A/N: Here's where things get a-rollin.
It was a quiet night in Amity Park, as it has been typically lately. The Eastern forests of Amity were known as some of the most truly haunted parts, despite it being almost devoid of people. All types of ghosts were known to appear here at night, even the infamous ghost boy who always seems to just… hover in the sky above the trees, his calm, pulsing glow illuminating the sky.
In this forest, a young teen with long dark brown hair and dressed in all black carefully embeds incense into the dirt on a salt line that draws a perfect circle. Her hair blows gently in the wind as she places each and every one with utmost care, and grimaces when she catches the odor of the sticks. A cat's skull is then placed on the north side, a bowl of pressed and powdered nightshade is placed on the south side. On the east and west, a rod of pure amber and crystal are placed respectively. She stands in the center of the circle and uncorks a dingy and scratched wine bottle. Opening it, she pours the viscous, black liquid onto the center of the circle and sits directly on top of it, marveling at the fact that the ground is as dry as she came to it. Facing the cat (in these rituals, she remembers, it's important to always reference the body's life, as it's much more important than what remains afterwards) she holds a thin, leatherbound book and a single match.
Lighting the match, she hesitates for a second, before steeling herself and igniting a single stick of incense on the northmost side. As soon as a spark of ember appears, the rest of the incense light in the same manner, drawing a perfect ring of glowing orange around the small girl's frame. She pulls back and gasps, before taking a deep breath to calm down.
She lets the match burn out completely before opening the book up to neat pages with lines of text written in a strange language. The girl takes a long sigh before speaking lines that would typically be difficult and nigh impossible in a human tongue with calm and practiced ease.
"Shla kem essnopke ne mek sho zontar.
Shla lepk quod of lepk Kior ne lepk sornardien
Shla lepk souls of lepk Kion ne kem Fornadlen
Shla sern pu ne modraw lepk uri onare bor Kiola
Shla lepk suo opprian pans kurai.
Mek sofrox uman.
Kem Wor nar serve under mek.
Mek fate nar ne kem hroshna.
Putdon uo lepk comar io kem Morgal.
Lon calbak mek ahn.
Yol kem givrom adron sers bolnk trocun Babaln
Kom, tropek trocun lepk polkd io Wulol.
mek am mal no zontara roban Babaln
Srol lepk suran Heaven, qualbron sho hor siev trol spelk io Quon,
Appren shu srol lepk ciro io confar,
Defronslor io lepk Holy yabran!"
Shortly after her incantation is read, all wind surrounding her stops. She freezes and waits, unsure of what might come next, but hopeful all the while. Looking up, she notices that the foul smoke from the incense is rising in faint, straight lines stretching far up past the forest canopy, looking like she's become trapped in a cage of her own creation.
Perhaps I am. She thinks.
After waiting for a while and watching the faint smoke rise, she notices some of it… falling. She doesn't dare move a muscle, but follows the wisp of greyish blue down with her eyes as it drowsily ducks and rolls downwards. The smoke envelopes the cat, and gets sucked in through its gaping eye sockets, rotating within the confines of its skull.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees more movement. She glances down at the north and east sides of the circle and notices the crystals swapping color, the amber slowly losing its color and the quartz slowly gaining it. As soon as they finish, her eyes snap back down to the cat, who's begun to open its mouth and bellow out thick, black smoke.
The girl holds her breath and watches it as it gradually forms into a more and more humanoid shape, head, torso, arms, and a ghostly tail appear and condense into a being that she hopes was the ghost she called for.
Slowly, as more distinguishable features appear, realization and recognition seeps into her mind, and her eyes widen. The ghost opens its own eyes and looks around, seeing the girl below as well as the salt line, incense, and additional components. He furrows his brow, looking rather confused. The girl speaks first.
"I… summoned you?" she asks, more to herself than anyone else.
"You summoned..." the glowing ghost peers around again, seeming to put together the pieces slowly, as if awakened from a peaceful night's sleep. Perhaps he was.
"I can be summoned?" he also asks to the open air, tilting his head to the side like a puppy.
The ghost suddenly gasps, and information floods into his head like a diverted river. The incantation she spoke, the components she used, some faint memories all flash through his mind, as if he was dying all over again. He stares out with glowing glazed eyes, open but seeing nothing.
The girl, on the other hand, is having her own inner turmoil.
I… I summoned him? This wasn't supposed to happen. If he finds out what I want to do, he'll-
"You want to hurt someone." He mentions blankly.
The girl panics. "I… I- I ca- I was j-"
He's going to attack me, stop me. I won't be able to complete my goal.
She tries to back away from the ghost but is stopped by the lines of smoke stretching into the night sky. She begins to hyperventilate and spouts excuses nonstop, pleading for forgiveness between each one.
"Stop." The ghost commands, voice echoing and commanding.
The words halt dead in her throat, piling up behind each other until she feels like choking. She can barely breathe, the foul smoke invades her senses but she can do nothing about it as it surrounds her like a noose.
The ghost floats down to her level, it's tail curling into itself the same way a cat's would. The girl presses further into the smoke, but feels as sturdy as the bars of steel it's currently emulating.
"Why?"
She falters at his question and swallows to get past the lump in her throat. Did he just ask that? "Why?" she mimes, unsure of what else to say. The ghost nods.
She turns her head away and relaxes a bit. He didn't seem at all as scary as she thought he always was now that she really looks at him. His gaze is otherworldly, yet curious. His hair flows to an unfelt wind, but his tail taps impatiently as he awaits her response. The corners of her mouth twitch to that.
A cat is fitting. She thinks.
"I…" she looks up at him. At his stare that simply asks for her to speak more. "they hurt me. They took away something- the only thing. They took away the only thing I cared about."
He looks away, eyes again becoming unfocused. "I remember that. It was cruel."
She pulls her arms away from the bars and leans in closer to him. "You remember?" She questions.
The ghost nods. "You've connected us, somehow. I remember some things about you, but nothing specific. When you mention it it jogs my… memory." He hesitates to call it a memory, as it isn't his.
"So you know what happened to me? You know what I went through?" Tears build in her eyes.
Finally, someone that believes.
He waits, but eventually answers. "Yes."
The girl lets go of a breath she didn't know she was holding, laughing to herself as it comes out. She brings her legs up into her chest and presses her eyes into her knees, feeling the tears on her skin through the holes in her jeans. She sobs, a light, breathy thing. "You don't know how long I've waited for someone to validate me like that."
The ghost seems to relax to that as well, watching her body shake with the emotions she releases. He can feel the pain coming off of her in waves, and he figures the connection they now have involves emotions, too.
"I can help you." he says, the words raising the girl's head from it's low angle. "It's what you called me for anyways isn't it?" He still doesn't make eye contact with her.
"Y-you can?" she sniffles. "But what I want, it's-"
"It's not going to be your way." he interjects firmly, finally meeting her eyes. "I get to decide how it happens, but your desires will be met. It's part of the deal, anyways. I have to do something, but it doesn't have to be the way you want."
"What… are you going to do?" The girl pulls at a lock of hair anxiously, giving off a sense of her true age despite her tired eyes.
"Also part of the deal-" he says, and extends his hand. "You have to trust me."
She stares at the limb extended out to her. She has a choice, he's giving her a choice. She doesn't have to take this deal. She could just turn away and act as if nothing happened.
But he said that they're connected. He remembers her memories, knows her pain. He's the only one that's ever validated the way she feels and knows what truly happened, and understands why she wants help, why she called out to him.
She looks at his hand in a different light, and sees the glowing halo around it. She sees the possibility to have her desires met, as he has the power to do so, but most of all, she sees something that she hasn't seen for a very, very long time…
She sees hope.
The girl looks up at the ghost again and sees her determined expression mirrored on his face, he wants this just as much as she does. He wants to help, to use his power for her.
He smiles.
She takes his hand.
A flash of light envelops them and the wind picks back up. The incense, previously burning at a slow, steady rate, rapidly burns down due to the surplus of oxygen. The smoke surrounds them both, developing into a thick fog, until it rapidly becomes drawn into their forms and vanishes.
"The deal is done." The ghost says.
And he smiles.
The last thing the girl sees is glaring white fangs and red eyes that bore straight into her very soul. Pure fear snakes back into her chest.
And then, she sees nothing.
A/N: HOO BOI THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.
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