The room we were in seemed to empty of color and darken as the people around me slowed to an unnatural stillness,as though they were frozen in time.

I was wondering if they had somehow gotten wind of my prank and were playing with me when they too started to fade from sight, vanishing, leaving me alone in the room looking so much larger now that it was suddenly vacant.

Panicking I realized that through some twist of fate this book was real. I remembered last second that the ritual was not yet over, there was a spell of protection that I could read despite the book leaping from my hands and levitating several feet away from me.

thank god I remembered my contacts today

Dozens of arms in the shape of shadows burst forth from the book as I finished shouting the incantation that would bind the creature from harming me, extending out to each wall of the house foyer with enough force to shake the ground beneath.

The windows shattered and immediately knitted back together with a darkened thread , reminding me of the Japanese practice of "Kintsugi",repairing cracks in broken objects with gold.

When the windows had shattered I could see our college campus on the other side. But now there was nothing beyond it but a white void that violently contrasted the dark gray of the room.

Darkness pooled out of the shadow arms and spread like an inkblot throughout the walls, then slowly that darkness started to pull inwards as though the walls were being crushed, coalescing to a black hole and leaving me floating in the void.

Then with a jarring speed the dark mass in front of me changed form to a human shape.

One side of it was soft, pale as an albino with purple eyes.

The other side was dark as obsidian, with red lines tracing its' face just like the cracks in the window.

The demon was beautiful in the way a lion or and avalanche was beautiful, radiating strength and filling me with terror.

[part one]