“You’re insane.” I said, pulling down my pants, “I swear if this is some sick trick, I’m going to–”

  The lawyer tapped at his wrist. “Time, Mr. Hallow.”

  I scowled and in an effort to preserve the last bits of my dignity, just in case this was a prank, said, “Boxers are staying on. And I swear, if I see even an ounce of baby oil–”

  “Please, Mr. Hallow.” Emyrith's voice was strained, “In the center please.”

  I wanted to shoot back with a dozen different things. But my brain had already exhausted the possibilities, coming back full circle to my original thought: that it was cold and I’d already cemented my decision to follow through.

  At second glance, the circle wasn’t as complicated as I thought. One huge circle, surrounded by six others, with triangles spaced out evenly between them.

  “...Yin-yang five elements and the Empedocles’ four cosmic elements.” Emyrith was talking to himself again.

  He walked around the circle, placing various things in different places. A lit candle, a piece of paper, his expensive looking pen, and more. Then he stopped, just outside the circle.

  “Now, I need one of your belongings as well.” Emyrith said.

  “Like a textbook?”

  Emyrith shook his head. “An object that holds meaning. Sentimental value, or has been in your possession for a long time. As long as one of those two requirements are met, we can start the ritual"

  “...There’s a knife in my backpack.”

  Emyrith walked over and took it out, frowning.

  It wasn’t just a regular knife. Plenty of kids carry around swiss army knives at school. What Emyrith took out from my bag was a gravity knife. The ones that can be opened with a flick of your wrist. Not only is it dangerous, it’s also illegal as hell. Not just in Charter. It’s illegal to carry one around in most States. Period.

  If this was a prank, I was screwed. Considering the political atmosphere around schools, I was looking at expulsion.

  He was looking at it closely. “This was your mother’s.”

  I nodded. “My dad gave it to me. Why? Is it no good?”

  “No, this is perfect.” He said. He walked over to the last empty circle and placed it there.

  The moment my gravity knife touched the floor, the air in the room shifted.

  It’s hard to describe it in words. It almost felt like something had just been closed off, a note of finality accompanying the action of completing the circle. All of a sudden, I wasn’t just cold –it felt like a gazillion dull frozen needles were pricking into my skin from every angle.

  And I got the sense that we were being watched.

  My heart wasn’t pounding so much as it was squeezing in on itself, being wrung dry. It felt wrong. This whole situation. Strange, alien and unfamiliar.

  Then Emyrith spoke.

  “I invoke the ancient names, calling them for this ritual forged with blood, tales, and time.” His eyes were on me, but he wasn’t looking at me. “I call upon the place where men’s memories can no longer reach, when things still crawled in darkness and hungered for the light.”

  As Emyrith spoke, the prickling sensation grew until I began to itch all over. But I stood deathly still.

  Because we weren’t alone anymore.

  There were things surrounding us. Closing in.

  Fear took over my brain and I just froze. My thoughts, my body, everything stood shock-still as the vaguely humanoid figures crowded inside the circle. Some large, some small, but all of them colored in dull hues of different colors, and so blurry that I couldn’t make out what was what.

  “I now invite Jain Shin Hallow to take one foot out of the light, and into the darkness, as his predecessors did before him. Straddling the boundary between the two.” Emyrith’s voice rang clear, bouncing off the walls.

  Holy shit, the circle beneath me was glowing.

  I felt a hand grab onto my shoulder. I nearly screamed.

  But I didn’t dare turn to look. I kept my focus on Emyrith, ignoring everything but him.

  If Emyrith saw my fear, he didn’t care. He continued, unabated, “Fire. Water. Wood. Earth. Metal. Wind. Light. Darkness.” His eyes regained their focus, staring right at me, “Life and Death. Choose, Jain Shin Hallow.”

  This hadn’t been part of our discussion. But I was too scared to protest. All I knew was that I just had to answer and my instincts screamed to do it fast.

  “Death.” I said without thinking.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Emyrith watched me without saying anything. I realized he was waiting for an explanation.

  “I chose death… b-because death is… to me, death is…” I shuddered as something brushed against my cheek. Long and spindly, like a set of fingers.

  I closed my eyes and carefully shut the door on the part of my mind that was screaming ‘WHAT THE FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK’, and the other part that was just mindless terror.

  But things kept touching me. On my cheek, over my eyes. Most of them felt like hands, other times it didn’t. My face, chest, legs, my bare skin kept being stroked by a hundred different limbs and I was freaking out. I suppressed a shudder.

  Emyrith didn’t say anything, waiting for the rest of my answer.

  How do you put into words what death means? Doesn’t it mean something different to someone? Why the hell did I have to say death? That’s some emo-goth-punk crap.

  I had to say something. I had the distinct feeling that the beings touching me were growing more restless the longer nothing happened. Some of them had begun to pinch and it started to hurt.

  “My first meeting with death happened because of my mom.” I reached for the right words.

  Regardless of the circumstance, It felt unjust to let this be a mindless ramble. I wanted to convey exactly what I meant.

  “When she disappeared, I didn’t just lose her. I lost my mom that made up who my dad was when she was around. So I lost the parts of my dad that could only be met through my mom. So in a way, both of them died. Forever.”

  “Death is loss. Loss of more than just a single life. It is the loss of memories. Of…” I struggled, “Of what makes me… me. I lost the parts of my mom and dad that should have made me who I was… and the parts of each other that existed only in me through them as a whole.”

  I felt the unmistakable sensation of teeth gnawing on my ears. This time, I did shudder.

  “But at the same time, that loss made me who I am today. So in a way, through loss… I gained the me who could not be with my parents. I became who I am today, because my mom died. The birth of a new me.”

  A little macabre, but I continued. “To me, death is the end of one, and the beginning of another. That’s… it, really.” That felt about right.

  The quiet after my little speech stretched on.

  Finally, Emyrith spoke, “Your answer has been accepted, Jain Shin Hallow. And accordingly, by the ancient pact, you have been accepted.”

  The feeling of being touched intensified. New limbs were brushing up all around me. Claws, fur, rubbery, and wet –So much at once that I couldn’t tell what was what. Before, it had been concentrated around my face but now, they were everywhere.

  But just as soon as it had begun, the rush of being crowded began to fade into nothingness.

  And in that peace, I felt a hand grab me by the face and kiss me on the forehead.

  Then all was still.

  I was breathing hard. Chest heaving, trying to suck in large mouthfuls of air. I was cold too. Sweat trickled down from my neck all the way to my stomach. Along with all this was a soreness that usually came after I strained myself in gym class the day before.

  I slowly opened my eyes.

  Emyrith stood before me. The same as before. Not a hair out of place.

  Nothing felt different than before. Nothing was different than before.

  I looked down.

  Footprints. Everywhere around me.

  Then something banged the windows so hard that the glass rattled on the panes.

  I all but jumped out of my pants, breaking the circle and stood up so fast that I almost fell. Catching myself on the nearby couch for balance, I turned to look at the window behind me.

  The ragdoll leaped off the window sill and closed the distance faster than I could say ‘Annabelle’. It stuck out its hand.

  “Finally, you can see me. So, you’re that famous Miru’s son, huh?”

  Someone screamed. I think it was me.

  Let me correct that.

  I fucking screamed.