Everyone has done it. Done what you may ask? Looking up how to do magic online out of curiosity after watching Harry Potter or wanting to see if it could ever be real. There are thousands of websites that looked like they were a high schooler’s final exam in website design with different kinds of “spells.”
In my opinion, life can be pretty mundane. You wake up, do your morning routine, get ready and go to work. Come home, make dinner, do chores, watch tv and go to bed. It’s the same grueling hamster wheel day in, day out. Wouldn’t it be cool if magic was real to give life a bit of spice? That’s what I thought but I made a grave mistake.
I live in a condo near the beach. It’s a pretty comfy place to live in with neighbors that barely make a peep besides an older lady across the way named Susan. She would come outside daily in the morning and start singing, she wasn’t very good. Eventually I learned to tune it out or play music to drown out that awful noise. I was never the person to be rude otherwise I would be telling her to shut the fuck up.
Doing cybersecurity, it was a great gig. Mostly working from home, 1 day a week in the office to recap the week but we all know it was just an excuse for free food every Friday.
Todd was one of my good friends that worked at the same company. I usually don’t see him often anymore. Today was pizza day and we all met in the open office room which always smelled like Axe spray. It’s most likely Steve but I didn’t want to be the one to tell him that it’s a meme to use that type of cologne.
“Yo Christian! It’s been a while you bitch.” Todd approached me with his friendly observations.
Retorting with a friendly smirk, “It’s been like one week, are you that lonely?”
Todd with his super loud laugh smacked his hand onto my shoulder and went for our special handshake.
“Whatcha been up to man?”
“You know, just living life. Honestly I’ve been so bored lately.”
This was our vanilla conversations usually at work but sometimes Todd would mention something out of pocket that he’s been doing.
Todd, putting his leg on the chair next to us asked, “Man I’ve been looking up some crazy shit online, do you believe in Magic?“Uh, you know that stuff isn’t real right?” I laughed and shrugged off the question but Todd was as serious as you could get.
“No motherfucker, it is real. Sarah showed me recently. Come over to my place after this, I got something to show you.”
This was one of the few times my stomach dropped, as if my gut was trying to tell me something. The warning was primal and yet I ignored it.
One of the prettiest co-workers I’ve ever worked with approached the both of us. Sarah was blonde, with brown eyes, one of those model-type women that people would get whiplashes just turning to get a second look. Weirdly, she was mostly unaware of how beautiful she actually was, I think it was one of those things where she did know but she didn’t want to make it her personality which I respected.
“Christian, Todd” she looked at us with a slight smile, putting down her evening coffee on the table next to us.“Sarah” we both said in sync.
Sometimes I swear we share the same brain cell.
“A couple of us are going to a bar downtown after, you guys down to come?”
Todd looked at me waiting for a response to manifest. I’m usually not a “going out,” type of person so at first, I already had the automatic response of “Hmm, I’m not really feeling it tonight.”
Todd chimed in taking one step in front of me, “What he means is, yes we’re happy to go out tonight!”
Sarah smiled, backing away, “Great! See you guys at 9, meet at Parker’s Bar.”
“Okay see ya then!” Todd turned to me, hitting me on my arm as she walked away.
“Come on man, you said life has been boring and it’s Sarah. Let’s have fun tonight and I’ll show you what I mentioned before tomorrow. Don’t be a little bitch now!”
“Fine, fine.” I dreaded public interactions with strangers, I’m more of an introvert. So being forced to go out felt like a chore.
That night, we all met at Parker’s Bar. It’s one of those smallish bars downtown, meant for socializing and getting drinks while pretending to be interesting.
I saw Todd in the corner, one hand clenched on a beer, gesturing for me to come over.
“Hey guys, good to see you.” I said lightly, because the only person I came here for was Sarah.
She had on this nice flower dress with a necklace that caught my eye. I never saw her wear it before, it looked like a ruby with wings on both sides covering most of it. The ruby had dark splotches here and there.
“Sarah, I really like your necklace.” She turned to me, holding the necklace with her hand. “Thanks Christian, it was a gift from my grandmother before she passed, it’s a family heirloom I think.”
I didn’t say much more that night, we all danced, did some shots and had a goodnight enjoying the energy.
Laying in bed, looking up at the ceiling with hands folded behind my head I dreaded this instance. I wish life was better I thought, before turning over for the night.
The next day was quite busy, the company I’m in charge of had a couple of breaches which was strange because they’re a non-profit with no valuable information, what are they trying to get?
I remember what Todd asked me yesterday and was super curious. Magic? If only.
After my shift, I headed over to his house. His place was really nice, he was a clean freak so you wouldn’t even see a speck of dirt on the floor. Paintings from different eras of history, placed around each room and you could smell Febreze at every instance.
“Yo Todd!” My voice echoed a ton, he didn’t have many belongings in the living room, he lived in abundance, but spiritually.
“In here!” Todd waved out of the room he was in. Going down the hallway, I could see flashes of red light flashing from where he was.
Entering, I did not expect what I would be seeing. Todd had made this satanic looking circle with salt. Four candles in each corner and a TV just showing the color red.
“Uh dude, what the fuck is this.” I asked hesitantly.
Todd looked at me with a dead expression. “You said you were bored–so let’s not be bored.” Either that sounds like a fun time or famous last words.
“Alright..” I sat slowly on his bed, crossed my arms while Todd explained what I was witnessing.
“So magic, it’s real. Sarah mentioned this website that has different spells that you could do. It’s not all bad things, like the spell I’m doing says it’ll make me lose weight quickly.”
I looked at Todd with a confused expression, “Dude I know you wanted to lose weight but I highly doubt some random spell from the internet will help you do that.”
“I know it’s stupid but what’s the worst that can happen?” Todd seemed to believe this would work. I think he was relying on it. After spending almost a year with different diets and exercising, he always resorted back to eating bad food and giving up.
What’s the worst that can happen..
Todd showed me a print out of Latin words and instructions on how to do this “spell.” I decided to entertain it, for him. This spell required a sacrifice of sorts which would be a physical object or something said out loud, like “my next door neighbor’s pet iguana.”
“Okay, let’s do this.” Todd was exuberant, eyes wide open like tearing open presents on Christmas day.
To begin, one must name something they’re sacrificing.
Todd let out a giggle while rubbing his hands together. “I’m going to sacrifice Steve.”
“Come on man, seriously? Why Steve?” I said cautiously while nervously laughing.
Todd waved his hand in front of his nose horizontally, “Dude that guy reeks, there’s not enough Axe spray in the world to help him.”
I played along and took a peak at the next part.
“Okay, so next you have to recite these Latin words I guess, it says 5 times. Then you have to.. Put a drop of your blood.. in the middle of the circle..”
I don’t think I like this anymore but Todd was willing to do anything.
Without hesitation he sprang up and went right for the pocket knife he kept near his bed with gray army camo.
“Facio, Immo, Inclino, Improviso, Evito, Amitto, Conversatio.” his voice shaking with excitement, I covered my mouth and pulled out my phone. I had to record this so I can show him a year from now how dumb this is.
Reaching over, Todd poked his finger over a small paper towel winching at the pain with a glint in his eye. I think he actually believes this will work. For his sake, I won’t stop him, he has to learn the hard way that losing weight is a process that involves discipline and hard work.
“Now you wait.”
And that’s what we did. We waited.
Thirty minutes went by, and nothing extravagant happened.
“Well, I tried. What can I say?” Todd walked out of the room to grab some cleaning supplies, I heard a subtle thump from what I can assume was him hitting the wall, disappointed from the outcome.
“I’m sorry Todd, I’m gonna head out. Are you okay?”
“Yeah man all good, thanks for coming. I appreciate it.”
-
A few days went by, and thought a couple times about that day. What if magic was real, the implications would be astronomical.
It was that next Friday, meeting up at the office the energy seemed off. People had glum looks, and for the most part were silent, some whispers here and there. Ironically, me being the “keeping to myself” kind of person, I yelled out to everyone:
“What’s going on, did someone die?” followed by a laugh to myself.
Sarah ran over motioning a gesture wanting me to keep it down. “Christian, actually someone did.”
My eyebrows furrowed with disbelief spreading throughout my face.“What do you mean, who died!?”
Todd in the corner of the room his hands covered his face.
I ran over to Todd and crouched down in front of him to get some answers.
“Hey man, what’s going on, what happened.”
“It’s all my fault. This is my fault.” Todd cried out grabbing my shoulder. “Steve is dead, he died in an accident a couple days ago at home and they didn’t find him till today. Bro I did this.”
“Todd this has to be a gruesome coincidence, that dumb spell you did had nothing to do with it.”
He got up and walked away, it was a lot to process at the time. We all decided to cut the day short, everyone going home.
The next day, Todd called me frantically telling me to come over as soon as possible. I got to his place and I could already sense something was different.
Walking inside, I saw that red flashing light coming from his room. Why doesn’t he turn that off? Entering the room, Todd was standing in front of the mirror with his shirt off, gripping his stomach. From the reflection alone, my heart started to beat like a drum. Yesterday, Todd was a good 300 lbs, being 5’7” he carried it how his body type would. Today, he was at most 170lbs. No loose skin, no stretch marks, no sign he was ever overweight.
“What the fuck.” I whispered slowly walking up to him.
“It fucking worked. That shit was real. Magic is real.” Todd said with a straight face, tears in his eyes doing different poses and grabbing his tight skin.
“Oh my fucking god Steve is really dead because of me.” He backed up slowly and ran to the bathroom to chuck up his breakfast.
I didn’t know how to react. I felt bad for Steve but all I could think was that Magic was real. This life isn’t as mundane as I thought.
Todd had to create this false reality of getting weight loss surgery and having to recover for two weeks. He didn’t have many family and friends besides me so he didn’t have to lie much.
I left after some time of calming him down and discussing the fact that the spell actually worked.
In my journey of consuming knowledge as much as possible, my only thoughts were to look up more spells online. I remember the website being called IntroToTheOccult, so I searched for it. There were a ton of links for different occultish websites but I ended up finding the one he had open.
There were so many spells, hundreds to scroll through each with very specific instructions. What we learned that day is that it takes some time, but it does work. In parentheses at the bottom, (Results May Vary) is written with a very small font.
I put on Claire De Lune in the background for some ambiance before I got to work. There had to be a plan in place before I did any type of spell. Firstly, my room was pretty messy so that had to change first.Throwing all the big shit into my closet, clothes picked up and put on hangers, I was a little bit more ready to do something crazy. Clear room = Clear mind, right?
Thankfully I had a container of salt in the kitchen so I didn’t have to go anywhere. I very crudely drew the satanic circle that was shown on the website and set up some candles I already had in case a girl came over and I needed to make it romantic.
The spell I chose was to “Be seen.” A lot of the time, I’m always overlooked by everyone, like I’m not there, never chosen for anything, always feeling like a last resort. Not anymore.
The important part of this was choosing what to sacrifice and knowing it will actually be sacrificed. I won’t choose a person like Todd but it has to be something of significance.
“Here goes nothing.” I uttered.
Standing over the circle with each candle lit, I closed my eyes.
“I will sacrifice five years of my life.” That was the best way I know I wouldn’t hurt anyone and that’s five years I won’t suffer. Win-Win.
Reciting the Latin words, there were about twenty of them, five times each. Thankfully they were all easy to pronounce, I plucked my finger and aimed it at the paper towel I placed earlier at the center of the circle. Nothing felt different per say. I guess I should’ve expected that.
A week goes by, and not a thing happened. Did I do it wrong? I was worried but this was a whole new world I stepped into.
Results came slowly. At first, I would feel people staring at me from inside their houses. Walking down my street for my break during work, I saw a couple neighbors, staring at me. Along the road, curtains would move slightly followed by someone just looking at me. I looked straight ahead and just ignored it.
That next Friday, entering the office felt like any other day. I was disappointed that the spell didn’t work but hey, that’s life and you move on.
“Hey Todd!” I hadn’t seen him since that day I was over and he was “recovering from the surgery.”
“Wow you look great man, did the surgery go well?” raising my voice intentionally so others could hear.
Todd turned around and his eyes seemed dull. He stood there staring into my eyes, without saying a word and walked away after 10 seconds.
“Todd?” I was confused and honestly a little scared.
He seemed to have lost a little more weight. His facial bones seemed to appear to be more visual.
When Todd had walked away, I saw that everyone in the office stopped to look at me too. All of their faces, expressionless.
“Uh, hi everyone. Why is everyone looking at me?”
Not a single response, their gaze held for as long as I stood there. I went into my boss’s office to tell her I didn’t feel too good that day and wanted to go home. Everything felt uncomfortable, even from walking down my street that day. My boss, Mary sat there looking down at the couple folders, a lot of it was companies Steve was working with.
Mary dropped her pen and stood up.
“Mary?” All of a sudden her eyes rolled back into her head and her jaw dropped about 10 inches.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” I screamed and ran out of the office, booking it to my car.
I never drove so fast in my life. Reaching my house, I was determined to find out what was happening. Searching the occult website, I found the spell I had done. “Be seen.” Results may vary.. I don’t think the results I wanted are reflecting in the real world.
This can’t be happening. What the fuck did I do? Everyone is literally looking at me, I’m seen but that’s not what I wanted. I just wanted to be.. acknowledged as a human being.
I took a leave of absence at work, and hadn’t left my house in weeks. I ordered all of my groceries online and didn’t interact with anyone in person. Over the phone, nothing happened. In person or a video call, the spell was active. To be seen, is for everyone to see you, literally. Everyone would stop and look at me, like I was one of the seven Wonders of the World.
No where on the website was mentioned that you could reverse a spell. I realized as well that I probably lost five years of my life. I need to figure this out.
I called Todd to talk about all of this magic stuff and to tell him what I had done.
“Hey Todd, how are you doing?” I asked since the last day I saw him he didn’t look well.
“I’m not good.” He said with a frail and sickly voice.
Nervously I clenched my phone, sweat started to drip from the top of my forehead,“What’s wrong?”
“I haven’t stopped losing weight Chris.” Todd dry coughing, I could hear him struggling to breathe.
“Todd I screwed up too, I did a spell and now everyone keeps staring at me wherever I go. I can’t leave my house.”
Todd remained silent over the phone, it seemed he was too weak to even respond.
“Dude I have an idea, it’s not a good idea but it might work. What if we did a new spell, something to kind of override what we had done.”
Todd clearing his throat he managed to muster up a couple words: “Let’s do it–I’m scared.”
Getting all of the supplies from my place, I got to Todd’s as quickly as I could. We had to stay in separate rooms so that he wasn’t stuck staring at me. I set up everything for him and did so in the other room for myself.
I found a spell called “To free,” that’s the closest I could find that sounds like it could save us from the other spells we did. Calling Todd on his phone from the other room, started the countdown to begin. I figured we could do the spell at the same time. We had to think of something we were going to sacrifice.
Todd forced himself to yell, “I’m going to sacrifice my weight loss–I want my body back.”
Closing my eyes, I let out a sigh hoping that this will fix our mistakes. “I’m going to sacrifice being seen–I want to go back to being unacknowledged.”
Todd tried his best to recite the Latin words for the spell, I moved at his pace. Both of us poked our fingers to draw the blood needed, this time the spell required a little bit more. About a teaspoon’s worth to be exact.
After we had finished, I opened the door to go to Todd’s room. Todd was on the floor convulsing with blood coming from his mouth: “Todd!! No, no. Come on man, I can’t lose you like this.”
After what seemed like forever, he bottomed out. No pulse or sign of him being alive.
I sat there blood stained and helpless.
Todd began to cough and groaned as if he was just shot by a gun.
“You’re alive holy fuck I thought I lost you!” grabbing his head to give him the best hug I’ve ever given to anyone.
Todd asked while rubbing some blood off his chin, “What the fuck happened?”
“You sound better! We just did that spell and I think it fixed what we did.”
“You think so? I really hope that’s the case.”
I picked up Todd and he seemed to have the strength to walk again, although he was still in a state of being extremely skinny.
We got to the living room and we were met with an awful feeling that sent chills down my body.
A voice echoed throughout the room, entering our very souls with each word.
“Hail, Satan.”