> "Then we create happy memories together." Baal Berith

Despite having been out cold for several long hours, it seemed to stretch on endlessly. Finally nestled in her bed, Nord surveyed the atmosphere of the house in her mind. Finnea and Kirara were already tucked away in their rooms for the night. As for Baal, he'd headed home, leaving her with the news that he'd be moving in with Merlin the next day, given that the room was set up and ready.

Then there was Adamastor—a lingering question mark. They hadn't crossed paths since their charged exchange, and the not-knowing gnawed at her.

Booting up her scarcely charged mobile device—it had only reached an 18% charge—Nord figured it was enough juice for a short dive into the unknown.

She pulled up the last video she'd watched, still paused in its final moments. Hitting 'play,' her past self filled the silence, answering the lingering question about who she had summoned: "Baal Berith."

Did she hear that right? Was this the same Baal that was becoming an ever-increasing part of her life? Gripped by a sudden urgency, she rewound the video, clutching her phone closer to her ear. Once more, she pressed 'play': "Baal Berith."

The name echoed in the quiet room, tangling itself into her thoughts like a troublesome knot, leaving her with questions she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to untangle.

Nord's fingers hovered over the trackpad, finally clicking on the next file labelled '03.mov.' As the video sprang to life, she was greeted by an image of herself, seemingly post-workout, with black hand bandages unspooling from her wrists. Her past persona was dressed in a sports bra, hair pulled back in a haphazard ponytail. When did she start to go to the gym? Or doing any sports at all?

"This is video 03. I'm Nord Morningstar, and I will travel from Earth to Nyu soon. Very soon," Her younger self panted, visibly trying to catch her breath.

Just then, a distant knock sounded, causing her to rise from her seated position. The phone's microphone was good enough to pick up the dialogue that followed.

"Hey, have you seen my lotion?" came a male voice, muffled by distance.

"Did you look in the drawer?"

"Yep, it's not there."

"Try my side of the bed, babe. I might've been the last one to use it."

"I looked there first!" came the frustrated reply.

Her previous self couldn't help but chuckle. "Then use mine!"

"But it smells like bubblegum. Ah, wait, found it!"

Her brows shot up, curiosity piqued. "And where was it?"

"I... rather not say."

"So it was exactly where I told you to look, wasn't it?" She stifled her laughter with her hand, barely containing her amusement.

A resigned silence was his answer.

"You can't lie to me, you know."

"I know," he finally admitted, the sounds of a faucet running filling the brief silence.

Her past self returned to her original seat with a grin that could light up a room. "Demons can't lie, but that doesn't stop him from trying to outwit me. Now, where was I? Ah, right. How did I summon Baal Berith? I was fifteen and possessed the book Witchy Things 101 by Merlina Maria Allatori."

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Nord's eyes darted across the room one last time, scanning her mother and stepfather's distant snores, her little sister South's serene face nuzzled against her pillow. With cautious steps, she tiptoed to her bedroom door, fingers fumbling to slide the lock into place.

"Quiet as a ghost," she whispered to herself, pushing her desk and chair to the corner of the room with barely a scrape. Every inch of available floor beckoned to her.

Retrieving the white salt and stolen red chalk from under her bed, her hands trembled as they sketched the intricate patterns and arcane symbols of the summoning circle. Each line felt like crossing a border she couldn't return from. But she had to know, had to prove that she was something more.

Her heart pounded in her ears as she opened the box cutter, steel glinting ominously under the dim bedroom light. For a moment, she hesitated. Then, with a quick, incisive motion, she sliced the palm of her hand, wincing at the sting. Blood trickled down, dribbling onto the chalk and salt markings below.

Eyes narrowed, Nord inhaled deeply, summoning the words she had committed to memory: "'Behold my face and form by whom all things were made, and whom all creatures obey. Behold my lips, tongue, and voice! I summon you, demon and the name I choose is yours—Baal Berith!"

The room grew silent, the air thick. Nord waited, staring intensely from the summoning circle at each corner of her room. The blood on her palm began to dry.

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Nothing. Not a flicker, whisper, or even a puff of sulfurous air.

"I knew it," Nord spat, her voice tinged with self-mockery and disappointment. "I knew I wasn't a witch."

Dropping the box cutter on the floor with a clang that felt louder than it was, she sucked the drying blood from her wounded palm.

Just as Nord was about to dismiss it all as foolishness, she felt a warm sensation trickling down her leg. Not from her hand, where she'd drawn blood, but elsewhere.

"Shit!" Panic edged her whisper as she unlocked the door, bolting to the bathroom.

"Honey? Is everything okay?" Her mother's voice floated through the hallway, tinged with sleepy concern.

"Yeah, Mum, just my period," Nord called back, her heart still hammering. In the bathroom, she hurriedly cleaned herself up, borrowing a tampon from her mother's stash. With a sigh, she trudged back to her room, ready to put an end to this embarrassing chapter of her teen life.

But the moment she stepped inside, she froze. There he was, standing just beyond the now-smeared summoning circle— an intriguing and unsettling figure shrouded in blood and sweat. Red, vivid hair as fire and coal-burnt eyes.

"Are you... are you Ba-Ba.." She was petrified. She summoned a demon from the depth of hell, or so Nord believed at that time.

"You freed me..." the demon looked at his wrist and touched himself, "I'm free!"

"Hi!" Nord blurted out suddenly, the word hanging awkwardly between them like a stray thread. Politeness, after all, seemed bizarrely important even now, with her first summon standing in front of her.

The demon—Baal Berith—fixed her with a look so intense it was almost tactile. His eyes were bottomless pits of black, framed by irises that flickered like smouldering orange embers. The sight was both terrifying and captivating. She found she couldn't look away.

"So, are you Baal, the overlord of hell?" she finally managed, her voice barely more than a whisper.

For a moment, he seemed to weigh his answer, his gaze drifting to the marred summoning circle where his own blood mingled with the remnants of salt. "No," he declared at last, lifting his eyes back to hers, "I'm Baal Berith."

Nord's breath hitched in her throat as she met the demon's eyes. "I can't believe you're real," she stammered, her words filling the silence like a rock disrupting a still pond.

"Very much so," Baal Berith replied, grimacing as he looked down at his blood-streaked form. "Do you have anything for cleaning up? I seem to be a mess."

Nord blinked, breaking away from the trance of his eyes. She quickly snapped into action, grabbing a stack of old t-shirts from her closet and tossing them his way. "Here. I was going to turn those into a quilt or something, but you can have them."

Baal caught the bundle of cloth effortlessly, using it to wipe away the worst of the blood and grime. "You're not exactly what I pictured when I thought of a summoner."

"Likewise," Nord chuckled, feeling her heart still racing but her nerves easing. "You're, uh, younger than I expected."

"I'm sixteen," he said, his voice tinged with mild irritation as if age was an inconsequential detail. "You?"

"Fifteen," she admitted. "Just your average teenage witch, I guess."

"Hardly average if you managed to pull me from the Nethersphere," he replied, sounding vaguely impressed. "Is that what they call Hell here?"

Nord shook her head, "No, Hell's something different. The Nethersphere is new to me."

"A realm of eternal conflict and chaos," Baal explained, as he began to look more presentable, or at least less like he’d walked through a battlefield.

"So, like high school?" Nord joked.

The corners of his mouth twitched upward in a sardonic smile. "Something like that."

"Do they have high schools where you're from?"

"You could say the education is...different," he said, now scrutinizing his cleaned-up arms and torso. "So, what now?"

Nord felt her heart swell with a cocktail of emotions—fear, exhilaration, curiosity. "Well, you're here, in my room, in the mortal realm. I guess you're supposed to grant me wishes or something?"

His lips curled into a slight grin, transforming his austere visage momentarily. "Something like that. What's your name, my minion?"

"Minion?" Nord raised an eyebrow, her interest piqued but her scepticism intact.

"Yes, you belong to me now until our contract is fulfilled." As he spoke, Baal pulled on a pink t-shirt from Nord's collection. The rainbow emblazoned across the front contrasted sharply with his foreboding presence. The words "Make Your Dreams Come True" stretched across his chest, an absurd yet oddly fitting sentiment given the circumstances.

"Like a slave?" Nord's eyes narrowed; her voice teetered between curiosity and concern.

He shook his head, "No, it's more of a bond. Don't fret; it's temporary. You tell me what you desire, gift me one of your happy memories, and just like that—our contract is complete. You'll forget you ever met me." The corners of his mouth tightened into what looked like a sad smile, imbuing his words with a tinge of melancholy.

"You sound lonely," Nord observed, her voice softer now, infused with genuine concern.

"I've grown accustomed to it," he replied, his eyes meeting hers, the burning flames within them flickering ever so slightly. "Don't worry about me."

Caught off guard by the blend of vulnerability and raw emotion, Nord looked at Baal Berith, who seemed surprisingly... cute. A complex and otherworldly creature, yes, but still undeniably attractive in a way she hadn't anticipated.

"So, what's your name?" he inquired, breaking her reverie.

"Nord Morningstar."

His eyes widened, and he buried his face in his hands. "Oh, shit. You're part of a covenant. What have I gotten myself into?"

"You can probably guess what I want then," Nord suggested, her lips curving into a self-assured smile.

He looked up, desperation lacing his words. "Please tell me you want a boyfriend, or fame, or fortune. Anything but—"

"I want to destroy the Hollow," she interjected, her voice tinged with fierce resolve.

He winced, "Damn, that's even worse than I feared. You're not asking to hex another witch or to gain more magical power. You want to eradicate the Hollow?"

"Exactly. Can you help or not?"

"I can equip you with the tools and the knowledge, but I can't destroy it myself. You'll have to do the actual deed."

"That's more than enough," she nodded, a glimmer of hope igniting within her.

"All I require in return is all your happy memories," he announced, his eyes lighting up for the first time.

Nord's face flushed crimson as she scanned the room as if her eyes could latch onto a forgotten fragment of joy. Silence stretched into an eternity before she finally said, "I don't have any happy memories to give you."

Tears formed in her eyes, but she wiped them away swiftly. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose remained a rosy hue. It struck Baal Berith how incredibly endearing she looked at that moment. Adorable even.

Something shifted in him. He reached out, his hands enveloping hers, their eyes meeting in mutual complicity. "Then we create happy memories together.", he said, his voice tinged with an emotion he couldn't quite define. Why would he say that? Why did it feel like home?