated the idea of getting in trouble. But Dr. Penumbral had talked up what a powerful experience it could be to open a book that hasn't been touched in a millenia. Besides, if the university was going to put nothing save an unlocked door and an ineffectual sign between artifacts and students, most of whom were not nearly as careful as she was, they clearly weren't too concerned about them.
It was there that she found Libellus Fulminatus, the book that would change her life. It was placed on a shelf with other old books, small and unassuming like her. She first realized it was special when her small, dainty hands touched its gray cover. She felt a spark in her fingertips, and it seemed to flash with white light.
She had heard that the oils in a person's hands could help pages last longer, and this was perhaps the reasoning that justified her uncharacteristic boldness in opening it. The pages were in a strangely pristine condition, the ink as vibrant as it would be if it were penned yesterday. Even with her years of study in Latin, first in high school and then in college, she couldn't read it. Much of it was written using symbols she couldn't decipher, and parts of it seemed to be written in transliterated Greek or Hebrew or Arabic.
Yet she could make out the titles enough to get the purpose of it, "hair growth spell," "words to paralyze enemies," and "lightning sky." This seemed to be some sort of black magic instruction manual. Dr. Penumbral had talked about the clerical necromantic underground, a network of bored medieval priests who used the literacy given them by the Catholic church for decidedly unholy reasons. Perhaps this was the product of those secretive oathbreakers.
She took a picture of one page, an invisibility spell, and then put the book back. She had never planned on doing more than looking at covers, and she had already done more than that. But once she tried to leave, she found she couldn't. Some force in her compelled her to keep it, like a magnetism between her soul and the text. She needed that book, even if it meant getting in trouble. She grabbed it and put it in her bag as safely as she could and bolted from the forbidden room.
Mina walked out of the library quickly. No one said anything to her, about where she had been or even if she needed to check out any books. Perhaps the workers were busy because it was about to shut down. She had spent more time than she realized in that room, ogling that strange text. Or maybe it was just that no one ever noticed her, so it didn't matter that she had just robbed them.
When she went outside, it was night. The path to her dorm was unlit, and she was nervous. Nervous from the theft, nervous to walk alone, and for some reason nervous about what secrets the book held. Her skittish movement must have attracted the wrong sort of attention, because a boy approached her, saying, "Hey! Where are you headed?"
He wasn't unattractive. He was tall and thin, and his voice had a softness she thought she would enjoy in another circumstance. She tried not to look at him too much, but he had bright blue eyes she couldn't ignore even at a glance. Still, the situation was fraught enough even without all the dangers of some guy who thought it was a good idea to approach a girl in the dark.
She said nothing and picked up her pace, walking faster, but he matched her speed. "Hey, slow down! I just want to talk!" he called out after her. She scurried away as best as she could, but his long strides kept him close to her, even as he seemed to stay calm. She was desperate for some semblance to control, so she pulled out her phone to look at that invisibility spell.
She read through it. It told her to cover her face and repeat some incantation. She had never believed in magic or superstition, but part of her felt comforted by the idea of saying this spell, by summoning dark wizardry to go unseen by this creep. She put her left palm on her face and started muttering the words to herself slowly, trying her best to match the intended pronunciation. When she finished, she realized she could see through her hand. She pulled up her sleeve to check, and so too was her arm. Her body was completely transparent.
Yet her clothes still revealed her form, and the man pursuing her knew where she was. He shouted "Don't walk away from me! I'm talking to you!" The only thing she could think to do was find somewhere to hide and remove her clothes, so he wouldn't be able to find her. When she noticed a staircase on the outside of a building, she thought that was as good a place as any.
She tried to approach it inconspicuously, as though that were the direction she was headed, but once her foot touched the stairs, she ran, throwing off her clothes as quickly as possible. She stashed her backpack in the corner of one of the landings. From the bottom of the stairs, she heard him say, "Oh, so you're a little freak, huh?" His eager tone disgusted her, making her imagine all the girls he had slutshamed as he victimized them.
Mina stood at the top of the staircase, as her attacker raced upwards. The door into the building was locked, and she wasn't sure she had the room to avoid him running into her, even if she pressed into the wall. If he felt her, she doubted that her invisibility would deter him from doing what he planned to do. Besides, he had grabbed her backpack, no doubt to use as leverage against her. So she crouched down, and as he placed his foot on the second to last step of the staircase, she pulled his leg up.
Her plan worked. He lost his footing and fell backwards, his head bouncing against the landing. She rushed down to grab the backpack, but she paused before leaving. Who knew how long it would take for him to come back to consciousness? Or if he would try to find her to exact his revenge another day? She pulled out the book and searched for something to help when she found the page labeled "words to paralyze enemies."
She aimed her hand at him, in her best guess at what the prescribed gesture was supposed to be, and read the incantation. Then, she waited, just close enough to her attacker to see if the spell worked, far enough to run if it didn't. She looked at him, his infuriating babyface that seemed to contradict his unsavory actions, his thin frame that had so easily given way when she caught him off-guard. Now that she wasn't afraid, she was almost flattered that he had chosen her, even though this was probably done from opportunity rather than preference.
He awoke, but it took him a few seconds to realize he was stuck "What the fuck?" he shouted. "I can't move!"
Mina smiled. The spell had worked. He could talk, and dart his eyes around trying to figure out what had happened. He fixated on the book. As far as he could tell, it floated in the air before gently placing itself back in the backpack.
"Did I break my spine? Help! Help!"
This angered her. How dare he ask for help when he was the aggressor? Why did he deserve help when she didn't even think to ask for it? She whispered in his ear, "Silence, pig." Whether by magic or fear, he obeyed.
