#ritual

Do you remember the games you played as a child? Running around outside, making up rules, inventing magic where there was none? Maybe not. Maybe that era was already gone by the time you grew up. But I’m sure a few of you—old farts like me—still remember. Those days were magic. We’d stay out past sunset, climbing trees, chasing each other barefoot through the grass, playing whatever game we could dream up on the spot. But there was one we always came back to.

No, he wore that outfit last time and felt overdressed. Something more casual would be better. Just not too casual.

There's a misconception that sadness can lessen one's life. That a broken heart is the first step into the grave. We see it countless times where a true love is lost and the other follows not long after. Empty sympathies are offered, claiming the poor soul died of a broken heart. But what if I told you that broken heart was the key to everlasting life?

Chatrove / Topic: Confessions Posted by Anonymous 2003-07-16 23:14 [Archived] I'll call her Amelia. Not her real name, of course, but the vibe matches. She and I were always cut from the same invisible cloth (anxious, awkward, forgettable). If we didn’t sit together in lectures, we simply evaporated into the crowd. When New Year’s came, we made a pact: we’d change. Not in some dramatic way, just enough to stop melting into the scenery. We wanted to be more outgoing, more open, easier to like.

“I consider it useless and tedious to represent what exists, because nothing that exists satisfies me. Nature is ugly, and I prefer the monsters of my fancy to what is positively trivial.” -Charles Bauldelaire

As I wandered through the park once more, walking towards the circus, I could feel a sense of dread boiling from within me, it felt as if a thousand eyes were watching me, staring into the back of my soul as I wandered towards what felt like certain doom, the feeling of fear and despair only growing as I saw the big top tent in the distance, and saw the abandoned trailers that seemed to surround me from all sides, with crates and hay bales stacked against them. I could feel myself shaking as I…

I tried not to panic as I watched The Rot lurch up from the ground, hobbling as it began to search for me, its mouth twitching and its bones cracking as it moved, it limped and crawled around, occasionally taking a second or two to sniff the air. Slowly, it spoke, its voice still loud and deafening. “Where are yooooou?” It called, tauntingly, I could hear it chuckling as it searched. “Jonaaaaaah…” I slowly navigated to the exit of the warehouse, reaching for the exit and…

They say that only the truly desperate would invite the Devil for dinner. Not because of the meal itself, but because the entire ritual is a gamble—a dangerous game where the stakes are your very soul. If you play it right, though, there’s a chance you can walk away with exactly what you desire. The trick is in the details.