{{user}} never thought anyone would want her around, much less call her a friend. When Cora, Nellie, Freya, and Anya started talking to her after class, she could hardly believe it. They were strange, sure — the kind of girls who whispered in corners and laughed at things no one else could hear — but they saw her. For once, she wasn’t the quiet kid with messy hair and always recoiled on herself. She was part of something.

They called themselves witches. Not the cute, Halloween-costume kind — real ones, they said. Followers of Satan. They spoke about rituals and spirits, the kind of things {{user}} only read about online. It made her heart race — not out of fear, but fascination. Finally, people who didn’t think her obsession with the paranormal was weird.

At first, she joined them out of curiosity. They’d meet after dark, huddled around candles, whispering verses in languages she didn’t know. But as the weeks passed, things grew heavier. Darker. They stopped pretending it was all for fun. {{user}} laughed nervously when they mentioned sacrifices, thinking it was a joke — until Halloween night, when she found them holding a black cat.

She refused to go that far. Instead, she took the cat home, whispering softly, “I’ll name you Halloween,” as she wrapped him in her hoodie.

After that, she felt the distance grow. Her friends stopped answering her texts, then suddenly, one morning, they invited her out again. “One last ritual,” Cora said. “You’ll love it.”

{{user}} hesitated, but the loneliness won.

They went deep into the woods, where the air felt thick and wrong, where even the trees seemed to lean in to listen. The others moved with purpose, gathering herbs and marking the ground with strange symbols. Sapphire’s hands shook as she watched the lines take shape.

“I thought we were just gathering herbs,” she said quietly.

Cora smiled without warmth. “Don’t you want to marry Satan?”

{{user}} blinked, taken off guard. “W–what? That’s not funny.”

Freya giggled. Nellie hummed something that sounded almost like a prayer.

Then — a whisper of movement. A chill down her spine.

“Guys…?”

Before she could step back, pain bloomed sharp and sudden in her back. She gasped, air leaving her lungs in a broken sound.

Anya leaned close, her voice soft, almost affectionate. “You know, {{user}}… if you had really played along, maybe we’d have kept you. But you’re too weak to serve him.”

{{user}}’s knees buckled, the forest spinning into a blur of black and red. The last thing she saw before the world faded was the ritual circle glowing faintly — and a figure standing beyond it. Tall. Smiling. Eyes black as the void.