My wands lie dead in a graveyard across my desk. Thrown across the room are spellbooks to bedazzle the finest witch. Enchantments for the mind. Incantations that can forge products from thin air. Spells to move energy like water in a stream. Each year I survive midterms, but each year I come ever closer to losing myself. See, there is a dark side to all this power. These books, wondrously powerful as they are, ultimately pose limits on my capabilities. My peers can testify to this. We learn our skills, practice them day in and day out, only to find ourselves stumped time and time again when faced with the horrors of an exam.
Some of our peers have succumbed to the dark side, finding themselves enraptured by the snare of a corrupt spellbook. It teaches them shortcuts faster than human comprehension. Yet, I see their magic. It is dry as a desert in summer. There is no life in their words. No flavor to the markings. What comes out delivers the answer, but it comes at the cost of who they are.
I’ve met many practitioners of the dark arts in person over the years, and have even been shown their captivating ways. I will admit that every semester they tempt me. The opportunity glimmers, but I will never give away the magic of my failures. I survived midterms, and while it costs me time, sleep, and stretches my magic to its very limits, I will never let it cost me who I am deep inside. Because if I lose who I am, my magic shall cease to exist.
