Prologue:
The strangest part about trying to summon a demon is when it actually works.
When Sarah entered the room, very late, the lecture was already underway. A PowerPoint slide on the main screen showed some people burning and some guy pushing a rock up a hill. Accompanying this imagery was the slow speech of Mr. Jaldiani, a young professor with a very eccentric character, and her lecturer for Ancient History.
“… and religion as we all know has shaped much of ancient history, with the impact of religions like Christianity playing a big part even in our modern lives. Especially in our media. We can even classify Dante’s Divine Comedy as one of the first fanfictions, being a derivative of the Bible. So maybe consider reading the works of Dante instead of that Harry Potter smut!”
Unsure what she had just heard, she decided to ignore it and rushed over to sit next to her two best friends at the back of the room, Zac and Carla.
The trio had stuck together this past year, becoming close friends soon after meeting. Zac describes himself as a military enthusiast and, standing at 6 feet 2 inches with muscles others could only be jealous of, he looked the part. However, to the misfortune of all the ladies in the room, he was very gay.
“Late again Sarah, you missed Mr. Jaldiani’s rant about his favorite book going on hiatus” said Zac who was sitting on Sarah’s left.
“A bit weird to be reading a book about a chicken farmer anyway” said Carla, shooting Sarah a quick smile.
It was often remarked by others how similar Carla and Sarah appeared. They had the same brown hair, blue eyes, a toned body from many years of hitting the gym, and a moderate height of 5 feet 7 inches. With both also sharing the same interests, it was no wonder they quickly became friends.
The trio began quietly chatting from the back of the class, and the day thus far could not have been more normal. The only annoyance so far was a random student coming up to her during Mr. Jaldiani’s quick toilet break to ask about her mother, which unfortunately was also very normal. Her mother had landed another big Hollywood role and now suddenly everyone wanted to be her friend. After wasting a minute rejecting them with ease that could only come from experience, Mr. Jaldiani had finally walked back in. He was short, almost dwarfish, and let out a radiant smile to his class, completely ignoring the fact that nobody had been paying attention all class.
“Listen up boys and girls, today I have a special project for all of you! For your individual assignments I want you to act out what you think a demonic ritual would look like. Record it and bring it to class with an analysis of what aspects of modern culture influence how it is perceived today. Extra marks awarded based on how realistic it is! This is a big part of your grade so let’s get some real effort here.”
With a groan at the extra work, the lecture wrapped up, and along with Carla and Zac she went to the front of the class to pick up some props from the lecturer. Mr. Jaldiani gave each student a camera he had loaned from the media students and a small tin of ACTUAL sheep’s blood to ‘inspire’ them in creating their ritual, a prop he had claimed would make it more ‘authentic’. Don’t mean to be too picky, but who has like 15 FULL TINS of sheep’s blood just sitting around, Sarah thought.
This was probably the only weird part of the day so far, but was definitely not a reasonable foreshadow of just how crazy things would get.
The day passed quickly, and by mid-afternoon with a quick goodbye to her friends Sarah had soon arrived back at her dorm room. Slowly walking downstairs to the basement, she begun to set up her ritual. The dorm used to be a frat house and had a bunch of old gear, including candles and dark robes, that she had decided would be useful in making the video look a bit more authentic for those bonus marks. I’m sure mum would love seeing me do this, she always wanted me to be an actress like her, although a creepy ritual is probably not what she had in mind.
Under the dim candle-light she had set up her camera and drawn a pentagram of blood, something far more difficult than you would expect, made harder due to the fact she was still unsure if it was real or not and thus did not want even a little bit to get on her lest she’d be smelling it for days later. You’d be surprised at how bad blood smells.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Then she took a step back and had a look at her work. Beautiful, she thought, in an evil and not-so-beautiful kind of way. A large pentagram of blood, candles filling an old basement with smoke, wearing an old robe, and inhaling plenty of dust, she couldn’t help but feel the part.
But just as she was about to begin, words appeared in front of her and she jerked in surprise.
Initializing system…
She blinked, and the text disappeared. “Wow the incense candles must really be getting to me...”
“Floating words and now talking to myself, am I going crazy?” She quickly shook it off and decided she had best get it over with before she inhales any more of this smoke. With one quick look at her script, turned the camera on and began to chant in Latin;
“Luciferum vocavi te. Ego bet vos es iam usura a interpres!”
Before she could marvel at how nice and dramatic the echo was in the room, or how well she managed her pronunciation on her first take, she felt something hit her. A wave of what she could only describe as pure energy flooded the room and she could barely breathe with how think the air felt. She could visibly see this energy begin to flow into the pentagram, being pulled both from the air and out of her body until she could finally breathe again. The candles blew out, but she could still see as the pentagram glowed bright red in the darkness. Something in her brain told her now was the time to panic but, as more and more energy poured out from her, she had found herself unable to move.
Unable to flee.
Red smoke billowed out-
-In hindsight, it’s important to note that the smoke did not just spread, but in fact billowed. A distinction must be made between the unthreatening method of spreading and a billowing that can only be described as menacing. This did in fact, and quite menacingly, billow-
The smoke had first filled the circle and then began to leak through various cracks in the shape due to her prior hasty drawing and the uneven stonework of the basement. Two black orbs then suddenly appeared in the center of her pentagram, seemingly darker than any color she had ever seen as they drew in all the light around her, and they stared directly in her direction, giving her the feeling they had pierced into her soul. Adding to the already rising panic in Sarah’s mind, an instinctual voice had then whispered in the back of her head. Run, you are going to die.
She stood frozen, mouth agape, willing herself to move but her muscles were paralyzed. She could not flee and could begin to feel the cold embrace of death coming closer and closer, although that embrace was surprisingly not cold, but rather warm. You’d figure more people would get that right, she thought, although maybe it’s just warm because the pentagram is on fire now. Funny how that works. Interrupting her attempts to distract herself, Sarah then heard laughter, a deep voice that emanated had from the shroud of smoke.
“YOU SUMMON ME? YOU SEEK TO COMMAND ME?” The creature had shouted in anger making the room visibly shake, dust falling from the ceiling. “YOUR CIRCLE IS POOR, IT CANNOT CONTAIN ME. YOUR MANA IS TRIVIAL. YOUR RITUAL IS WEAK. YOU CANNOT BIND ME. TO EVEN ATTEMPT SUCH A SUMMONING, THIS IS DISRESPECT I HAVE NEVER FELT BEFORE. FOR THIS I SHALL CONSUME YOUR SOUL AND USE YOUR BODY AS A PUPPET TO KILL THOSE YOU LOVE. MAYBE THEN FOOLS LIKE YOU WILL NOT MAKE SUCH A MISTAKE AGAIN.”
She felt fear and hopelessness as she had looked upon a demon in the flesh- well more smoke than flesh at this point but you get the idea- with the fire-lit pentagram being the only thing separating her and the demon starting to dissolve and fade away. Still unable to move, she could only stare at the eyes coming closer and closer as the smoke poured forward and surrounded her, and then began to enter through her mouth and seep through the pores of her skin into her body. Pain like she had never felt before filled not just her body, but what she instinctively knew was her soul, and only then was she finally able to scream. Sarah had felt a tearing inside her as her soul was being ripped out and consumed by the demon.
But right as she had felt the last strings of her soul leaving her body, more words appeared.
Initialized. Welcome to The System.
Error: System unable to connect to the host’s soul...
Error: Extensive soul damage underway, forcing a connection…
Error: Soul fragmented. Foreign soul detected in body of the host. A connection to the host must be established. High compatibility to host detected. Utilizing soul in repairing. Initializing...
The pain had stopped. The world froze around her. Sarah was too shocked to move as her brain took in the boxes that had appeared in her vision. She felt forces pulling against her soul and everything began to go dark.
And then she heard a voice in her head,
“Um… Hello?”
-----
Elsewhere, in a land of fire, six shadows sat at a table- all facing the newly emptied seat in silence.
“Well fuck.”