He takes it to a pawn shop before work

I wake up to the sound of my alarm, groggy and a bit confused by the dream I had last night. All I saw was these purple streaks of light across an empty void leading to a rectangular looking thing, and a voice that kept saying “Summon” every second. Maybe I just ate some really bad Chinese food last night or something.

Anyways, I get dressed and slowly walk down into the living room where my PC is. The place is still a disorganized mess, but I’m going to worry about fixing that all up on my next day off. Seeing an empty house in the morning feels off, like I shouldn’t even be here, but no, this house is all mine.

After brewing myself a cup of coffee, I go to my PC and check my schedule for today. Unsurprisingly, I have a 10-2 today, so very little hours. I get so mad when they schedule me for short shifts in the beginning of the week, cause they almost always have me work from 5am to close on Thursdays and Fridays.

But enough of that, I log onto my EBay account and see that… No one has seen my listing? I lean back into my chair, stumped and confused as to why no one has seen my listing. Did I charge too high? Do I have to pay to signal my listing? Is this book cursed or something? I have no clue at this point. I’ve sold actual paper weights faster than this mysterious book!

“Maybe a pawn shop’ll take this off my hands?” I ask myself.

I look at the time on my phone and see it’s only 8:30 AM. If I leave now, I can swing by a pawn shop before I need to go to work, and maybe I can have them see how much this thing truly costs. It sucks that I have to resort to doing this, but maybe I misjudged the value of that thing?

So, I quickly finish off my coffee and head upstairs to change into my work uniform. It’s a red shirt, black pants, and black apron, all cheaply made for my retail job at this supermarket chain. It’s pretty popular where I live, but to say that I’m not a huge fan of the place would be an understatement.

Anyway, I grab my bag hanging off the wall and grab the book from my nightstand. Suddenly, as I grab the book I feel electricity shock my finger tips.

“Ow!” I say before retracting my hands and shaking it. The electric shock didn’t hurt, but it was surprisingly strong, unlike any other static shock I’ve experienced. Maybe the book is made out of some kind of conductive materials or something, I don’t know exactly.

Anyways, I leave my house and enter my car. It’s a very old car, bordering on broken now that I have to have something fixed every time I drive it to work, but it reminds me of my father, old but experienced. He may be old and a bit broken in some places, but he’s seen it all and probably done it all too. At least, I never had to take my dad up to the hospital as many times as I do this car to the shop. Its black paint is chipped in almost every direction and the inside has a broken radio. I would get a new car if I could, but the economy is in shambles right now.

Anyways, I turn on the sputtering engine and drive off to the city just outside the neighborhood I live in. The city here is like any other city, pretty on the outside, but when you actually live in it, you see all of the nasty stuff. Grand skyline and sky scrapping towers, but dirty streets. The culture here is amazing though. For being a part of the city, a lot of the people here know each other really well, especially those in the night life streets.

It doesn’t take me long until I find a pawn shop. They’re pretty rare here, so this might be my only chance to pawn this thing off.

I pull up into the parking lot and turn off my engine. As I get out of my car, I hear the same whispering voice in my ear that I heard last night.

“Power~”

I close my eyes and shake my head, thinking it must be my imagination at this point. Maybe that Chinese food was poisoned or something?

Anyway, I grab my bag with the book inside, close my car door and enter the pawn shop.

Inside the pawn shop, the floor is covered in a black and white checkered design with the most tacky red and green carpet I’ve ever seen. All around the walls are pieces of jewelry, old nick knacks, and what I can only describe as “mid-life crisis” antiques like guitars from the 90’s or vintage bumper stickers. In front of me is a counter with a see through glass in front of the man running the store. Inside is the more valuable items he sells or keeps.

I walk up to the man behind the counter, causing him to look up from what looks like a comic book. He’s a bit of a bigger fellow, and his hairline is that of a singular spike.

“Yo, what has ya in my store today?” The man asks.

“I’m here to see how much this book is worth,” I say as I take out the book from my bag. As I touch the book, static electricity bites at my fingertips again, hurting a bit more than last time which is strange. I hide my reaction to the man behind the counter.

He takes the book for himself and examines it from head to toe, or back to spine technically. He opens the book and flips through the pages with a skeptical look on his face.

“Hmmm, where did you find this book?” The man asks.

“I found it in my parent’s attic the other day. It looked super old, so I thought it would be worth a fortune!” I sincerely answer.

“Well, I’m sorry pal, but this thing is probably some nerds art project or something. All I can get ya is 20 bucks,” The man said with an annoyed tone to his voice.

“$20!?” I raise my voice. “This thing has to be like hundreds of years old! The gem stone on the cover’s gotta be at least 10k!” I say, getting in the guys face.

“Dude… The gem stone is a fake. I won’t even waste my time and test it. It’s obviously an arts and crafts piece your parents bought at some kind of renaissance festival,” The man explains, pushing me away from him.

I feel devastated and disappointed. There’s no way this book is fake, I’m convinced of it! I know for a fact I can get a butt load of money off of this thing, and this pawnshop owner is just scamming me out of my fortune!

“Alright then,” I say as I grab my book. “I’ll take this to another pawnshop and they’ll see just how much this’ll cost!”

“Okay?” The man says without a care in his heart.

Without looking back, I storm out of the pawnshop and enter my car. I throw the book onto my passenger seat, which just so happens to open the book, leaving it on the first page.

I quickly leave the pawn shop after checking my phone. I need to get to work in about 20 minutes, which I am sooo looking forward to.