Don’t Trust Every Ritual You Read On The Internet

20261002

Written for The Second Indulgence, Day 1

Emily hugged her knees to her chin and stared at her laptop, reading the ritual instructions through again. She could recite them by now, the words etched into her brain, but she still couldn’t figure out what went wrong.
“I didn’t mean to.” She whispered. The words barely audible to her, and so far too quiet for her parents to possibly overhear.
After all, the ritual was titled “How To Deal With Bullies”. That’s all she’d wanted. To make Felicia lay off. To stop the years of having to look over her shoulder, and keep her belongings close or secure at all times, and putting up with sweet-toned digs that were never quite what you could report to a teacher.
Not that she’d expected the ritual to work. She’d just… it had been symbolic. Sure, part of her had hoped, but really it had just been a game. The right kind of scary fun to do with friends on Halloween night. She didn’t dare go out trick-or-treating unless one of her parents came along, and that was embarrassing on its own. So she’d stayed home. Set up a cosy spooky hangout in the basement. Invited people over. Accepting that they’d come by after they’d been out.
And when she showed them what she’d found online the reaction was everything she hoped for. Gleeful and guilty and just a little bit scared. It’d been perfect. Laying out the circle. Arranging the candles. Everyone adding a drop of their blood to the dish in the centre. Then whispering, as one, the curse. Ending with her instruction:
“Make Felicia leave me alone.”
It had been wonderfully cathartic. She’d felt better at once. Like a weight she’d carried so long she’d forgotten it existed had leapt out of her chest into the circle.
They’d cleaned the evidence up in a hurry and gone back to hanging out - though with many a whispered fantasy about what would happen, to get Felicia to learn her lesson. Some of which, looking back, had gotten… kind of mean.
If they’d had any idea…
But it wasn’t until next morning, when Emily headed down to breakfast, feeling remarkably light and calm and ready to face the day, that she found her parents waiting with grave and pale faces. And news.
An animal attack. That’s what the police had concluded. No matter how Felicia’s friends insisted, with hysterical certainty, that “the darkness grew gangly arms and dragged her away”.
Everyone agreed that the poor children had been hopped up on scary stories - and, the police having tested them, underage drinking. Which had been a shock to anyone who had no idea what Felicia and her crowd was like, ergo most of the adults were gobsmacked.
Normally Emily would’ve been thrilled to see Felicia’s squeaky-clean top athlete, golden girl of the whole town persona come crashing down. But that felt so… small, compared to the knowledge that it had taken the police three days to find all of Felicia’s body. That her family had been practically forced to opt for cremation. That everyone was terrified about what beast was on the loose.
“I didn’t ask it to do that.” Emily scrubbed at her eyes. “I just asked it to make her leave me alone! Not… I didn’t mean…”
The website hadn’t warned her this could happen! It just said to end the ritual by “telling it what you want.” Which she had! It, it should’ve scared Felicia, or something! Or given her some kind of Scrooge learn-a-lesson nightmares.
Not dragged her into the woods, too fast for her friends to chase, and…
She pressed her face to her hands and rocked back and forth.
The funeral was Friday. Her parents had, very gently, assured her that they understood if she didn’t want to attend, and would make excuses for her. Which was good, because she couldn’t go. She couldn’t. Not after… When she was…
What if someone told?
Did her friends realise what had caused this?
Did they think she meant for this to happen?
They’d never speak to her again.
What could she do??
Everyone was going to hate her! They’d hate her worse than they’d ever hated Felicia!!
Wait.
Emily’s hands dropped from her eyes as she leant forward to stare at the instructions again.
“Pour all your hate towards this person into the circle…”
Oh.
Oh god oh no no no!
Was that why…?
That lightness she’d felt since after the ritual suddenly haunted her. The way it’d been like a weight falling away… the way everyone else had been buoyed up and bubbly…
It, that was just catharsis, right? Just group relief at having enacted satisfying symbolism, right??? They hadn’t really summoned something made of seven year’s worth of hate from eleven different people, right?
And…
If they had…
It would’ve gone back right after, right?

Prompt was “The ritual worked perfectly, just as you intended, but there’s one small problem; you can’t control what came through the portal… Write about what happens next.”