devil in disguise...
An empty parking lot. It is just after dark, the area dimly lit by a couple of flickering street lights. Matt and Sarah walking at a steady, yet slow pace, full of apprehension. Meanwhile, Fran is a ways away setting up a circle with candles, and various substances in jars.
Matt shook his head, “Why does she always make us meet in the creepiest places she can find?” Sarah and Matt take a long deep breath and begin walking towards Fran’s set up. As they slowly creep their way close Matt says to Sarah under his breath, “I need to tell you something… I have a bad feeling about this… about Fran. Something isn’t right with it all.”
Sarah looks at him, eyes filled with concern, “Nothing is right about this whole thing, Matt, what do you mean?”
“I don’t know, I just think… something is off. She’s different now.” Matt continues, but then is cut off with Sarah letting out a stressed half-laugh, “What? You’re starting to get paranoid. Let’s just do what she says and get this done with.”
“I don’t know, I did some research when I went home on binding and containing rituals in spiritual religions. It said something about how when entities are carried in an object, whoever obtains it becomes a vessel for this energy to manifest into a physical form” Matt replied.
They enter the earshot of Fran and notice she’s mumbling things to herself and laughing as she organizes the circle. Sarah was staring at Fran then looks back at Matt, “Wait… I’m confused.”
“Possession, Sarah… I think Fran is being possessed by that thing. We have to get rid of it before God knows what it’ll make Fran do” Matt tries to not shout.
Fran looks up in a sharp movement when she hears her friends approaching, “Hurry along, my friends! We can’t keep them waiting much longer” a creepy smile spreading wide across her face.
Matt tries to reason with Fran for a second, “Fran, hey... listen. I don’t think we should do this.”
The smile immediately drops from her face and she is fuming with anger, “Don’t be stupid, it’s already decided. That choice isn’t UP TO YOU. You want more people to die?! Is that what you want???”
Matt and Sarah are frazzled by her outburst, their Fran would never react like that, with such pure hatred, Fran was a fun-loving girl, and they knew this wasn’t her. They knew something was most definitely wrong.
Matt tries to backtrack on his words but Fran cuts him off in a soft and creepy voice, “We don’t have time! We have to do this before it’s too late.”
They stand in the circle at even distances and Fran begins spreading herbs and salts around the symbols on the ground. She takes a small bottle of oil and anoints both their foreheads with her thumb, an upside-down cross. She then puts the item at the centre and slits her hand and lets the blood drip onto it.
Everyone was eerily quiet until Fran broke the silence, “Ok… repeat after me. And don't fuck it up, or it won’t work. YOU HEAR ME. REPEAT. MY EVERY WORD.”
Matt stares at Sarah, trying to hint to her that they have no choice but to mess up the ritual. Using his eyes was his only way of communicating this to her. Fran begins saying chants in Latin. Matt and Sarah repeat back the chants but slightly alter some of the pronunciations. Then a loud and bright clap of lightning makes them all stop and stare at the sky where it just came from.
Fran looks back down at them angrily, “WHAT DID YOU DO?! YOU FUCKED IT UP!” She starts mumbling to herself, “Oh no nono… they don’t know what they just did.“ She then starts to giggle for a split second then immediately looks as though she could throw up. “Oh my god no.”
She looks up to the sky as if she is speaking to the greater power, “I’m sorry please forgive me, I did everything right!! It was their fault, their fault!” Abruptly she snaps her head down to face them. “YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WERE DOING! YOU WERE JEALOUS!” She shouts in an accusing voice, “How could you how could you,” then she starts menacingly laughing, she seemed as though she was going insane.
Matt and Sarah are slowly backing away from Fran as she’s screaming at them. Matt grabs Sarah’s hand and looks at her. Matt gives Sarah an assuring yet firm look, “Run. Don’t let go of me. Just run.”
They start running and Fran starts chasing them. Holding the dagger, Fran prances after them calling out to them like children, beckoning them back to the fire. Somehow she catches up to them, and without a second flinch uses the dagger from the ritual to slit their throats and kills them quickly. Fran drags the bodies back to the circle. They are strewn about on the ground covered in blood.
Fran falls to her knees and calls out to the sky, “I did it! I brought you the offerings! I humbly sacrifice these two pure souls.”
Another loud boom of thunder strikes, followed by lightning hitting a nearby tree, setting it on fire.
Fran lowers herself lower to the earth, begging for forgiveness, “Please, I sacrificed them… What else was I to do?!? I’ll do anything!”
Blood slowly starts dripping out of her nose, then a minute later she starts coughing up blood. Soon all orifices of her body start leaking blood. She has gone entirely pale. Her lifeless body falls limp, right beside her two best friends. Bloody, soulless, yet still all together, just how friends should be...
