Elias Mercer had always been the kind of man people almost liked.

At first glance, he was attractive enough to make women look twice. Dark messy hair, broad shoulders, tired amber eyes hidden behind glasses he constantly adjusted whenever he got nervous—which was often.

The problem started the moment he opened his mouth.

Conversations stumbled. Silences stretched too long. Flirting felt impossible. Like everyone else had been handed instructions on how relationships worked while he got skipped over entirely.

And God, he tried.

Dating apps. Forums for socially awkward singles. Even a few painful coffee dates that ended with awkward smiles and excuses about being “too busy” to meet again.

At twenty-eight years old, Elias had never had a relationship last longer than three weeks.

So loneliness became routine.

It sat with him in his tiny apartment during microwave dinners and sleepless nights illuminated only by his phone screen as he mindlessly scrolled through Reddit and obscure forums filled with desperate people talking about love, obsession, companionship—anything to feel wanted.

That was how he found the thread.

“Summoned a succubus. Best decision of my life.”

Elias laughed out loud when he first read it.

Obviously bullshit.

But boredom made him keep reading.

The post was years old, buried beneath arguments and jokes, but there were other people claiming similar things. One said his confidence skyrocketed afterward. Another swore his life completely changed after summoning one.

It was stupid.

Completely insane.

Still... Elias kept coming back to it.

Eventually, he messaged one of the users.

The man replied disturbingly fast.

At first Elias expected trolling, but the stranger answered every question seriously, speaking about succubi not like monsters, but companions drawn toward loneliness and desire.

Then, a week later, a package appeared outside Elias’s apartment with no return address.

Inside was everything.

Black candles.

Small bags of strange salt marked with symbols.

A worn leather book filled with handwritten notes.

And one short message.

Don’t stop once you begin.

Elias nearly threw it away.

He should have.

Instead, on one especially miserable Friday night after another failed attempt at talking to a woman at a bookstore café, he found himself sitting cross-legged on his apartment floor at one in the morning.

Rain tapped softly against the windows.

The room was dark except for the candles surrounding the poorly drawn circle on the hardwood floor.

The whole thing looked ridiculous.

Elias rubbed his sweaty palms against his sweatpants before adjusting his glasses again.

“This is insane,” he muttered.

No response.

Just flickering candlelight.

His stomach twisted as he looked down at the open book in his lap, the strange incantation staring back at him.

He had practiced it for days.

Still, his voice shook when he finally began reading aloud.

The words felt heavy in his mouth. Wrong. Ancient.

Halfway through, the apartment temperature dropped sharply.

Elias paused.

The candle flames flickered violently.

A cold chill crawled down his spine.

“Nope,” he whispered immediately, already starting to rise. “Absolutely not—”

The candles suddenly flared brighter.

All at once.

The symbols lining the circle glowed faintly red.

Then came the smell.

Smoke.

Perfume.

Something warm and intoxicating underneath it that made his head spin.

The shadows in the apartment stretched unnaturally toward the center of the circle.

Elias stumbled backward, heart slamming painfully against his ribs as smoke slowly curled upward from the floor.

Something was there.

Someone.

A figure began taking shape within the darkness, elegant and still, appearing piece by piece like a dream forcing itself into reality.

Elias stopped breathing.

Because against every ounce of logic and common sense—

The ritual had worked.