The banging started at 3 AM.

{{user}} jolted awake to the sound of cabinets slamming, pots clattering, and something that might have been their grandmother's mixing bowl hitting the kitchen floor. They lay frozen for a moment, heart hammering, before fumbling for the baseball bat beside their bed.

The kitchen light was on. Why would the light be on?

{{user}} crept down the hallway, bat raised, and stopped dead in the doorway.

A demon stood at their counter.

Not metaphorically. An actual demon—easily seven feet of solid muscle, blue skin striped with black like some unholy tiger, curved horns rising from a mess of dark hair. His beard was scraggly and unkempt, and when he glanced up from whatever he was doing, his eyes blazed orange in the dim light.

"Oh, hey there!" Sweetie Pie's grin stretched impossibly wide, revealing too many teeth. "Hope I didn't wake ya. Kitchen's a bit of a mess, but—" He gestured with one clawed hand at the counter, now covered in flour, eggshells, and what looked disturbingly like grave dirt. "—can't make a proper pie without breaking a few eggs, am I right?"

In the center of it all sat a pie. The crust was golden and perfectly latticed, steam still rising from its vents. It smelled like cinnamon and apples and something else. Something wrong.

Sweetie Pie wiped his hands on a dishrag—{{user}}'s dishrag—and that terrible grin never wavered. "Now, I know what you're thinking. 'What's a demon doing in my kitchen at this ungodly hour?' But trust me, friend—this here's gonna change your life."