Bound
Part I: The Spellbook
For as long as he could remember, Jimmy Michaels was in love with Emily Rosenberg.
She was everything he wasn't — golden, loud, cruel, untouchable. And yet, he didn't mind her teasing. He didn't even mind when she ordered the other boys in class to stuff him in a trash can. If anything, it meant she knew he existed.
To Jimmy, she wasn't just a girl.
She was a goddess.
He'd often ramble to his friends, Eric and Carl, while they loitered at the edge of the school courtyard.
"Glasses, comic books, manga, anime, LARPing—who the hell would fall in love with people like us? We're just placeholders. Background characters in her world."
Eric would grunt. Carl would laugh. They'd heard it a hundred times.
No matter how bitter Jimmy sounded, he was the first one to pre-order limited edition cosplay armor or cry over a heartbreaking anime ending. He could act jaded all he wanted—his heart was still wide open.
But everything changed that Friday.
It happened after school.
Jimmy had been shoved into the trash can again — routine stuff, nothing unusual. He'd expected laughter. A smug one-liner. A flip of her glossy hair. Something.
But this time, Emily paused. Looked down at him, sneering.
"Why don't you ever fight back, Jim?" she asked.
No one laughed.
Jimmy opened his mouth to answer — but the look in her eyes stopped him. It wasn't amusement. It was disgust.
"You're pathetic," she said. "You're not even worth bullying anymore."
Then she walked away.
Just like that, Jimmy Michaels became invisible.Emily had dropped him like a broken toy.
Two weeks passed.
Emily didn't look at him. Her friends didn't snicker when he walked by. It was like he'd been scrubbed from her world. A forgotten mistake.
He missed her.
Even the cruelty.
At least back then, even though she was mean, she actually directed her words at him.
Carl and Eric noticed. They didn't say much, just listened to Jimmy complain as he walked with them to the edge of their neighborhood. He always had to pass the house across from his own—the creepy one.
It belonged to an old woman no one really talked to. Rumors said she practiced dark magic. Always wore veils. Never aged. Jimmy had seen her exactly twice — and both times, she looked straight through him.
Her house felt wrong. The windows were always closed, yet the curtains inside fluttered. The porch light flickered even when no one touched it.
And one night, everything changed.
Jimmy was staring out his bedroom window around 10 p.m. when a car pulled up in front of the creepy house. A woman got out — pale, frantic, angry. She stormed to the front door and slammed it open.
Moments later, the house erupted in flames.
No sound.
No screaming.
Just fire.
The woman got back in the car and drove away, never looking back.
Jimmy stared, frozen, watching the flames consume the house. A moment later, sirens wailed down the street.
By morning, it was nothing but smoldering ash and black wood.
The old woman's body was never found.
Saturday came — a day Jimmy usually dreaded because it meant no school, no chance of seeing Emily.
But this time, he had a reason to wander.
He slipped on gloves and ventured into the ruins of the burned house-Just to see if any valuables survived the fire.
He climbed over a collapsed beam, stepped around a scorched dresser.
Then he saw it.
Among the ruin, untouched by flame, lay a single object: a book. Charred but intact. Its cover bore one word, etched in deep, red ink:
"Lucifer."
Jimmy picked it up.
"Seriously?" he muttered, flipping through pages covered in strange symbols, diagrams, and twisted Latin-like glyphs.
Curious.He took it straight to his room and examined the pages.
A witch's grimoire.
The rumors were real.
He laughed — a wide, manic laugh — and cheered so loud that his mom came running up the stairs, knocking on the door with concern.
"You okay up there?"
Jimmy quickly shoved the book under his blanket.
"Yeah! Just… anime!"
His mom groaned and went back downstairs.
Jimmy turned back to the book.
His fingers itched as he touched the strange ink
Part II: The Spell
Jimmy couldn't sleep that Saturday night.
He didn't even eat dinner.
The book had his undivided attention.
By 10 p.m., he cracked. He texted Eric and Carl:
"You need to see this. Now."
He sent a picture of the book's cover into their group chat. Black leather, scorched edges, and that one strange word written across the center in deep red: Lucifer.
Within ten minutes, the three of them were bundled up in Jimmy's attic room, crouched around the book under candlelight. The grimoire gave off a strange smell — like burnt matches and something older.
They skimmed through pages filled with symbols and twisted glyphs.
The language looked like a corrupted blend of English, Latin, and German — crude, ancient, wrong. Many of the pages seemed to describe curses, summoning rituals, and contracts.
But then they saw it.
A spell written in plain English.
To Bind Affection Eternal
Carl squinted and grinned.
"Well, look at that. A love spell. Guess you're about to make Emily your anime waifu, Jimmy."
They laughed.
But Jimmy didn't.
His eyes were locked on the page, burning with something sharp and electric.
"What if we actually did it?" he said.
Carl and Eric blinked.
"You're joking, right?"
"Please tell me you're joking."
Jimmy didn't answer.
Eventually, the others got restless. It was getting late.
"Anyway, it's like one-thirty," Carl said. "We should dip before my mom finds out I'm not home. She'll go full demon without needing a spellbook."
"Yeah," Eric added, stretching. "Let's bounce."
"Alright," Jimmy said. "Later, guys."
Once they were gone, the room fell silent again.
The candle flickered.
The book sat open like it was calling out to him.
And curiosity gnawed at Jimmy's spine.
He gave in.
He studied the spell more closely. The instructions were simple:
A drop of the caster's blood.
A personal item belonging to the one desired.
A candle placed at the center of a pentagram.
And finally — their name, chanted aloud.
Jimmy did it all.
He drew a rough pentagram on notebook paper and placed a stub of wax candle in the center.
From his drawer, he took out a crumpled detention slip — Emily's. She had thrown it at him last term after she got caught copying his homework.He'd kept it as a souvenir.
He pricked his thumb and let three drops fall onto the paper.
Then, he held the slip above the flame until it caught fire and crumbled to ash.
"Emily Rosenberg," he whispered.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The room grew cold.
The candle's flame snapped and vanished.
The shadows thickened.
Jimmy gasped — his breath visible in the air for just a moment.
Then… nothing.
No thunder. No vision. No voice.
Just the quiet hum of the dark.
He stared at the cold candle and sighed.
"Well… that was a big nothing."
Disappointed but drained, Jimmy crawled into bed.
Part III: She Came Back
Sunday morning passed in a haze.
Jimmy barely moved. He kept rereading the same spell over and over, expecting the page to change, vanish, react — but it didn't.
He spent the whole day staring at the book, waiting for something — a knock, a whisper, a flicker of flame.
But nothing came.
Monday
School felt no different at first.
Same crowds. Same noise. Same indifferent stares. Jimmy kept his head low as usual, arms wrapped around his books, expecting the world to ignore him like always.
Until it didn't.
As he passed the courtyard, he saw her.
Emily Rosenberg.
She stood near the vending machines — alone. Her friends weren't around. That, in itself, was strange. But stranger still was the way she looked at him.
Not with disgust or amusement.
She looked at him like she recognized him. Like she'd been waiting.
Then she smiled.
Jimmy froze.
She walked straight up to him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Hey, Jimmy," she said softly, blushing.
He stared. "…Hi?"
"You've been on my mind a lot lately."
Jimmy blinked, unsure if this was a prank, a setup, a hallucination. But her eyes didn't lie. They shimmered with warmth — almost too much warmth, like someone mimicking affection they didn't quite understand.
"Can I sit with you today?" she asked.
He nodded slowly.
She smiled again and brushed past him, her hand lightly grazing Carl's arm.
Carl flinched.
Lunch
Emily sat beside Jimmy in the cafeteria, her tray untouched. She didn't eat. She didn't even glance at her food. She just stared at him — too long, too intently — smiling and blinking far too little.Her friends kept staring at her-laughing as if this was some elaborate prank.
She laughed at every joke. Nodded at everything he said. Her head tilted at unnatural angles, like she was trying to study him more than talk.
When she stood up to get a napkin, Carl leaned in.
"Dude. What the hell is going on?"
"The spell," Jimmy whispered, unable to stop the smile creeping across his face. "I think it worked."
Carl didn't smile.
"How could you be so dumb, Jimmy? That book was clearly demonic.You were not supposed to tamper with it.Or play with unknown forces."
Eric frowned. "She's acting like she doesn't remember anything. Like she never bullied you. She's… too nice. Too perfect."
Jimmy said nothing.
He didn't care what it meant. She was his now.
For the first time in years, she wasn't mocking him. She wasn't laughing at him.
She was looking at him like he mattered.
Emily came back with the napkin, still smiling.
Carl and Eric stood up and left without a word.
They couldn't sit and smile with their tormentor — not when something about her felt off.
And not when Jimmy looked so willing to ignore it.
"I bet Jimmy didn't even notice how cold and lifeless her hands felt.",Carl muttered to Eric as they walked off.
Part IV: The Warning
Jimmy hadn't spoken to Eric or Carl in days.
His attention had shifted entirely to Emily.
Her voice. Her touch. Her sudden, unnatural affection.
He barely responded to their texts anymore — if at all.
Eric grew frustrated. Carl grew suspicious.
They made a decision.
They were going to steal the book.
One afternoon, while Jimmy was off with Emily, Eric slipped into Jimmy's attic room through the side window. The grimoire was still there — untouched, yet buzzing with something foul beneath its pages. Carl kept watch from across the street.
They took photos of the spell. Copied its symbols. Scoured forums. Searched through occult archives, conspiracy threads, and dark web mirrors.
It took hours.
Then Carl found it.
A single Reddit post, buried in an abandoned thread titled:
"The Witch Who Sold Me Love"
A woman had written — four years ago — about a creepy old lady who gave her a "love ritual." One that would make the man she loved "forever hers." She followed it exactly.
Days later, the man was dead.
Except… he walked.
He looked the same. Smiled the same. Spoke the same.
But he wasn't the same.
"Something else came back in his body," the woman had written.
"It loved me — too much. Too possessively.
I killed him to be loved.
Now I have to destroy him to be free."
"The vessel must be destroyed.
That's the only way to send the demon back to hell."
Eric and Carl exchanged horrified looks. They sent screenshots to Jimmy, one after another.
But Jimmy didn't respond.
His tongue was too deep in Emily's mouth.
They tried to talk to him in person.
Cornered him in the hallway. Whispered warnings.
But Emily was always there.
And every time they spoke, she glared at them — her smile never leaving her lips, but her eyes sharp and inhuman.
Stay away from him, they seemed to say.
He belongs to me now.
That night
Carl sat in his room, excited to watch the premiere of an anime he'd been reading the manga for since middle school. The opening song came on — nostalgic, comforting.
Then…
He heard it again.
The same opening song.
Being hummed, softly, outside his window.
Carl froze.
It wasn't coming from his screen.
It was outside.
He stood up, cautiously pulled aside the curtain — and stopped breathing.
Emily stood by the tree outside his house.
Leaning against the bark.
Grinning.
Humming his favorite song — off-key and wrong.
Her eyes gleamed in the darkness.
The next morning
Carl was gone.
No one had seen him.
No one had heard from him.
His room was undisturbed...
Except for one thing.
His phone scrambled into pieces on the floor.
A voice message, left on Eric's phone at 2:06 a.m.:
"Emily's outside my house… she's hovering over the window, she's gonna kill me—"
"AAAH—!"
The message cut off.
Eric played it on repeat, in silence.
Jimmy didn't seem to notice Carl's absence at all.
Emily sat beside him at lunch as if nothing had happened — eating nothing, smiling endlessly, her hand wrapped tightly around Jimmy's.
Even her old friends — the girls who used to squeal and gossip beside her — now avoided her entirely.
They didn't laugh anymore.
They didn't even wave.
They just walked faster when she was near.
Chapter V: The Disappearing Children
By Tuesday, the school halls had grown quieter.
It wasn't the kind of quiet that meant peace — it was the kind of silence that clung to the walls, heavy and watchful.
People noticed.
They whispered.
Because by now, Carl wasn't the only one missing.
One by one, Emily's friends began to vanish.
First was Lara, the one always glued to her phone.
Her parents reported her missing when she didn't come home Monday night.
Then came Nia — gone the next morning, her locker still full, untouched.
Next was Tasha, then Brooke.
All of them vanished within 48 hours.
No signs of struggle.
No notes.
No goodbyes.
Their parents panicked. Flyers were printed. News vans camped outside the school. Teachers tried to act normal.
But the students knew better.
Something was wrong.
Something unspoken.
Through it all, Emily remained unchanged.
She showed no worry for her missing friends.
Didn't ask. Didn't even blink.
She kept smiling.
She held Jimmy's hand tighter every day — her nails growing longer, sharper, yet he never seemed to notice.
Sometimes she'd hum songs no one taught her, tunes that sounded like lullabies whispered from underground.
Only one of her old friends remained: Rosie Penner.
Rosie had always been the shyest of the group — the one who never laughed the loudest or dressed the boldest. She stayed in the background. Watched. Noticed things.
And lately… she'd been watching Emily.
Wednesday, after school
Rosie stopped Eric in the hallway.
"You're friends with Jimmy, right?"
Eric blinked. "I was."
"I need to talk to you. Somewhere no one can hear."
They met behind the old gym, where the school cameras didn't reach and the teachers never checked.
Rosie's hands were trembling.
"They're all gone," she whispered. "All of them. Emily... She took them."
Eric stared. "What do you mean she took them?"
"Nia's house is not far from mine.We use binoculars to see each other while talking on the phone,I saw Emily enter through the window.Nia screamed and went silent after...Her room's on the second floor."
Eric's stomach turned cold. "You saw her?"
Rosie nodded.
"Last night. She was outside my window. Just… watching.I thought I was done for."
Her eyes welled with tears.
That night, Eric stayed up late, heart pounding, curtains drawn, light off.
At 2:11 a.m., he received a text from an unknown number:
I saw you with her.
You're next.
Attached was a blurry photo.
Of him.
From behind.
Walking to school that morning.
Part VI: Anchor
Eric didn't go to school the next day.
He couldn't.
Not while something out there wanted him dead.
Not while Emily was dating his best friend's corpse.
But—neither did Rosie.
They kept texting back and forth throughout the day, just to confirm they were still safe. Still alive.
"I have something to tell you," Eric texted.
"I can explain it better face to face."
At this point, Rosie had no choice.
She invited him over.
Eric hopped on his bike and rode through the storm, the rain cutting into his skin. He pedaled harder, faster, fueled by fear and urgency.
A loud knock rattled the door.
"It's me—Eric!" he shouted over the rain.
Rosie opened the door. Her face was pale. Her hands trembled.
Moments later, Eric was inside, towel-dried, and seated on the floor of her room, still dripping adrenaline.
He told her everything.
Everything about the spell.
The book.
The symbols.
The moment Jimmy chanted Emily's name over fire.
Rosie's expression darkened with every word.
Then she shrieked —
when Eric finally said:
"We have to kill Emily before she kills us."
"No—no, there has to be another way," Rosie said quickly, spinning toward her computer. Her fingers slammed the keys. "There has to be a way to reverse this…"
She started surfing the web.In a frenzy.
Eric re-sent the original Reddit post Carl had found.
But Rosie wasn't interested in that one.
She was digging deeper.
"What if the girl who wrote that post wasn't the only one?"
She scrolled through the original poster's comment history.
Most of it was deleted.
Dead links. Purged threads.
Except for one comment…
on an unrelated ghost story, buried in a five-year-old thread:
"If anyone finds a book called 'Lucifer' — don't read the page that glows."
"Don't speak the name of the one you love while the flame is open. It's not a wish. It's a transaction."
"You give the name. It takes the body. And it wears their skin like a suit."
Rosie's hands began to shake.
"That's what happened to Emily."
Eric whispered, "She's not just possessed…"
"She's dead," Rosie said flatly. "And something's wearing her."
They sat in stunned silence.
Only the rain tapping gently on the window reminded them the world still existed.
Then Rosie's voice dropped to a whisper.
"There's more."
She scrolled further, uncovering one final post.
A private message response. The account deleted.
But the words remained:
"The demon won't leave unless its anchor is broken."
"The anchor is the one who summoned it — the person it's 'bound' to."
"So long as they're alive, the demon stays."
Eric's face went cold.
"It's not just wearing Emily…"
"It's tethered to Jimmy."
They stared at the screen, realization sinking in.
If Jimmy lived…
The demon stayed.
And it would keep feeding.
One by one.
The house creaked around them.
The storm outside had softened to a whisper, but the air felt heavier. Like something was listening.
Eric stood up, pacing.
His fingers fidgeted at his sleeves.
"We need to tell Jimmy. Show him what we found."
Rosie didn't look away from the screen.
"Do you really think he'll listen?"
Eric didn't answer.
He didn't want to admit it —
but no, Jimmy wouldn't.
Suddenly, Rosie's laptop flickered.
The screen glitched, lines of static tearing across the browser. Then it went black.
A low whirr began to buzz from the speakers — like a radio dial stuck between frequencies.
"What the hell…"
Rosie reached for the mouse — but the cursor moved on its own.
It hovered over a blank, black window.
Then, letters began to type.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
YOU'RE GETTING TOO CLOSE.
STAY AWAY FROM HIM.
OR I'LL TAKE YOU NEXT.
The screen turned off.
And the lights went out.
Rosie screamed and jumped back. Eric grabbed her arm, heart pounding, ears ringing from silence.
The only light came from outside —
streetlamps casting pale orange shadows through the blinds.
And in the flickering silhouette of the living room window…
They saw it.
A shape. Standing still. Perfectly still.
A girl.
Hair soaked.
Head tilted.
Smiling.
Her hand gently traced Rosie's name onto the fogged glass.
Letter by letter.
Eric reached to pull the curtain shut — but the girl vanished before he touched it.
No footsteps.
No movement.
Just gone.
They didn't sleep that night.
Not really.
Eric stayed on the couch with a kitchen knife beside him.
Rosie sat on the floor with the grimoire's screenshots, phone flashlight dimmed to a sliver.
And somewhere between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m., she whispered something Eric would never forget:
"I think she knows we figured it out."
"I think... she wants to see who breaks first."
Part VII: The Anchor Must Break
Morning crept in through the curtains.
The storm was gone. The sun had risen. But it didn't feel like safety.
Eric stirred on Rosie's couch, fingers still wrapped around the kitchen knife. Rosie was curled on the floor nearby, slumped over her laptop, a half-filled notebook beside her.
Then —
PING. PING. PING.
Eric's phone vibrated violently against the coffee table. He jerked upright.
Messages from Jimmy.
Dozens.
He opened them.
They were death threats.
And one message stood out in particular:
Stop texting Emily.
Eric's blood ran cold. His fingers hovered over the screen.
Emily?
He hadn't texted Emily.
He didn't even have her number...
He scrolled up.
There — messages. Dozens of them. Some flirty. Some obsessive. Some disturbing.
All from him.
All to her.
But he didn't write them.
Jimmy was gone.
Whatever part of him had once been a friend… had withered.
The anchor was rotting — and the demon feeding on it was digging in deeper.
By noon, Eric had gone home.
Rosie kept texting updates. Possible rituals. Weakening spells. Obscure banishment methods.
But their resolution had already been sealed:
Emily had to die.
And if Jimmy stood in the way… so did he.
Friday – 5:47 p.m.
The house was quiet.
Eric's mom had gone to church, like every Friday. She wouldn't be back for hours.
He sat alone in the living room, the kitchen knife still close by, phone charging on the couch. Every creak of the floorboards upstairs made his skin crawl.
The air was thick. Heavy.
He opened his notebook, flipping to the page Rosie had helped him draw. A salt circle. A break-the-bond chant. A ritual that might, just might, sever Jimmy from the demon long enough to—
THUMP.
Eric froze.
Another thump.
Above him.
His mother's room.
She was supposed to be gone.
His breathing slowed. He reached for the knife.
"Text Rosie." He told himself. "Now."
As he unlocked the phone, a final ping came through.
From Jimmy.
A single photo.
Eric's front door.
Taken from outside.
Then another.
Eric's bedroom window.
Then—
Another.
A new photo.
The stairwell.
Inside the house.
"You shouldn't have told her." Jimmy's voice echoed- singsongy."I liked you better when you were scared of girls,Eric."He mocked, descending down the stairs-Emily smiling behind him.
Eric could barely breathe.
"You've been busy," Jimmy said, taking another step forward. "Salt circles? Banishing chants?"
He giggled.
"You know what I think?"
He stopped at the bottom stair, cocking his head.
"I think Rosie made you brave. And I think…"
He turned, smiling back at Emily.
"I think we should rip her out of you."
Emily took a step forward.
Her fingers dragged along the wall, leaving behind faint black marks.
Eric stepped back again, knife trembling in his grip.
They were inside.
Both of them.
Together.
And whatever was inside Emily…
had its claws deep inside Jimmy now.
Part VIII: I Came Prepared
"Kill him."
Emily's voice screeched, as if muffled by screams from Hell.
It wasn't just her voice — it was layered, twisted with something else.
Something ancient.
Jimmy didn't hesitate.
He pulled out a black-plated knife — curved and ceremonial, like it had been used for sacrifice.
He swung.
Eric barely dodged, the blade hissing through the air where his neck had been just a second ago.
He hit the floor hard, scrambled backward, and kicked a chair between them — buying seconds.
Jimmy came at him again, the blade crashing into the dining table, splinters flying everywhere.
Eric didn't realize he had crawled all the way to Emily's feet.
He looked up — and froze.
Her eyes were solid black, bottomless voids.
Her teeth were razor sharp, her grin splitting far too wide.
Her fingers and nails were pitch black, stretched into something inhuman.
Then she lunged, her body descending over him like a collapsing shadow — ready to devour him whole.
CRACK!
The front door swung open.
"Eric!"
Rosie burst in, panting, soaked in rain — reciting Latin in a trembling voice.
She held up a Bible in one hand, and a rosary in the other.
She came as soon as she could when she could no longer find Eric in the phone.
Sanctus Dominus, exorcizamus te.
Omnis spiritus immundus, qui in hoc corpore habitat, te denuntiamus.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,
Discede! Recede ad tenebras inferni!
Non habes ...
Emily shrieked — and recoiled.
Her form began to twitch, shiver… shrink.
The spell was hurting her.
Jimmy saw Rosie — and snapped.
She was a threat to their love.
He ran toward her, knife raised. Rosie barely got a scream out before Jimmy tackled her to the ground, knocking the Bible and rosary from her hands.
"Rosie!" Eric shouted.
He surged forward, grabbing Jimmy from behind.
They wrestled — fists, elbows, knees — fighting for the fallen knife.
Suddenly —
Everyone froze.
Emily rose again.
The Bible was on the floor, forgotten.
So was the rosary.
Her bones began to crack.
Her limbs lengthened.
Her spine arched backwards with a sickening snap.
Her skin tore in places, revealing writhing shadows underneath — as if something was emerging from within.
Like a butterfly crawling out of a cocoon.
Only this wasn't a butterfly.
It was a demon.
Hunched, winged, grotesque. Horns curved up from her skull. Her eyes were endless pits of darkness. Her teeth never stopped sharpening.
The room fell silent.
All three stared at her in horror.
"Beautiful," Jimmy whispered, voice now deep and layered like hers.
Black tears of blood rolled down his cheek.
His eyes were gone — only voids remained.
Eric's hand found the knife.
He grabbed it — stood in front of Rosie, shielding her.
But the demon charged.
Full speed.
She smashed into both of them, slamming them into the wall.
Rosie coughed blood. Eric's head spun.
But Rosie forced herself up.
She crawled to the fallen rosary, gripped it tight, and began chanting again through sobs and blood.
...potestatem hic.
Crux Christi te conterat.
Sanguis Agni sacri te ardeat.
Lucem Dei non potes videre. Lucem Dei time!
Rosarium tenemus. Fidem...
The candle died.The room was eerily dark.
And the demon… screeched..
Part IX: Severed Ties
Jimmy's head rang.
"Ghh—make it stop!"
He groaned, staggering, hands clutching his skull.
He smashed his head against the wall.
Then the bookshelf.
Then the table.
"MAKE HER STOP!" the demon howled through him — its voice shredding Jimmy's throat.
The Latin chants.
Rosie's prayers.
They were burning inside him.
Jimmy screamed — and hurled a chair.
It struck Rosie square in the chest.
She collapsed backward, her head hitting the floorboards hard.
CRACK.
The world went dark for her.
She couldn't finish the prayer.
Moments later...
Eric's eyes snapped open.
He forced himself up and saw it.
Rosie was floating.
Suspended midair, her limbs limp, her mouth slightly open.
The demon hovered above her — tendrils of black mist coiling from its mouth into hers, pulling something unseen but glowing from her chest.
Her soul.
Jimmy stood still behind the demon, eyes glassy, mouth slightly agape.
Like he wasn't there anymore.
Like he was just waiting for it to finish.
Eric didn't wait.
He crawled forward, fingers brushing over the floor — searching—until they wrapped around the ritual knife.
He stood.
Steady.
Silent.
Then—
stab.
Straight into Jimmy's chest.
The blade sank deep.
Jimmy gasped.
"I'm sorry."Eric cried.
He collapsed, the life draining from his eyes.
The demon shrieked.
"NO!"
She lunged toward Eric in a blur of shadow and wings — but it was too late.
Her tether was gone.
Jimmy — her anchor — was dead.
She screamed, her form spasming violently as cracks of white light tore through her blackened skin.
She shrunk — rapidly — folding inward, screaming all the while as her body was pulled into itself.
Until—
POP.
A final burst of shadow.
And then only mist remained — cold, black mist that twisted into a thin strand…
…and slithered across the floor, embedding itself back into the grimoire.
Right on the page titled:
"To Bind Affection Eternal"
The ink on the page pulsed once.
Then stilled.
Rosie lay unconscious.
Eric dropped the knife, shaking.
And somewhere in the distance…
The house exhaled.
Like the end of a nightmare that still didn't feel like it was over.
Part X: Everything Changed
A few moments passed.
Rosie stirred.
Her head throbbed. Her ribs ached. Her vision swam.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Red and blue lights flickered across the shattered living room walls.
Eric's house was now a crime scene.
He was the prime suspect —
And Rosie, an accomplice to the murder of Jimmy Michaels… and the disappearance of four other teenagers.
Nothing they told the police made sense.
Demonic possession? A cursed love spell?
A black mist hiding inside a book?
The officers exchanged looks. Took notes. Said nothing.
But then —
proof.
Eric's mother, devastated but desperate to clear her son's name, handed over the CCTV footage from the home.
Security cameras she'd installed months ago.
It showed Jimmy entering the house on his own.
Showed Rosie arriving — holding a Bible.
And showed Emily's reflection in the mirror — twisting, warping, unrecognizable.
Enough to make one detective hesitate.
Enough to make her pastor act.
Within days, the church summoned two of the world's most experienced exorcists.
Scholars of demonology. Survivors of things the world pretended didn't exist.
The grimoire was taken into their care — sealed, bound, and hidden away in a place the public would never know.
The house was cleansed.
Salted.
Sanctified.
But some doors, once opened, never truly close.
Eric and Rosie never returned to school.
Too many eyes.
Too many whispers.
Too much lost.
But they stayed in contact.
In grief.
In shared silence.
The bond between them only grew stronger.
Because no one else would ever understand what they had seen.
Or what they had survived.
But sometimes…
Eric still dreams of Jimmy.
In a place without light.
A void, endless and echoing.
And Jimmy's there.
Crying.
Eyes hollow.
Voice warped.
Tears like ink rolling down his cheeks.
"It's all your fault, Eric…" Jimmy would say in a distorted voice.
Eric wakes screaming.
Rosie holds his hand until he calms down.
Rosie began taking demonology classes -To become an exorcist.She was recommended to the Vatican by Pastor Simons, Eric's mom's pastor after her display of bravery against demonic forces.
No one ever found Carl.
Or Nia.
Or Lara.
Or the others.
Maybe they're in a better place.
Or maybe they're not.
But one thing is certain:
Love should never be forced.
And the things we wish for in the dark…
Sometimes wish for us, too.
The End