Compiled and commented by Albert Weaver
They say Black Magic has no subtlety. Those people have never seen a Drain spell.
It doesn't flash or scream. It doesn't throw lightning or raise corpses. It just... pulls. A whisper between heartbeats. A warmth leaving your spine. And when it's done, you feel cold in places you didn't know could be cold.
Drain takes life from one thing - person, rat, tree root - and folds it into another. The transfer is instant. Skin mends. Cuts close. Bones realign with a breath.
But Drain isn't healing. It's survival.
***
[Transcript – Post-Op Interview, Mana Response Team "Armadillo Squad"]
INTERVIEWER: "You said he looked sick?"
RESPONDER: "At first? Sure. But then we saw what the spell did. Got shot in the ribs - huge wound. He touched a corpse. Just a touch. The hole sealed. He stood back up."
INTERVIEWER: "And what did he look like afterward?"
RESPONDER: "Wrong. Long. Like he'd been stretched. His spine cracked when he turned. His smile reached too far."
***
Casters who rely on Drain too often begin to change.
The first signs are easy to miss - pale skin, loss of appetite, red eyes. But the body keeps adjusting to what the magic demands. Skin thins. Limbs lengthen. Hair falls out. Blood darkens.
After six months of daily use, some don't even speak anymore. They hiss. They crawl. And when the life runs out nearby, they don't stop.
They hunt.
***
[Excerpt – Radio Dispatch, Caster Containment Bureau, Zone 3]
AGENT (breathless): "Target formerly identified as human. Now quadrupedal. Aggressive. Drain signature still active. Requesting Arc-class backup."
***
Albert once stood beside one of these creatures, after the Bureau put it down. It looked human in the way mannequins do - familiar, but deeply off. The fingers had doubled in length. The jaw unhinged like a snake's. It still had a student ID tucked in its shirt pocket.
***
[Field Note – Personal]
"I thought it was grinning. It wasn't. Its mouth was just stuck like that."
The real horror isn't the creature. It's the slope.
Because no one starts with full-body Drain. They start small. A headache. A twisted ankle. A spell to get through the shift.
And then they don't stop.
In the end, Drain doesn't just strip the target's life away. It strips the caster's humanity.
Albert's last note, scrawled quickly at the page's corner:
"It gives you everything - until all that's left is the thing that took."