"Hey Malorie, you're into all that weird occult stuff, right?" Henry asked, putting his lunch tray next to hers and sitting down across from Marco.

"Yeah, why?" she replied, "Your cousin buy a Ouija board or something?"

Henry tilted his head. "Actually it's my uncle, he bought an old house to refurbish and he thinks it must've belonged to a Satanist or a cultist at some point cause he found a bunch of culty stuff in the attic." He took a bite of his sandwich. "Thought you guys might want to take a look."

Marco's jaw dropped. Malorie put her hands on the table. "Um, yeah, of course we're interested! What kind of 'culty stuff'?"

Henry shrugged. "He didn't say much. I guess I'll pick up the stuff after school and you guys can meet me at my place. How's 4:00?"

"Sweet, man! See you then!" said Marco.

Both Malorie and Marco arrived just before 4:00. Marco brought Ariana, his girlfriend ("she's not my girlfriend, we just, um, hang out a lot,"). They chatted for a bit about school but it didn't take long for them to break out the box filled with his uncle's cult stuff.

The first few layers held your basic cultist paraphernalia, candles, a black cloak, and a very old-looking knife to name a few. Then they got to the more interesting things.

Marco pulled out a tarnished silver pendant with a bright green skull embedded in.

"Whoa, what sort of stone do you think that is?" Malorie asked, taking the necklace and rubbing at the stone skull. "It looks too bright to be jade."

Ariana shrugged. "It's probably just resin. You see that kind of stuff all the time these days."

Sitting at the bottom of the box, buried in dried flower petals, was a book. Henry pulled it out and flipped through the brittle pages. The faded ink looked like incomprehensible scribbles.

"Is that real leather?" Ariana asked. Malorie took the book from Henry.

"It's human skin," said Marco with a stupid grin. Ariana elbowed him.

Malorie flipped through the pages, examining the writing and the drawings. "What language do you think that is?" asked Henry.

Malorie hummed and stared at the scribbles. "I think... it's messy cursive Latin." She turned the next page and stopped. The four of them looked at the drawing of a large armored figure with horns, a mane of hair, and on fire, adorning the page.

"Is that Satan?" Henry asked uncertainly.

"Someone pull up Google Translate," Malorie said.

Making out the faded and messy writing they were able to determine that "Rex de Manes" meant "King of Ghosts."

"Wait, I'm still not clear, is that Satan or no?" asked Ariana. Everyone shrugged.

Malorie turned the page to reveal lots of writing and a sigil of some sort.

"Bro, is that a summoning ritual for the King of Ghosts guy?" Marco asked enthusiastically. Malorie put down the book and typed frantically into Google Translate.

"Looks like it," she said, smiling. "I guess I know what we're doing tonight."

Maggie translated the rest of the ritual using a flashlight in the car as they drove to the dollar store to get chalk for the sigil, a lighter for the candles, and bandages for the blood sacrifice.

"Wait, are you seriously going to cut yourself open for this?" Henry asked.

Marco grinned. "You only live once, right?"

Ariana in the meantime had found an abandoned warehouse on Google maps, and Henry started driving.

"It says that we need the blood of a virgin," Malorie said.

"Oh, dude!" Marco grinned, hitting Henry roughly on the shoulder, "looks like it's up to you!"

"Shut up!" replied Henry with a grin as everyone laughed.

They arrived at the warehouse shortly after and began setting up the ritual. Malorie drew the circle and Ariana lit candles. Marco put on the cloak, grinning.

"How do I look?" he asked.

"Like an idiot," responded Henry.

Marco glanced over Malorie's notes. The actual words of summoning were meant to be said in Latin, as it was a dead language or whatever, and Marco had the best pronunciation.

Meanwhile, Henry psyched himself up to cut his arm open. It was all mostly a joke anyway, but a small superstitious part of him was nervous about the whole thing. He couldn't tell if the blade seemed to glow slightly in the darkness or if it was just him.

Finally, everyone took their places around the circle, and Marco began chanting. "O Rex Mortuus est, et potens, princeps omnium Infinita Regna, vestri humiles servi vocat te de aliis, ut mortale hoc planum." A cold wind began to blow through the warehouse, and the flames of the candles flickered. The breeze picked up dust from the warehouse floor and swirled it in a dust devil at the center of the sigil. Their hair began to whip around their heads, and Henry saw in the flickering light that Marco's cloak was being blown around. Marco paused in his speaking as his heart began to beat faster and a shiver ran down his spine.

"Keep going," Malorie shouted over the wind.

Marco took a breath and continued. "Venire, quod ego, ut servire tua, et terribilis causa, et ardebit cum ira et potentia." The wind had really picked up by that point, and the pages flipped rapidly through the book on the floor.

The handle of the blade grew hot in Henry's hand and the blade really did begin to glow a sickly green. He positioned it over his forearm shakily. His breath came in faster, and despite the heat of the blade, he felt cold. "I-I don't know about this guys," Henry said, unsure whether his quiet voice had made it over the roar of the wind. He began to lower the knife shakily.

"Oh, give it here," said Ariana, taking it from him. In one swift movement, she ran the blade across her arm, flinging the droplets of blood into the circle.

As soon as they hit the ground the wind blew out from the center of the sigil, snuffing the candles and leaving them in darkness.

There was a cold hollow crack, like bones breaking against metal, and the candles suddenly flashed an intensely bright acid green. The flames spread along the lines of the sigil, rising higher and higher. The room grew colder and the fire died down. Standing in the middle as the candle flames faded back to yellow, was a boy, their age if not younger, holding a half-eaten sandwich.

The room was silent, no one moving. The four friends were in shock, minds blank. Sure, they weren't really expecting the ritual to work, to summon some great King of Ghosts, but the absolute last thing they expected was for it to actually summon a kid.

"What just happened?" Henry whispered in disbelief, breaking the deafening silence.

"Isn't that my line?" asked the kid. He looked around, taking in the candles, the sigil, the cloak, and Ariana, with blood dripping down her arm. "Are you guys cultists? Did you just- did you just summon me?"

"A-are you the King of Ghosts?" asked Marco. The kid stared at him and Marco quickly looked at the floor.

"What do you want with the King of Ghosts?" the boy asked.

The four of them looked around at each other blankly, and Malorie was the first to speak. "We just wanted to try it. We didn't think it was actually... Gonna... Work."

The boy scoffed and stared at them in disbelief. "Well then you better send me back," he said taking a bite of his sandwich, "before I give you a permanent reason not to mess around with this crap." The statement was threatening despite being said through a mouthful of turkey and cheese on wheat.

Malorie frantically flipped through pages in the book. "Um, it, um, doesn't say how?" Her voice was higher than normal.

The boy stopped swallowed. "You, cloak guy," he said, pointing to Marco with his sandwich, "you're driving me home." Marco stuttered.

"Aren't you supposed to rule over the underworld or something?" asked Ariana.

"Infinite Realms," Malorie corrected quietly.

"Yeah," said the boy, stepping out of the circle, "but I live in Amity Park." He began walking towards the doors and stopped when the other four weren't following.

"Hurry up, I have school in the morning."