Prologue:

The strangest part about trying to summon a demon is when it actually works.

Sarah began the day by arriving late to university. She was studying Ancient History and currently in class they were looking at myths and legends surrounding demons and their influence on modern culture. The subject had always appealed to her and over the years at school she would regularly top the class in history. From this, she was able to apply to Jackson University and was now in her second year.

When she entered the room, late, she was relieved to find the lecturer was absent. Their teacher, Mr. Jaldiani, often arrived late and today was no exception. She quickly ran to her seat at the back of the room, next to Zac and Carla, her two best friends.

The trio had stuck together this past year, becoming close friends soon after meeting. Zac is 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, one day Mr. Jaldiani will actually arrive early and totally kick you out of class” said Zac who was sitting on Sarah’s left.

A couple of the nearby students listening in snickered at this, but from her right Carla quickly added her own remarks to Sarah’s defense, “Jaldiani arriving early is as rare as having one of his lectures where no one falls asleep!” With this the class could only agree as, like many of her classmates, Sarah herself had fallen asleep in far too many of his lectures in the past and, if the cycle continues, she would likely do so today.

There’s a strange peace that comes with knowing that you are not just going to fall asleep in class, but fully intend to do so.

It was often remarked by others how similar Carla and Sarah appeared. They had the same brown hair, blue eyes, toned body and a moderate height of 5 feet 7 inches. With both also sharing the same interests, it was no wonder they quickly became friends.

Sarah begun chatting to her two friends as they caught onto the latest gossip from the party they went to last night, the reason behind her current insomnia. Zac had spent the whole night helping Carla get a date and she had managed to score one from another classmate.

A quick small round of applause from the two girls for Zac’s superb wingman skills, a couple of provocative glances thrown at the boy in question, before the fun was broken by some fangirls coming up to Sarah asking about her mother. She had landed another big 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 in. He was short, almost dwarfish, and let out a radiant smile to his class, completely ignoring the fact that almost everyone was either sleeping or on their phones, and that he was already well over five minutes late.

“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 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!”

The class groaned, the lecture continued, and Sarah quickly put her master plan into action with such fluidity she could swear she wasn’t asleep until the moment she was woken up by Zac an hour later. At the end of the lecture, Mr. Jaldiani gave them each a camera he had loaned from the media students and a small tin of ACTUAL sheep 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.

You might think that’s weird, but things were only just starting to get interesting.

The day then 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.

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. 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 had only shaken it off before, but looking back she now saw where it all began. However, back then she was still ignorant and after disregarding it she took 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!”

At that moment was when she felt the wave of energy rush over her, filling the room. As quickly as it appeared, she could visibly see this bright energy being pulled into the pentagram, vividly flowing both from her and what felt like the world itself. The candles blew out, but she could still see as the drawing glowed blood red. She had begun to panic but, as the energy poured out from her, she had found herself 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 billow.-

The smoke had first filled the circle and then began to leak through the cracks in the shape due to her prior hasty drawing. Two black orbs then suddenly appeared, seemingly darker than any color she had ever seen as if they had drawn in the light around her, and they had slowly turned 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 this is a predator, you are going to die.

She had stood frozen, mouth agape, willing herself to move but her muscles were paralyzed. She could not flee and had almost been able to feel the 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 had thought, although maybe it’s because the whole pentagram just burst into flames. Funny how that works. Interrupting her attempts to distract herself, Sarah then hear 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. ALTHOUGH YOU ARE WEAK, FOR THIS I SHALL CONSUME YOUR SOUL AND USE YOUR BODY AS A PUPPET. 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 actually more like in the smoke- with the fire covering the pentagram than acted like a barrier against it breaking into smaller and smaller pieces. Still unable to move, she had only been able to 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 wracked her very soul and only then was she finally able to scream. Sarah had felt a tearing inside her as what she now knew was her soul was being ripped out by the demon.

But right as she had felt the last strings of her soul being cut away from 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, attempting to force a connection…

Error: Soul fragmented. Foreign soul detected in body of the host. A connection to the host must be established. High compatibility to detected. Utilizing soul in repairing. Initializing...

The pain had stopped, and the world froze around her. Sarah was too shocked to move as she noticed 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,

“Um… Hello?”

-----

Elsewhere, in a land of fire, six shadows sat at a table- all facing the newly emptied seat in silence.

“Well fuck.”