Does Magic Exist?

My eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing: potions, ingredients, books in old languages, parts of mystical creatures, and so more beyond my imagination. I was so delighted as well as annoyed because my grandma was a witch or sorcerer or whatever, and she had hidden it from me her entire life. Of course, I would have felt surprised, but I could have become her apprentice. Why did she hide that secret room?

While I was checking everything that room offered, I heard some footsteps coming from the tea house’s main door. I leaned out and saw two men dressed in suits who started shouting my grandma’s name. I left the secret room and tried to convince them to leave the tea house.

“Hello. I don’t know if you have noticed, but the sign says that the tea house is closed,” I told the men who remained where they were. Were they deaf?

“We know, but there is something fishy about this tea house. And now that the owner is dead, we can check it thoroughly if you don’t mind.” The men pushed me and opened the door of the secret room. I overtook the men, but it was too late: they had already discovered my grandma’s biggest secret.

“So, you tried to hide us this room. You are so like your grandmother. Unfortunately, we’ll have to kill you,” said the other guy, who was Asian, guessing by his facial features, and took out a gun.

Without hesitating, I picked up the first potion I saw and threw it. A grey smoke started to fill the room, and I couldn’t see anything. I covered my nostrils to not get intoxicated and searched for a potion while the men were distracted. I could hardly see a thing, but, fortunately, the potions had big labels printed on big characters to identify them.

“Metamorph” I read in one of them. I picked it up and threw it to the men, hoping it worked. When the smoke vanished, the men were nowhere to be seen. I breathed in relief and relaxed until I saw two cockroaches on the floor. I desperately tried to stomp them, but they were fast and escaped.

I returned to the secret room and picked up the label, which was the only thing left from the potion (apart from the scattered crystals). There was a drawing of a cockroach above the word “Metamorph.”

I started to think about all I could do with my grandma’s potions and all the concoctions I could prepare with the recipes she left. I started looking at the shelves until I found a potion that caught my attention: it read “Dragon.”

Just in case, I climbed to the rooftop of the tea house, took a deep breath, and drank the concoction (which was ugly). I started to cough and felt a strange feeling running through my body. I kneeled and shouted, already regretting drinking that potion.

A few minutes later, which seemed like an eternity, the pain stopped, and I slowly stared up. When I looked at my hands, I saw big claws and red scales. I climbed down and went to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror. I had turned into a dragon!!! I jumped and screamed in awe and returned to the rooftop.

“I had to try it,” I said and jumped off the rooftop. When I was about to hit the pavement, I extended my wings and started flying with some difficulties. After a while, I was flying swiftly and performing all kinds of tricks. I could appreciate the highest buildings in the city, the parks, the people, the thousands of houses, the traffic, etc. They were all insignificant spots at that height. I was having the best moment of my life when I started to fall.

When I tried to fly, I noticed I had become a human again. At that height, no one could come up alive. “This is the most stupid way to die!!!” I screamed and accepted my fate. I was falling at an extremely high speed, and no one could save me.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAA” I shouted and perceived that I was on a bed in a white room. Did I survive the fall? Craig, my best friend, was seated next to the bed and asked me how I felt.

“I’m fine. I was flying and started to fall, and then…”

“You, idiot. You were high. You almost died from an overdose,” Matthew, another friend, explained to me.

“But, what about my grandma’s secret room, the men in suits that tried to kill me?” I asked them, and Craig took one of his hands to his face in disbelief.

“You were hallucinating. You ate so many brownies that you started imagining things,” Craig told me, and I tried to remember, but my memory was cloudy.

“You thought we were going to kill you and started throwing bottles and other stuff at us. Then, you jumped out of the window and believed you could fly,” I hid behind the white counterpane, ashamed of what I had done.

“Then, you ran through the streets jumping up and out from cars and waste containers, believing you were a dragon. Finally, you fell and started throwing up. You were so lucky that the medical attention was quick,” added Craig.

“I won’t eat brownies or try drugs anymore,” I promised, and my friends burst out laughing.

“Don’t make promises that you will break,” added Matthew, and we joined in a big hug.