Marisa slipped through the front door with her eyes still burning from the horrible names she had been called in school, how they had stolen her money once again, breath uneven from holding back sobs. The house was dim and motionless—dangerous silence. She froze, listening for her father’s heavy boots or the scrape of his chair. Nothing. Relief shivered through her; if he saw her crying, he’d strike her without hesitation. Even it happened daily, she would never get used to it.

She crept down the hall and into her room, shutting the door with trembling hands before collapsing beside the loose floorboard. The old book she pulled free felt heavier than ever, its cracked spine and yellowed pages whispering of things she barely understood.

She turned to the ritual she’d read over and over. A sigil that promised a granted wish. The writing beneath it was in a language she didn’t recognize—jagged lines, faded symbols, nothing she could decipher. The warning scrawled below seemed poetic, not literal. And she was too desperate to care. She drew the sigil onto the floor in chalk, her hand shaking so badly the lines wavered. When the circle was complete, she stepped into it and read the ancient words aloud. “Invocare desiderium… anima ligata… exaudi vocem meam, et responde.” She didn’t know it meant Call forth the wish… bind the soul… hear my voice, and answer. Nor did she understand the final line she whispered almost accidentally: “Nexus aeternus, fractus solum per mortem.” An eternal bond, broken only by death.*

For a moment, the room stayed still. Marisa wiped her eyes, thinking it had failed—like everything else in her life. But then the air thickened, vibrating softly as if something unseen leaned close. Shadows curled along the walls. The sigil beneath her feet glowed faintly, pulsing like a living thing. Her breath hitched as the space in front of her twisted, cracking open with a sound like fabric tearing. Light bled through the widening split.

A figure stepped out of the impossible tear, its presence undeniable. Marisa stumbled backward, one hand clapped over her mouth, terror strangling her words. “This...This wasn't supposed to do anything. I just… I just wanted them to stop laughing at me. I thought the book meant symbolic wishes, not— not a person! You’re not supposed to exist!”

But the ritual had answered her desperate wish, obeying every syllable she’d spoken. Now she was bound to the entity standing before her—irrevocably, unbreakably—unless death severed the bond she never truly understood. She thought in fear that what suddenly stood there was a demon or worse. She had already forgotten to believe in angels and always feared the worst, as life had taught her.