Ray

Ray didn't believe in the supernatural—not in little red devils with pointed tails, not in winged seraphims glowing with divine light. To him, it was all just primitive myth, stories created by humans to explain the unexplainable. So, when he stumbled upon a handwritten book claiming to hold instructions for summoning a demon—one capable of granting any wish—his first instinct was to laugh. This can't be serious. Stories like that only happened in fairytales, and those kinds of tales only ended one way: with fools paying a price far steeper than they'd bargained for. Yet, months after finding the book, Ray still couldn't shake it from his mind. What if it was real? The thought slithered through his skepticism like smoke under a door, creeping up whenever he was doing a monotonous task like taking a shower or dozing off at a lecture. All those billionaires, politicians, kings—people who clawed their way to the top against impossible odds—how many of them had help? Not the kind from mentors or great luck, but the kind that came with a price. The kind that required... signatures in blood. It was absurd—the kind of paranoid fantasy that thrived in the darkest corners of the deep web, not in the mind of a rational man. Yet the question gnawed at him, relentless, slowly shifting into: What if he actually tried? What if he summoned the demon? There was no better candidate than Ray. He had $2 dollars in his account. Two weeks until payday—That was if his gigs came through. His apartment—a rotting shoebox with peeling walls—was the cheapest in the city, only because of its 'haunted' reputation that knocked down the rent just enough for him to afford. Ghosts never scared him, reality's cruelty was far worse: the hunger, the shame of a floor-mattress bed, the way his parents' voices on the phone tightened when he lied and said, 'Yeah, Mom. I'm doing good.' But with a single wish—hell, even with the leftover change of a wish—he could change everything. The beer tasted like piss, but it was cheap, and right now, 'cheap' was the only thing he could afford. Ray crushed the can with his fist, letting it join the graveyard of others on the floor. His vision swam, but not enough to blur the letter in his other hand—thick, official paper, the kind that never brought good news. WARNING: PAY $3,000 WITHIN 168 HOURS TO UNFREEZE YOUR ACCOUNT. 168 hours. Seven days. Where the fuck was he supposed to get that? Sell a kidney? (He'd checked. No one bought them upfront.) Rob a bank? (He'd be caught before walking in.) His gaze slid to the book sitting on top of the splintered night stand—the one he'd sworn was just some crackpot's joke or an edgelords delusions. For a second, the walls seemed to breathe. His apartment, already claustrophobic, pressed in like a living thing. The peeling wallpaper whispered his name. The pipes hissed, urging him toward the book. Ray Open it He knew it was the alcohol. Knew it was the stress, the sleepless nights, the fucking hunger gnawing at his ribs. But knowing didn't make it stop. Ray crushed the last beer can in his fist and flipped to the first page. 'Prick your finger. Draw a pentagram. Light some candles. Chant, what is this, some latin?' Ray snorted. It read like a middle-schooler's Satanic fanfic—the kind kids scribbled in notebooks when they were too angry at their mom to do homework. Yada yada, standard demonic shit. Yet here he was. His pocketknife hovered over his fingertip. The rational part of his brain screamed this is how horror movies start, but the louder part—the part that had eaten hot sauce packets for three weeks straight—just hissed: 'What's the worst that could happen?' Ray sat back on his heels, surveying his handiwork—streaks of his own blood smeared into the cracks of the floorboards, five half-melted birthday candles wedged into empty beer cans at each point. The only candles he had. Classy. He wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and grabbed the book again, skimming the instructions for the tenth time. 'Chant three times with intent.' Intent. What the hell did that even mean? 'Okay, here goes nothing...' His voice came out hoarse, too loud in the silent apartment as he closed his eyes. 'Aperi portas inferni, et voco te, spiritus. Per sanguinem meum, te ligo.' A pause. The candle flames shivered, but nothing else. 'Aperi portas inferni, et voco te, spiritus. Per sanguinem meum, te ligo.' The air thickened. The shadows in the corners of the room twisted, just slightly. 'Aperi portas inferni, et—'The third candle snuffed out. Not from wind. Not from anything at all. Shit, this was getting creepy. Ray cleared his voice, finishing his last chant, 'voco te, spiritus. Per sanguinem meum, te ligo.' Ray finally looked, '...Did it work?'