Leonardo McDougall turned on video-streaming on his laptop as he dimmed the lights in the dormitory room that he shared with three others. For better or worse, it was a holiday, so all his roommates were away. 

"Hey, George," Leo talked to the camera. "Can you see the table well enough?"

"Hey, bro," the voice resounded from the laptop loudspeakers. "I thought you joked when you said that you plan to set up a summoning ritual... This shit is creepy. You don't need to do this just to prove a point, you know?"

Even through the screen, George Armstrong felt a shiver as he looked at the cryptic symbols drawn on the table with something that looked suspiciously like blood. 

"Haha, you are such a scaredy-cat." Leo shook his head with a wry smile. "Don't tell me that your grandma's birthday was just an excuse to avoid coming to my room in person?" 

"No way!" the man on the other side of the screen replied. "I'd rather be there with you than enduring this boring party where a bunch of old geezers discusses politics and religion." 

George then asked with doubt, "Is this the real blood, or did you use ketchup? And what's up with your attire?" 

"Nah, it's just blood I got from some pure maidens," Leo answered with a maniacal smile, making the other man open his eyes wide.

George furrowed his brows. "That's not a funny joke, you know?"

Leo's face returned to normal. "Sorry, I just wanted to tease you for a bit. In any case, who the hell still believes in magic and superstitions in the twenty-first century?" 

"My grandma?" George shrugged. 

"It's you who tried to convince me that this grimoire," he waved the black book before the camera, "is a real deal. I can't believe that you wasted almost one grand on this useless antique." 

"But it's true that three of its past owners disappeared without a trace!" George objected. "Because of this rumor, you can resell this thing for a few times more than I bought it. Anyway, I gifted it to you for free, so you have no reason to complain, do you?"

"And if I can really summon a demon with this book, for how much would it sell then?" Leo asked without waiting for an answer. "We can become billionaires! By the way, this ritual is supposed to summon a succubus, so you can lose your V-card with my demon as a bonus! If it works, of course. haha." 

George knew this psychology major long enough to see when he was just spouting nonsense to amuse himself. 

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"So, what's the deal with your sith cosplay?" the man asked Leo. 

 "Just because I wear a black hooded robe doesn't make me a sith," the psychology major disagreed. "Right now, I'm a demonologist, and we don't deal in absolutes!" 

"You are also an atheist, and they do deal in absolutes," George snickered. "No one is here to appreciate your attention to details, you know?" 

"Did I tell you that everything is being recorded right now?" Leo said as he started to set up the last steps of the ritual. "I plan to share this online later." 

"What if it becomes one of those cursed videos?" George teased. 

"Then you'll be the first of its victims!" Leo replied as he placed minerals at the corners of the magic circle. 

"The grimoire said that the ritual should be started at 12 AM, it's almost the time," Leo murmured. "Don't distract me. I don't want you to say later that the summoning didn't work because I didn't follow the instructions."

George wanted to make a snarky remark but restrained himself. A part of him was worried about his friend, but another part told him that there's really no way something bad could happen. 

At the perfect time, Leo started to read the words from the grimoire aloud. 

"Oh, the one who exists beyond the boundaries of our reality, the everlasting observer of our sins and suffering," the summoning spell started in English, but at some point, the words turned to gibberish, "Elsaenta Re Deliog Sacrodelle Istermeshte..." 

As if in a trance, Leonardo McDougall continued to read from the book. He didn't make any mistakes, and the words escaped his lips at incomprehensible speed as if something possessed him. Even if he had read the whole spell a couple of times before, his fluency was abnormal. 

On the other side of the screen, George couldn't stop shaking as an eerie feeling crawled into his body and soul. He wanted to scream for his friend to stop but couldn't move a single finger as he watched the ritual nearing its completion far beyond his reach. 

After the time that felt like an eternity passed, Leo got quiet. A heavy silence descended on the room, and George even thought that everything he saw just before was nothing but an illusion. 

Just when everything calmed down, a black sphere appeared at the center of the magic circle. In mere moments it enveloped the whole room, and the screen George watched blacked out. 

The man tried to call Leo on his phone, but the signal didn't come through. Without caring about anything in the world, George hurried to his friend's place. It took him some time to convince the guard to let him inside the dormitory area. 

When he opened the door to the room, an unexpected sight greeted him. There was no sign of an occult ritual. Instead, at that same table, Leo had used less than an hour before, three people played DnD. 

"Oh, George, do you want to join us?" one of the three asked. "It's never too late for another campaign, you know?!" 

"Where's Leo, Clark?" the man asked as he tried to catch his breath. The answer he received, in turn, left him completely terrified. 

"Who's Leo?"

His friend lived with two other people, and both of them were supposed to be away until the next day. The whole situation didn't make sense. 

After talking to multiple people, including Leo's parents, George realized that everyone lost the memories related to his extroverted psychology major friend. 

"This is a fucking Hell..." he muttered before allowing his tired body and soul to rest in a deep sleep. 

When he woke up the next morning, George Armstrong forgot the existence of Leonardo McDougall, just like the rest of his world. 

For Leo, though, his memories from Earth would become the thing that keeps him going when faced with his new brutal reality.