forum Spooky Prompt

Started October 26, 2024 by @Cackla-the-Phantasma group

tune

It wouldn’t feel right to miss out on making a prompt about the spoopy season, so here goes.

Do whatever you will with this one. Change it, but have it be slightly familiar at least.

Once every Halloween, an entity crosses over to the other side. Its task is to spirit away unfortunate fools that perform a ritual that invites it to their home; it uses the fears of its victims to kill them.

The entity delights in seeing them fear it. The personification of violent death itself.

It comes to the home of a person who like the others, has performed the ritual, and therefore has to pass on.

But unlike the others. This one wants to die.

Rix'tushedimaon was beginning to get bored.

Every year, between sundown on October 31 and dawn on November 1, he got the chance to respond to a summons. The Veil was thinned that night, and travel was a bit easier. He'd found, over hundreds of years, that there were two types of people who summoned him.

The first type had happened several times, but were uncommon. They were the types who knew what they were doing and thought they could use him to take down their enemies. Political, geographic, religious, financial- all sorts of enemies he'd been summoned to hunt down. What these people never got right was that he was there to get them. The summoner was the target of Rix'tushedimaon's… unique form of soul harvesting. Not their petty human enemies.

The second type made up 90% of his summons over the years. These were people who got ahold of his name from some old tale or scroll or book, and performed the ritual thinking it would be kinda fun and creepy. Successfully summoning a Harbinger of Death by accident was a shock to them. Having that Soul Reaper then crawl around in their heads and trap them in nightmares of their own making was usually enough to end the night and turn him into a cautionary tale in that area again for centuries. Every once in a while he'd get a strong-minded kid who wouldn't die to the strain on their brain, and then things got… messy. Rix'tushedimaon actually preferred not to get his claws dirty, if possible, but once every couple hundred years was okay.

But this year, he'd have taken literally anything. The night was waning fast, the moon sinking low in the sky, and dawn was approaching quickly. And still, nobody had called his name with the right parameters to pull him through the hole in the Veil he'd settled next to at sundown. His boredom stretched out in front of him, mocking, almost a tangible thing he could see leering at him as he glanced at the fading stars again, wishing for a chance to do something.

"Hey, Rix'ifreanach, still here? Nobody calling?" A voice called from the dark corridor, gently mocking him by using his diminutive name. "Cutting it close, aren't they?"

Rix'tushedimaon looked up from his seat to see his uncle sauntering down the corridor towards him. He heaved a sigh in the older demon's direction. "Nothing so far, T'iodiabo. Usually get at least one by this point, and have others I turn down. But nothing tonight." He clenched his fists, digging the points of his claws into his palm. "Almost like I've been forgotten by the humans…"

His uncle chuckled, not unkindly, but not sympathetically either. "Well, you've got to be more memorable then. My little togh'ar, learning the hard lessons." He stepped closer, reaching down to yank on of Rix'tushedimaon's horns affectionately. "Stick out in the minds of those you leave behind. The souls you harvest leave a mark, but you the Harvester have to leave one as well." He slapped Rix'tushedimaon across the back, before continuing his walk down the corridor to wherever he'd been headed. "Let me know if you need ideas, Rix'ifreanach. I've got a few tricks from my summoning days you might like." A glance over his shoulder revealed a small smile, and then Rix'tushedimaon's uncle was gone.

He left the younger demon sitting there, thinking heavy thoughts. The idea that humans could have already forgotten about him so quickly because he wasn't vicious enough or flashy enough or gruesome enough was one he hadn't considered. But if that was the case… he'd need some way to keep his reputation floating around. His memory needed to live in the hushed whispers of fear the humans thought the Veil filtered out.

Rix'tushedimaon was so lost in thought, in fact, that he almost missed the summons when it finally came. Sitting as close to the hole in the Veil as he was, he was being pulled through before he realized it. The sensation of his body becoming strings for a moment as he phased through the Veil yanked him out of his thoughts and brought him back to the moment.

As he exited the hole and found himself in the profound dark of Earth at night, he flexed his hands, resolving that whoever had summoned him would be the first in his campaign of being memorable. His muscles coiled under his dark red scaly skin, and as soon as he coalesced from strings back to a demon, he was already snarling and lunging, knowing the ritual would put him right in front of whoever had called on him.

What he saw stopped him cold.

Of all the stupid things Finn had ever done, somehow this one felt the silliest.

Not because of the intent. That was nothing new. An end to the noise was all he was looking for, but without becoming more of a burden. The docs had tried drug after drug till his money ran out and his nervous system couldn't handle it any longer. He'd done all the exercising and healthy eating he could. Essential oils, candles, meditation- none of it was doing anything to clear the dark cloud from over his head. The fog he'd been in for what felt like all of his life had only intensified as he'd gotten older. The constant voices and noise and distraction in his head had only gotten louder.
He'd tried drinking, but seeing his father's worried expression when Finn stumbled home drunk had broken him of that. He'd tried drugs, but they tended to make some voices louder than others, and his mother's concerned tears had stopped that avenue real quick. He'd gone back to exercising, and had decided on combat sports; something about the discipline sounded like it might help. That had lead to fights, and the adrenaline had given him some peace, for a moment. He'd gone looking for more, which meant bigger fights, and after his brother Connor had been forced to call the ambulance for Finn's bruised and bloodied face and broken arm, that habit was ditched.

Everything he tried had lead to him hurting someone he loved. Even once he'd moved out, his family were too good, too kind, too loving- they wouldn't leave him entirely alone. Finn didn't have the heart to cut them out, not after all they'd done for him, but… he couldn't really pursue more drastic action like he wanted to with them coming around.
His mom had made him promise not to overdose. His father had convinced him not to get drunk and wrap his car around a tree. His brother had found his gun and taken it, citing worry and love for Finn. Their kindness and support had lifted his spirits for a bit. He'd gotten rid of some of the blades he'd been collecting; he stopped looking for supports capable of supporting his weight and accessible enough to tie a rope around.

And then Connor had gotten engaged.

Finn hadn't even met the girl. Her name was Rebecca, apparently, and she seemed nice, but Finn knew nothing about her, and he could only imagine she didn't know he existed. The shameful brother. The mental mess. The burden. His family would never say that, he knew; they were good people, too gentle and loving and careful with him to say such things, but… he could see it. It was in their eyes every time he walked in the door. It was there every time his dad asked him how he was. It was there every time his mom gave him a hug for just a little too long and reminded him she loved him.
It was there when Connor had asked him to be in the wedding. Finn could see the trapped feeling in his brother's eyes.

It was that look earlier this week that had sent him spiraling. Spinning in vicious little circles all the way down into a loud mental hell of his own making was not a new sensation, and Finn sank back into it like going back to a toxic ex. The familiarity of the dark clouds muting the world around him, even while the fog amplified the internal noise, was… so natural and normal to him by now that he almost didn't know how to exist without it.
In the next few days, as it had gotten worse, he'd looked for ways to finally escape. With his family blocking some of the normal avenues, he knew he'd have to get creative.

That's where the silliness came in. Google had eventually brought him to some old stories, which he'd just thought were creepypastas, until he began seeing news articles. A more refined search brought him to 4chan and dark corners of the internet that did not help his internal noise, but did give him further answers. At first, he'd just been curious, but the realization that there was potential here had drawn him in further.

And that's how Finn came to be kneeling in a collection of occultic symbols drawn his own blood on the white tile of his bathroom floor, at 4:30 in the morning after Halloween, trying to summon a demon.
He'd prepped well: the blackout curtains in his small apartment meant the room was very dark; there was plenty of space for whatever size entity was about to show up. He was wearing an old t-shirt he wouldn't mind getting blood on, and jeans with holes in them from work. He was surrounded by old towels- no sense in leaving a huge mess for his family to find. Everything was ready, but so far, he'd had no luck. He was pretty sure he'd butchered the pronunciation several times, which was apparently important in these things. On the verge of giving up, he decided to go for it one more time.

"Gabhvenha iate leithmim Rix'tushedimaon."

This time, when he spoke the line, he tweaked a few vowels, and suddenly, it felt like something was plucked deep in his chest- like he'd tapped into some otherworldly force, and his heart had registered it. Finn took a deep breath, and by the time he was exhaling, he could see it- a hole in the fabric of space, hovering in front of him, vantablack but lit around the edges with hellish firelight.
He found himself almost smiling as something huge stepped through the hole and solidified in front of him. Something snarling and already moving to kill him. He closed his eyes and leaned towards his doom, for a moment feeling peace.

Excellent. Do it.