8

Somewhere in New York, Year 2023. A week prior.

A man in his early twenties was inside his room; white as snow hair and sharp pinkish eyes as of those rubies that hid behind semi-rimless glasses. He stood about 6 and a half feet tall and big for someone his age that people often mistaken him for someone older, but once he opened his mouth, people would quickly retract their comment.

Claude was packing his clothes and necessities into a duffle bag since he was going away for a month to his father's place; he didn't need much because he already had some of his stuff there. It's been a while since he's visited because he's been busy with college and his club, and now that he's on his semester break, he's going to spend his break there. 

Micah isn't his real father, but due to some circumstances that happened when he was young, he views him as one despite being just twenty-five. Well, Micah stopped aging at twenty-five.

Claude was about to zip up his bag when he remembered he had yet to pack one of his tarot decks.

Turning around and walking a few steps to his cabinet, the top until the middle section was filled with his tarot and oracle decks— fifty tarot decks and twenty oracle decks to be precise— while below was filled with various herbs and candles that he uses to do spells, rituals, et cetera. 

He reached up, adjusted his glasses and scanned through the tarot cards, trying to decide which to take because they were all either cool or just visually appealing. In the end, he chose the original one that had no unique design. That's what he would usually choose if he was indecisive.

He opened the box and let the cards slide into his other hand. Claude has a habit of opening up his tarot deck and shuffling it before putting it back in its box- he doesn't understand why he does it either. 

He shuffled it but maybe because it's been a while some of the cards slipped off his hands and dropped onto the floor. Claude let out a curse and bent down to pick up the fallen cards when his hand paused. A single card was facing upwards while the others were covered and were far apart from him as if to say to focus on the single card left behind from the group.

The single card was The Fool in reverse, which made Claude tilt his head in amusement. 

As the card's name suggests, the image shows a man walking towards the edge of a cliff while there's a dog behind him barking to alert him of the danger. That is why the man is a fool but it doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing, it just means going on a journey without allowing anyone to hold you back. Obstacles like the cliff will always be present, but one might still escape the fall. 

But since the Fool card shown to him was in reverse ..

The Fool in reverse means the same thing, but it is also meant as a warning to not be reckless and naive. 

"A major arcana card, huh?" Claude picked up the card and placed it under his chin as a smile crept up to his lips. "I wonder what adventure awaits me." He said, without knowing he would nearly murder someone just next week.