The Letter

The Pranks and Illusions

The moment I read all of that, a sense of confusion and uncertainty washed over me. I couldn't help but question whether Elwyn had truly lost his mind and became insane? Or is this all just a prank from someone who noticed my habit of taking my friend's boat and now he is laughing at me.

I closed the book and realized how easy it is to deceive a magician, a ghostmaster, not through tricks or grand machinery, but simply through the use of nonsensical words. A war of thoughts raged within me, accompanied by a fit of hysterical laughter, as I remembered how I used to deceive and fool others. I laughed at myself, realizing that I was now having the same reaction as those I had tricked, thinking to myself, "Well played, whoever wrote this, you got me." I closed the book, put everything in my closet, lit a cigarette, and headed to perform my midnight spooky show

I felt uneasy that day, something was off. I still recall walking down the theater stairs, when a masked child startled me by yelling "whaaaa! I'm a ghost... excited to see you performing tonight", I froze for a moment and my heart skipped a beat, I almost hit him.

I played the ghostmaster as usual .. started by explaining to my team how imagination runs wild as the audience is already expecting to be frightened. At that moment, I thought I understood what happened to me while reading the book, I thought I just psychologically convinced myself that Elwyn, Lazerat, the book were real, and somehow I secretly admired the person who did that prank to me.

I prepared my audience psychologically, conditioning them by warning them about horrible things that they were about to see or feel in the dark, "Don't turn around if you feel cold, claiming hands clutching you, or something crawling up your legs". Those were my words and my signal to my team to run the blackout alongside the invisible lines and flying puppets. 15min of building up followed by 45 min of conjuring, mentalism, and ghost illusions in low light. In reality, most of what people called ghosts; they were just members of the audience volunteering to freak their friends and family out. That night ended with one question: "what the hell I'm keeping in my closet?"

I fought the urge to open the closet and read the rest of the book for days, but it was just a matter of time before my curiosity took over me. No date on the next page but the writing seemed rushed and unsteady, as though it had been written by an elderly man with a trembling hand. It looked like the writer wanted it to seems like a significant amount of time had passed since the previous writing. At that time and as I remember I admired that touch, it gave an illusion that a dramatic change happened to ELwin causing such a drastic change in his writing style. I couldn't stop thinking who the hell is trying to prank me.