The last thing on Ben's mind as he twisted the key in its lock to enter his tiny apartment, was to do any more work. After spending eight hours mindlessly processing new documents at his desk, all he wanted was to eat and fall asleep watching Friends reruns.

He silently cursed his landlord for being such a cheapskate, for providing keys that were as flimsy as the locks they were supposed to open. Shouldering his work bag properly, he proceeded to jiggle the key up twice, then down twice, and finally left to right.

With an audible click, the lock slid back, and Ben tiredly shoved the creaky wooden door open. He shrugged off his waterlogged coat and hung it on one of the vacant wall pegs; carefully stepping around the paper-strewn floor, he unlaced his boots and toed them off.

For someone who was once an exceptional athlete in university, the way Ben moved could not have been any farther away from his past self. With a heavy sigh, Ben made his way to his kitchenette, threading his way around various stacks of reports piled knee-high.

His stomach grumbled as he reached out to open his cupboard to retrieve a jar of peanut butter and some sliced bread. The angry sound emanating from his body was just another reminder that he hadn't eaten for several hours.

Taking out two meager slices of bread, Ben began to spread the peanut butter in circles with a butter knife then he turned around to reach into his mini-fridge to grab the last bottle of blueberry jam that he'd been saving for a rainy day. In this case, it had been quite the literal rainy day for him.

Sliding the plastic spoon out of the jar, he quietly hummed a tune to himself as he spread the jelly in some random pattern, or so he thought.

You see when most people think of magical symbols, they often imagine a star of some kind. The truth is far simpler than that; due in part to the innate nature of the occult to be unpredictable, random patterns were often the best portals to animate a creature or being to surprise an unwitting mortal.

Unfortunately, in this case, the unwitting mortal was Ben. An overworked desk jockey, exhausted and barely capable of logical thought, and definitely not ready to experience the miniature storm cell that had conjured itself in his dingy apartment. Red lightning blazed its way through the ceiling, black clouds of mist filled the space, and strangely muted thunderclaps echoed around the living room.

Ben's less than meticulously stacked reams of paper were blown away like leaves caught in a twister.

After what must have felt like millennia, the weather had dissipated, and in its place was a stout red-skinned, four-eyed, and multi-clawed creature that simply blinked at Ben, perhaps in bewilderment and confusion. Its cavernous mouth opened and shut several times, revealing rows of sharp teeth, and a forked tongue that was reminiscent of some snakes that Ben had remembered seeing on National Geographic.

Ben observed the demonic creature with barely-there interest; he yawned, rubbed his eyes, and nodded. Picking away papers that had flown into the kitchenette, Ben simply brought out another plate and began to prepare a second peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

After a couple of minutes, Ben picked up both plates gesturing to the demon towards the couch which he crossed over to and carefully sat on. In his clouded mind, Ben thought of nothing else but that he was having a stress hallucination of some sort.

Placing the two plates of sandwiches on the rectangular table, Ben propped up his feet on the surface, leaned back, and gave a sigh of relief as he relaxed on the couch.

Suddenly a thought struck Ben, where were his damn manners, the same practices that had been drilled into him by his grandmother. He quickly stood up to usher what he thought was a fever-dream hallucination onto the couch, filled a glass of water, and picked up a bag of Lays chips to complete the meal.

With still no words uttered but mere glances and a few gestures made, the demon accepted the PB&J sandwich and the bag of Lays. It nodded to Ben, offered a toothy wide smile (or as widely as a four-eyed cave-mouthed demon could), and disappeared in a puff of red smoke.

Once again, Ben breathed out a great sigh of relief as though, in his mind, he had placated a hallucination with old-timey manners of hospitality. Forgetting his sandwich on the table, he crawled into his ancient tattered bed and promptly fell asleep.

Piercing yellow rays of sunlight broke through the tattered curtains that adorned the window directly behind Ben's couch. Gently woken up by the warmth and the blazing light of the sun shining through the window, Ben yawned and stretched his arms while simultaneously leaning up to check his watch.

Hmm, six hours of sleep ain't bad. Not bad at all.

Taking a visual sweep of the room, Ben noticed that all of his usually messy stacks of reports were strangely well organized in neat and uniform stacks leaned against the walls of his apartment.

Groaning with pain as he felt his little used muscles stretch as he stood, Ben began to take a few tentative steps towards the living room before noticing a marking seemingly burnt into or perhaps carelessly carved into the cheap carpet. He cautiously stepped towards the marking and bent a knee to get a closer look, Ben reached out to follow the carving of the wood with his finger.

It felt oddly cool to the hand, and despite the blackened felt around the marking, his finger had no soot left on it as he examined the hand that had touched the marking. The carving was strange, to say the least; it didn't follow any distinguishable shape or image that Ben could think of.

Suddenly his bedroom alarm clock rang, surreptitiously breaking the tense silence in Ben's apartment. Almost on instinct, Ben quickly made his way to the toilet to prepare for another grueling day of work, the mysterious mark and hazy memories relegated to the void of irrelevant thoughts in Ben's mind.

Hurriedly taking the steps up twice at a time, Ben excitedly made his way up to his flat's floor, each step making a jingle as his keychain jiggled in time with his footsteps. Never in the six years that Ben had been living in this tiny New York City apartment did he ever take the precariously steep staircase two steps at a time, nor did he do so excitedly. But then again, today was special.

This balmy Tuesday was irregular for Ben, for the sun was shining, the New York subway was functioning like a well-oiled machine (which any true New Yorker would know is a miracle), and he managed to avoid every single nasty sky rat that dove in to steal his morning bagel.

Upon reaching his office, he was taken aside by the name partners of the law firm and awarded a long-sought-after promotion to Senior Partner at Arch & Rome Attorneys at Law. Apparently, his immediate superior had been caught embezzling funds for a secret affair with a paralegal and was promptly given the boot.

For once in his uneventful adult life, Ben felt like he was on the up and up, a feeling he hadn't felt since being a youthful and naive high-schooler who had been accepted to one of New York City's top law schools.

Coming home from work, Ben calmly inserted the cheap bronze key into his apartment's front door lock, and for once, the key smoothly turned the bolt in one cohesive motion. Hearing the audible click of the lock releasing, Ben went slack-jawed as he realized that he had not done his traditional jiggle of the key. He looked down at his hand as though it had become solid gold, it was unimaginable how lucky he was being today.

Entering the threshold of his apartment, Ben gently hung his coat on the coat rack, he relished seeing a far cleaner and incredibly neat apartment. He reasoned to himself that perhaps last night, in a bid to de-stress, he had mindlessly cleaned up the place.

Whistling happily to himself, he strode over to the kitchenette and pulled open the door of the refrigerator in search of the last remnants of his favorite blueberry jam.

Instead, he was astonished to see a full jar of Smucker's pure blueberry jam, with a plastic seal and everything still in place. He tried to wrack his brain to remember if he had gone to Fairway or Whole Foods to purchase a brand-new jar.

Coming up empty, Ben just silently thanked his past self and began his evening routine of making a classic peanut butter and blueberry jam sandwich.

Just as he had finished putting away the ingredients and settled into his couch to eat, Ben was startled by a string of rapid urgent knocks that rattled his front door.

Jumping to his feet, Ben hurried his way to open the door, revealing a towering hulk of a man clad in a leather duster, dirty jeans, and scuffed combat boots. Intimidated by the stranger in front of him, Ben instinctively pulled the door to close almost as quickly as he had opened it.

A dull thump echoed through the narrow hallway as the stranger wedged a boot between the door and the frame; with a gruff snort of effort, the man reached into a pocket and pulled out a calling card to offer to Ben. Without so much as a greeting, the man glared at Ben and spoke with a gravelly tone, "Please stop summoning demons or lemons or what have you; leave wizarding to professionals."

With a grunt, the stranger turned heel and strode away from Ben's door, leaving the poor man bewildered and scared shitless. Staring down at the business card left in his hand, Ben's eyes widened as he read:

Harry Dresden

Wizard

Lost Items Found | Paranormal Investigations

Consulting * Advice * Reasonable Rates

312-555-8702

(No love potions, endless purses, parties, or other entertainment)