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“You know this is a horrible idea, right?” Ava questioned incredulously. “I mean, we are trying to summon a demon just for the hell of it.”
Ava turned to look at Rosalie, the instigator of this foolish idea, as she pulled her curly red hair up into a messy bun.
“Come on, this is going to be fun! Besides, we are all going to college at the end of this summer, so why not do something daring together?” Rosalie reasoned as she spun around to look at her three companions.
“Or we could’ve hung out somewhere else for our summer break. Y’know, somewhere that’s not a fucking cemetery.” Sahir pointed out as he casually swung an arm around Marcus’s shoulders.
Marcus stopped his thoughtful mumbling as he felt the weight of Sahir’s arm and looked up from his notebook. He quickly closed it and ran a hand through his hair, but not before shooting a stony look at Rosalie and saying, “ The only reason I’m here in the first place is that you dragged me over while threatening bodily harm if I didn’t come along.”
“Oh, come on! Live a little! We’re going to see if demons are real, guys. Demons!” Rosalie exclaimed boisterously as she fist-pumped into the air. The others sighed in exasperation at their friend’s unusual excitement about conjuring up an infernal creature of the netherworld.
“Can we not? I just managed to get this time off from work, and I’d rather not waste it at a bootleg séance.” Sahir muttered the somber complaint under his breath, already wanting to shudder at the memory of when he cashed in on his accrued vacation days. If looks could have killed, his boss’s piercing eyes would have skewered him. Marcus eyed him in concerned confusion, having not quite caught what was said, but fully understanding the tone of it. Sahir simply shook his head, not wanting to discuss his workplace woes with the other.
“Ok, we can set up shop here,” announced Rosalie as she dropped the items she was holding onto the ground. The others also let go of the items that had been haphazardly thrust upon them from the beginning of the walk to the cemetery.
“Is the demonic magic circle really necessary?” Ava questioned skeptically, examining the aforementioned circle drawn into the ground of their local cemetery.
“Of course. The legend behind it is that one time, a decade ago or so, a group of teens, much like ourselves decided they wanted to conduct a ritual-”
“You're the only one that seriously wants to do this.” Marcus interrupted, but Rosalie happily continued on like that wasn't the case.
”-and called forth a demon to this very spot, where they were found the next day dead with their cooling bodies in tatters.”
“We all know the story, Rosa, you didn't need to rehash it,” Sahir stated as he blithely plopped down on the ground near the circle and reclined against a nearby tree with his hands behind his head. His eyes closed, not even twitching when the others started noisily arranging the instruments for the summoning.
“I know, but I wanted to set a spooky atmosphere,” she replied, then glanced at her phone to make sure everything was being set up in the right places, ”You could also help out, too, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s not happening. I want absolutely no part in this séance that you’re making by referencing a Supernatural Wiki article,” he said, cracking one red eye open to give an unimpressed stare at Rosalie before going back to dozing.
“Because being at the back of a cemetery in the middle of the night doesn’t make for an instant ‘spooky atmosphere’,” Marcus muttered sarcastically as he unashamedly put air quotes around spooky atmosphere.
“Oh, don’t be such a wet blanket, Marc, or I’ll start taking cues from your shirt.” Rosalie playfully gestured to the painfully plain sweatshirt Marcus wore that had the text ‘punch me in the face I need to feel alive’ printed across the chest. A disgruntled Marc protectively wrapped his arms around himself, hiding the words from view.
“Please don't, I’d rather not feel alive right now.”
“Hey, guys! I think we’re done. Everything seems to be in place.” Ava declares, albeit hesitantly. ”I’m still not a hundred percent behind this, but I can't exactly let any of you do this without me here to run interference.” Despite her light-hearted tone, worry and determination swirled in her blue-green eyes.
“Hey, hey, everything is going to be fine.” Rosalie beamed fearlessly as she placed an encouraging hand on Ava’s tense shoulder. However, as soon as Ava started to perk up again, Rosalie did a full three-sixty in attitude and dynamically boomed, “Let’s rock-n-roll bitches, we got a demon whose day needs ruining!”
The four friends stood around the pentagram, which held a bowl of mixed ingredients and several candles set around the drawing. The blue eyes of Rosalie solemnly meet the gazes of all her friends, before returning to the pentagram. Marcus, as a firm non-believer of the supernatural, had a bored expression on his face, and his brown eyes would often wander inattentively, before returning to the pentagram. Ava, still wearing slight signs of worry on her features, doesn't take her eyes off of the circle’s center after briefly locking gazes with Rosalie. Sahir’s face is twisted with pure regret for his poor life decisions, as his red eyes impassively stare down at the pentagram.
The group starts to recite the chant that they found on the internet, along with closing their eyes as instructed. Though one of the four does not do so. Sahir keeps his eyes open, warily looks to both his left and right to see if anyone’s watching, then deftly moves his foot across the ground and through a segment of the already poorly drawn pentagram. In an instant, a blast of wind comes barreling through the cemetery and swirls around the four.
The gale becomes stronger and stronger around the group, so much so that the candles they had placed on the ground quickly get snuffed out. The other three’s eyes shoot open upon being buffeted by this unnatural force, and they are all blown back by the miniature squall and thrown into tangible darkness.
‘This was a mistake,’ goes through all of their collective minds, except for Sahir. His train of thought is just a constant stream of ‘oh fuck’.
As the four slowly entered back into consciousness, the first thing that caught their notice is that they seem to be in a low-budget office building, where the fluorescent lights above them kept flickering while some weren’t working at all.
Sahir’s face slowly paled in horrified realization as he took in his surroundings. “Aw shit,’’ he grumbled, then got up from the floor and turned to his three friends, who all still seem dazed by their unexpected admittance into an odd office. He went over to Marcus first to give him a hand up, then went to check on the girls after making sure Marcus was unharmed. As Sahir looked over his friends for injuries, the three were still trying to comprehend what had happened to them.
“Where the hell are we?” Rosalie asked cautiously, not hesitating to step away from Sahir’s mild mothering in favor of investigating. She scanned her surroundings and shivered as the AC was mercilessly blasting cold air down this particular corridor.
“Well, funny that you mention it, but...welcome to the second floor of Hell. Although, three, adorable, live humans really shouldn’t be here.” A sickly sweet voice echoed down the cubicle-lined corridor, but it was edged with a venomous, arsenic undertone.
Three out of the four members of the group were startled at the unexpected sound of another occupying the room. Sahir simply turned towards the source, which was a gorgeous woman making her way over in a black pencil skirt, white blouse, and a black blazer thrown across her shoulders. The other three were aghast by what they just heard.
“...What do you mean we’re in Hell? It looks like a typical office building that needs a lot of maintenance work,” Marcus took a doubtful look around him, his fidgety hands running through his messy blond hair. Instinctively, he begins to mutter about what Hell was supposed to look like. “Wasn’t it all brimstone and fire, or is it like Dantes Inferno from the Divine Comedy? That would make sense since she did mention the second floor of Hell, but it was called the circles of Hell in the book-”
Marc’s muttering was brought to an end when Ava gently elbowed him back to reality. ”You said three humans, right? What’s that all about?” She asked as she tilted her head to the side, as easygoing as she could be in this strange circumstance.
“Oh. You didn’t notice? Well, that’s rich. Honey, you’ve been holding hands and singing kumbayah with a demon.” The woman quipped idly, before pointing a fabulously manicured finger at Sahir. The three whipped around as one to stare at their friend.
“I don't know what's more insulting. The fact that you think I’d ever jam out to folk music, or that these mortal menaces would put up with my shitty singing for even a millisecond.” Sahir growled out, looking very tempted to skip the forced pleasantries and go straight to the violence. Fortunately, he ultimately decided to turn to his friends with an almost sheepish look on his face, ”So, um...there’s no easy way to say this, but I’m a demon.” He confessed, throwing his hands up in a semi-jazz hands movement.
“Wait, wait, wait! Hold up.” Rosalie interjected, motioning with her hands as she spoke. “So, we are actually in Hell and our friend, whom we’ve known for years, is a demon. Who scoffed at my fascination with the occult and would almost always take Marc’s side in any debate about the supernatural. Sahir Amara, you’re a two-faced cabrón!” Rosalie ended her small speech on a high note, aiming an angry Spanish swear at Sahir for good measure.
“Quite. However, I must insist you follow me to meet the head of the second floor.” The lady said, a smirk on her lips that promised nothing but trouble. “I hope you understand.”
“How about we skip the meeting with Asmodeus? Neither of us is being paid enough to care, y’know? I can just take them up to the first floor and then back to Earth.” Sahir drawled as he started not-so-subtly corraling his friends together to leave, ”You don’t exactly gain anything from ratting me out to the boss, either, succubus. Other than mountains of paperwork you don’t need.’’ Upon saying that he looked over his shoulder to send a heated glare at the succubus.
“...Whatever, Sarkiner. Just spare us both the headache,” she scoffed disdainfully and spun on her heel to strut into the more secluded part of the office. Sus.
Sahir whirled back to face his friends, who were all looking at him with varying degrees of varying expressions. “I know all of you have questions, but now is really not the time. Nothing’s changed the fact that I’m on your side, and I’ll answer everything when we get out of here.”
The others nodded, not wanting to lose faith in someone that they’d known and cared about for years, but not quite sure what to make of the bombshell that had just been dropped. They followed him nonetheless, as it soon became apparent that he knew exactly where he was going. When they arrived at the first floor, Sahir surveyed the room, which looked like an average waiting room.
“The first circle of hell … is a waiting room?” The question spontaneously slipped from Ava as she inspected the bland room. Sahir side-eyed her as she innocently scattered the cushions of a nearby bench.
“Don’t knock on my floor. This is where we sort out spirits according to their idea of the afterlife and make sure the soul is in one piece. I also call it the killing field, on account of all the employee maltreatment.” Sahir grouched, still glancing around as if looking for someone. ”And didn’t I say to leave the Q & A for later? I can’t have you guys getting noticed again. Now, c’mon.” He starts moving forward toward the exit, making sure they avoided certain areas. The spirits milling about weren’t always friendly, and his coworkers surely wouldn’t be in a gracious mood this time of year. Eventually, they made it to a wall cloaked in mist. “Here’s the way out. All of you have to go through before me, so I can cover up your departure.”
“Is that it? Wasn’t it, I dunno, too easy?” Marc’s brows furrowed in nervous concern. Sahir nodded firmly and started herding his friends through the portal to get them to move faster since apparently, they didn’t know what ‘ask no questions’ meant. Once they’d all passed through, Sahir fiddled with the intricate markings carved into the edge of the misty entrance. When he was finally finished with his tweaking of the security system, he straightened up and felt his backbones crack.
“Ugh, I’m going to catch so much shit for this.” He rubbed a hand down his face tiredly, red eyes slightly bleary. At least everybody was lucky enough that Hell happened to be swamped with souls and too understaffed to care about a small handful passing through. “Eh. Might as well get it over with, then.” He shuffled into the portal, not looking forward to the cascade of questions sure to come from his companions.