New Genna City

The Companion - Part 1

It had been one hell of a semester, and you were more than ready for this holiday break from school. Granted, you'd be spending it alone this year due to financial reasons and the fact that your family lived across the country, but you were still looking forward to the fun you had planned for yourself. You went shopping for an assortment of quick foodstuffs and snacks before settling down for the marathon you'd been planning for the evening.

Except before the first movie is even half over, you're already feeling lonely and bored. It was great to not have to interact with people, but at the same time, it was just too quiet in your building with most of the residents out of town. You shake your head and try to push the idea aside and enjoy your movies, but it persists. And it was getting more insistent the longer you thought about it.

Annoyed at yourself, you pause the movie and scroll through your phone, checking to see if any of your friends might be up for joining you. Fifteen minutes later, you give up; everybody you knew was either out of town or busy. Flopping gracelessly on the couch, you stare up at the ceiling for a bit, thinking. A car passes, headlights making a shifting pattern of light, and an idea pops up. You think about dismissing it, but change your mind and hop up out of your blanket nest.

You dig through the box in your closet of things you don't use often, and finally find what you're looking for: an old spellbook that you'd gotten from an eccentric aunt for your birthday a few years ago. You'd never really been into that sort of thing, but for some reason, you'd taken it with you when you'd left home.

You casually flip through the pages, trying to remember where you'd seen that one particular ritual the first time you'd skimmed through it. You realize that you're quietly making notes on other spells you'd re-read in the future, and flip a little faster to keep from getting distracted from your current task.

Ah, here we go: 'For The Summoning Of Unearthly Companionship'. Sounds about right. You glance over the ritual and are very surprised that everything you need is easily available in your apartment. You scoot some things out of the way to make space for the summoning diagram in the dining room, and set about gathering everything up.

A short while and some chalk lines later, you're all set up and ready. You have to substitute a few items you didn't have quite enough of, and feel a small shiver of excitement at what you were going to do. You check to make sure everything is as correct as it can be before beginning.

As you chant and recite the words, the atmosphere in the room changes. The shadows deepen, the air grows heavy, and your words seem muffled somehow. You slightly raise your voice and continue, hoping that these effects weren't permanent, as you were pretty sure your renter's insurance wouldn't cover it.

At the culmination of the ritual, you were supposed to ring a bell, but instead you just set off your phone's chiming ringtone. (It was all you really had.) The deep shadows rush to the center of the circle and coalesce into an expanding lumpy form. Holy moley, it was actually working.

The deep blackness grows and becomes more defined, and as you stare, more humanoid. Then you blink, and the darkness is gone, replaced with a towering muscular figure with spiraling horns, silver-grey skin, and white fur in various places, including down the back of their head and shoulders. They are clad in a translucent fabric wrapped from the waist down, and it seemed awfully haphazardly put on. As you watched in awe at this creature you've summoned, the demon rolls his head, cracking his neck, and opens his eyes. Black sclera with white irises. Neat.

"Who is it that summons me to this mortal realm for their pleasure?" His low, rumbling voice reminds you of distant thunder, and you feel another shiver travel down your spine. This was SO COOL. The demon glances down at you kneeling by the summoning diagram and sees your jaw hanging open. He sighs quietly. Abruptly his tone changes. "I would assume that would be you, there?" He points a finger casually in your direction, and you nod. He raises an eyebrow that runs back into his hairline and clicks his tongue. "Well, then, shall we begin?"