-Summon a demon?
-Yes.
-How old are you, 12?
There were 3 of us in my living room. Mark, the boy who made the peculiar proposal, was the extrovert of the group. Almost everything we did was his idea. Alan was the country boy, coming from an ultra-religious family, who moved to our city to attend college. Finally, there was me, Gabriel.
-I’m dying of boredom, not even the alcohol is taking me out of it.
-Yeah, I’m also REALLY bored.
-So, do you vote yes?
-Vote? To summon a demon? I don’t know if I think this is funny or sad.
-You don’t need to think anything Gabriel, nobody wants your critical analysis. Just say yes or no.
-If you don’t have to sacrifice a goat or anything like that, we can try, it will be funny to see you imitating a priest of darkness.
-Only you left, Alan, let´s do this?
-My mom would kill me if she knew my weekends were being filled with “summoning demons”. She went on for months about how I was going to be doing drugs and having sex because everyone at college was the devil. Now you´re literally wanting to summon demons, I never thought I’d find out that my mother wasn’t exaggerating.
-Nothing will be summoned, this shit doesn´t exist. - I said.
-What doesn’t exist? Demons?
-Yeah, hell is a concept invented to make children behave and the poor obey the government. This promise of eternal paradise for those who are good and obedient, and punishment in hell for those who are bad, only serves to control the masses. If people weren’t afraid of going to hell thousands of kings and governments would have been slaughtered without mercy in the history of mankind.
-Ooooh! See? He said everything you believe is wrong! Now you have to vote yes, Gabriel’s face if the ritual works out will be priceless. - Mark provoked Alan.
-I’m not going to summon a demon just to prove him wrong.
-But aren’t you curious too? Are you sure that God exists? Wouldn’t it be cool to be absolutely sure? You can leave this room knowing that there are forces beyond our comprehension.
- What a cocky political speech. – I said before Alan answered.
-I shouldn’t make decisions like that while I’m drinking, but I guess it would be interesting. I think it can strengthen my faith in God to know that the other side exists.
Marcos vibrated with emotion with everyone’s confirmation.
-Alright! Our night is saved from this boredom.
-I don’t know why you´re so happy, you know that nothing will happen, right? Anyway, why are you so confident that you can summon a demon?
- I thought you’d never ask!
My grandfather passed away recently. His final years were not the most fruitful, he suffered from Alzheimer’s for quite some time before he died. The house where he lived was inherited by my father, who immediately went there to analyze the possibility of renting, if it needed urgent renovations or something like that. I went along with him, and as we scanned the house looking for wall leaks, rat infestations, cockroaches or something, I noticed that one wall was hollow. I looked for some secret passage, there was nothing. Looking at the house from the outside, I managed to analyze that there really should have another room behind that wall, it just didn’t have an entrance to it. I took a hammer and hit the hollow wooden wall, which gave way after one blow. I illuminated the newly opened hole with my cell phone, there really was something there. I continued hammering the wooden wall until there was room for me to get through. Inside, there was an open book on top of an altar, with unlit candles scattered around the room and some strange statues. I picked up the book and took it home.
After doing a lot of research and asking questions on occult-focused forums, I was able to translate several of the rituals. This ritual I chose seems to be the safest. The name of the spell is “whisper of fallen angels”. In the spell a demon is called and he talks to us, then leaves.
-What the hell would you ask a demon? – I asked.
-What a dumb question from a limited mind. I’m going to ask if there is heaven and hell, if God really watches everything, if the hot pizzeria attendant would say yes if I asked her out.
-Come on, dude. Do you need to call a demon to ask that? Go to the pizzeria and find out right now. If the chick says yes it’s yes, if she says no it’s no.
-Of course not. Have you ever been rejected by a girl? In addition to getting a no, you can have the humiliation along with it, not to mention that it will be awkward to continue going there.
-Well, whatever. It’s not like it’s going to work.
-Alright, let´s do it then. First, we need candles. Get us 6 candles, Gabriel.
-Do I look like someone who has a candle at home? We had to count the coins to buy this vodka, my pantry is almost empty.
-We can buy it at the gas station. We need candles, a container, blood, and a place where someone recently died.
-Blood? Oh no man, am I going to have to cut myself? - Alan said.
-Just a few drops, no big deal.
-Is that the part that worried you? What is this “place where someone recently died” shit? I thought we were going to do everything here at home.
-There is the wreckage of a burned house that killed 2 people last year, they still haven’t sold the land. We can do the ritual there.
We headed towards the burnt house, buying the 6 candles along the way.
The house, where only rubble and fire-scarred debris remained, was formerly a mansion. No one knew exactly how the fire had started. Some suspected that it was a prank gone wrong by the two sons, others said that it was a former employee of the family company who was looking for revenge. Whatever the reason, the fact is that it was a tragedy. Two children aged 11 and 8, who slept in the same room, didn´t survive the fire. It seems that they hesitated to jump from the second-floor window, and when they realized that it was the only way out, there was no way out.
The land hadn’t even been put up for sale yet, so the wreckage was completely empty. We entered the place destroyed by the flames, dodging the pieces of concrete and destroyed furniture and stopping in the room where there was less wreckage, the hall in the middle of the mansion where the staircase to the second floor was. We took some pieces of concrete from the ground and made benches for ourselves.
-I’m going to get my ass all dirty sitting here.
-Stop whining. Wash your pants tomorrow and that’s it.
We sat in a circle. The 6 candles were lit around us. We made a small cut on the arm, dripped blood into a pot and placed it in the middle of the circle. Mark explained the procedure:
-I have the whole ritual written down here. We need to hold hands the entire time, if we let go, the contacted demon will be allowed to stay on our universe.
Marcos took my hand, I held out my hand to Alan who was next in the circle.
-I don’t want to hold hands with another man.
-You won’t feel like sucking a dick as soon as you hold my hand, just grab it.
Everyone was holding hands, Mark had a paper in front of him with the mantra of the ritual.
-Keep calm, and once again, don’t let go of each other’s hands, the circle cannot be broken. Only undo the circle when I authorize it, there is a whole procedure to end the ritual safely.
Mark recited words that I had no idea what they meant. He repeated the same phrases 6 times. The room, illuminated by moonlight, became darker and darker, until it was all pitch black, except by the weak light of the candles, which barely illuminated the 3 people sitting next to them. The sound of creaking wreckage, dogs barking in the neighborhood, and cars passing down the street from minute to minute disappeared completely. There remained an absolute silence. Suddenly, a thin voice, impossible to decipher the speaker’s gender, broke the silence.
-Why did you call me?
I felt an intense shiver down my spine. I looked at my friends, their expressions were one of dread and shock. I was the first to speak:
-This is a prank, right Mark? There’s no way this shit worked. - I said.
-Yes, I also turned off the moonlight. It’s hard being your friend with that level of stupidity.
Alan was silent. He had his eyes closed and seemed to be babbling a prayer.
-Are you really going to ignore my question? – The mysterious voice spoke again.
After a few seconds of silence, Mark asked the simplest of the ones he had planned:
-The attendant at the pizzeria. If I asked her out, would she accept?
-The attendant likes a boy named Viktor. Masturbated yesterday moaning his name. Today, she asked the boy out and was cruelly rejected. Viktor made absurdly insensitive jokes among his friends while they were still in her presence. She cried all night when she got home, had several alcoholic drinks, and passed out drunk alone in her room. If you go to the pizzeria tomorrow and ask her out on a date, she’ll accept.
We looked at each other in silence. From the minimal expressions I saw with the candlelight, I noticed an air of disbelief mixed with conformity for the situation. I don’t think anyone there expected the ritual to work, and even witnessing the bizarre situation, we were still trying to find some rational explanation for the change of environment and the mysterious voice. I asked the second question:
-Does God exist?
-The human concept of God is not completely correct, but there is a hierarchy where there is someone at the top, which I believe is the main concept of religion on your tiny planet.
-How will I die? - Mark asked.
-I have no power over future events. I could give an estimate based on current information, but I could be completely wrong.
-Why doesn’t God end human suffering? - Alan asked.
-If a fly flew by your face, would you care about the insect or would you squish it right away?
We looked at Alan. He was clearly uncomfortable with the situation, irritated even. His face held a mixture of regret and disgust. Apparently, a whirlwind of conflicting thoughts flooded his brain trying to decide how to position himself in the face of the atypical situation. He finally expressed himself:
-I’m done, the enemy just wants to deceive all of us.
Alan tried to let go of my hand. I held tight:
-You can’t break the circle. We need to end the ritual properly.
-Must be a lie. Why did I agree to talk to a demon? A book created by associates of Satan can only be full of lies. I need to get out of here immediately and beg for God’s forgiveness.
-ALAN, NO!
He pulled harder and let go of my hand. The demon laughed strangely and the blood we had put in the bowl evaporated, leaving a strong smell of iron in the air. And then, silence. We were still in that environment surrounded by absolute darkness, with only the 6 candles illuminating the surroundings a little. We stood and walked, but it seemed that we could walk endlessly and not get far from the candles. I put out one of them with my hand, the fire was immediately rekindled. I looked at my cell phone. It still worked, but there was no internet signal. I tried to contact some family members and acquaintances, but the call and messages never arrived. I noticed that the time on the cell phone didn’t move, it was static at 2:19 am. The battery didn’t wear out either.
I sat by the candles once more, thoughtful. No one dared to say anything. After a few hours of silence, Alan spoke:
-It’s your fault, I knew we shouldn’t have done this ritual, I still tried to warn you that it was a bad idea.
-Is it OUR fault? - My blood boiled at the statement. He was the one who had disobeyed the rules of the ritual, and the blame for us being trapped in this absolute void was entirely his. I lost my consciousness for a moment, I just wanted to vent the anger I was feeling. I got up and punched Alan in the face, who fell to the ground. I knelt down next to him and continued punching him in the head, in a frenzy of rage I had never felt in my entire life.
There’s one thing movies don’t show about punching someone. It’s not just the person being attacked who gets hurt, your hand gets hurt as much as the surface you hit. As Marcelo’s face became a heap of cuts and blood, my hand withered in the same way. After punching for a while, I got up and started kicking him in the face. Mark tried to hold me back, but I pushed him away shouting:
-He killed us! We’re dead because of him, we’re going to starve and thirst horribly because of this piece of shit. He deserves this!
I kept kicking Alan’s face, which became a pool of flesh and blood as I stepped on it. I felt my foot sink deeper and deeper into his face, sounds of bone breaking and flesh being crushed. After a few minutes of pounding, I fell to the ground, exhausted.
Alan didn’t move, where his face used to be was now just a spiral of blood and flesh, no eyes, no nose and no mouth except for a jaw hanging by a thread and only a few teeth left, most loose on the floor or sunk in on his face.
I looked at my hands, they were deformed and torn, but the blood seemed to have clotted, not flowing. Even after lowering the adrenaline, to my surprise, I felt no pain.
As I was still looking at my hands in the dim light the candles provided, I felt something standing behind me. When I turned around, there was Alan, who I thought that was dead. The person with a whorl of flesh, blood, and bones for a face stood still, seeming to stare at me. Had he turned into some kind of zombie and would kill me?
He didn’t kill me. He wasn´t agressive at all.
Alan just walked slowly to a corner and sat on the floor with his back to us, like a grounded child. If he still had a mouth or a nose, I’d say he was crying.
We stayed there, expecting to die of hunger and thirst soon. But that never happened. Something about this place stopped time in a bizarre way, the laws of physics didn’t apply there. We didn´t need to eat, drink, go to the bathroom or sleep.
I don’t know how much time passed, there was no day and night there and the clock time didn’t move. We were silent most of the time, I didn’t feel like talking while that figure with the disfigured face was sitting on the ground. It was a mixture of fear and guilt, leaving me numb, in a catatonic state. I had killed my friend thinking he had doomed us, but apparently that couldn’t happen in this environment outside of our known dimension. Is he suffering? Should I try to kill him completely? Would it be mercy or cruelty?
After months (?) in that total darkness only lit by candles that never went out, we heard a voice reciting a mantra in an unknown language. They were the same words Mark had said in the ritual. Our candles went out immediately, we couldn’t see a foot in front of us. The pitch didn’t last long. Soon after, 6 candles lit in a different location than the previous one. Around them, 3 teenagers. We could hear their conversation.
-I said it was a waste of time.
-What are you talking about man, everything went completely dark, obviously the ritual worked.
-But the ritual was to talk to a demon, not darkening the environment.
It took me a while to think, I was still in shock after hearing different voices for the first time in so long. I knew what I needed to do to get out of that place.
-My name is Baal, I am one of the rulers of hell. Ask mortals, what are your doubts? - I said, deepening my voice.
-Will I ever get married? – One of them asked.
-Yes, you´ll marry a beautiful girl eleven years from now, and you´ll have 2 children.
-Is there a ritual for immortality? – The girl from the group asked.
-Yes.
-How is it done?
-I will teach you step by step, follow all my instructions and you will be immortal. First, let go of each other’s hands.
The teens went silent, looking at each other apprehensively. After a few seconds, the girl spoke again:
-It’s just that in the ritual instructions it says that we can’t let go of the hands and break the circle.
-Okay, if the immortality ritual doesn’t interest you, you can ask something else.
-One minute. – The girl started whispering with the other two in the circle. After everyone said something, she spoke to me again. - If we let go of each other hands, will we become immortal? There’s no further step like murdering another person weekly or any such requirements?
-No complicated steps, it’s just simple to follow steps that can be done in the next few minutes.
The girl smiled.
-OK. One two three.
The teens let go of each other’s hands. Immediately the moon lit up the sky again, and I was in the middle of a cemetery, with 6 candles on the ground. I looked to the side and Mark was there, but there was no sign of Alan. As soon as the surprise wore off, I felt intense pain. My hands were bleeding profusely, with several bones showing through torn skin and broken fingers. With a lot of effort, I held my cell phone, it had been 4 months since we were trapped in that void. I opened the gps, we were in a city 800 miles from where we lived.
-Let’s go to the hospital, from there we can call someone to pick us up.
-OK. What are we going to say about Alan?
-I thought about it in the time we were locked up. Let’s say we got kidnapped, I broke my hand punching a wall, and we haven’t seen Alan in a while, or who the kidnapper was.
From the hospital, we contacted our family members, who were overjoyed founding out that we were still alive. The police believed our story, even though they never found the kidnapper or the place where we “escaped captivity”. Alan’s family, however, continued to pay private investigators for months afterward. Several people contacted me for the story of the “hero boy who ran away from a kidnapper, breaking both his hands in the process”. I always refused contact.
I think about those teenagers I trapped in the dark. Will they keep their sanity until the next poor souls do the ritual again? I hope they are stronger than me.
I never fully recovered the movement of my hand. The constant pain is a reminder of my sins. I´ll never forgive myself for losing my mind, thinking my life was over, and condemning my friend to wander the darkness faceless, blind and mute. Hopefully, if the teenagers got sent to the same place as Alan, they’ll think he’s a monster and kill him, something I was too much of a coward to do. Every time I think of him sitting in the corner, a pit of flesh, bone and blood for a face, I feel like I’ve condemned him to suffer for all eternity. As if I were a demon that trapped him in hell.