Chapter 9: Another Ritual

Morning sunlight coming through window woke him up from his slumber. The first thing he felt was a splitting headache. Opening his eyes was a challenging task for him. He took a few deep breaths to relax his mind, but after a few minutes he realized that the migraine he was feeling wasn’t going away any time soon. So, with enough willpower, he opened his eyes.

He was lying in his bed, naked. Bodily fluids were dried up on his abdomen and his thighs. Memory of the previous night came rushing to his mind. He experienced many emotions with those memories, but the biggest one was confusion. He could remember fighting some unknown force until Alice dropped him here but he was having trouble remembering the rest.

He could remember kissing Alice, but everything after that became foggy.

‘It all started after that damned storm and that wolf bite. And I know where I can find information about it.’

When the wolf bit him and the next day his wound was completely healed, he hadn’t thought of it as a big deal. But his mind started to wander. Those thoughts started to get stronger with each passing minute, due to the ongoing changes with his life, and especially in his body.

It wouldn’t be hard for him to confirm his doubt, since his friend Henry had many books on a variety of myths that existed throughout the world. With that decision made, he went through his daily routine.

During his run he was replaying the events of last night again and again, trying to make heads or tails of it. When he went to pick her up from her house for their date, it had a good start, but during their dinner, things started to become blurry. It was like watching something through a heavy rain—while you could see the thing, the sight would be extremely hazy.

During his mental churning his thoughts came to the sex that might have happened between him and Alice. The state in which he woke up this morning was enough proof for him to believe occurred. Also, he could remember a few images like shattered glass. In those images he could see snapshots of Alice in various states of pleasure.

‘I need to talk with Alice. I don’t know what she would be thinking about me after last night. She left without a word, which means she wasn’t in good mood about our nocturnal tryst.’

He was standing before the gates of his college campus in less than half the time it normally would have taken him. His breathing was normal, and his heart rate was normal, which just made his doubts stronger.

He started to search for his friend Henry. He was supposed to meet him today. If he had to guess, then he would be at the backside of the library, doing what he had been doing for the last year.

“Hey Bro! Erik. Did you start to work out or what?”

A very thin man, with black hair and bangs under his eyes was standing before him. It didn’t take long Erik to guess that something must have happened on his trip to Vegas last year. After that trip he had become a completely changed man. Smoking weed and being obsessed with ancient relics and various ritual books had become his life.

Erik had been there when he did those crazy rituals but Henry never ever told him what he was trying to achieve with those rituals. And he never told him what had happened on that trip.

“Henry, its morning. You already started with that shit?”

“Is it morning already?”

“You didn’t happen to be smoking that weed the whole night, did you?”

“What? No, I mean, after fighting with my dad at night, I was driving around, and then I just parked my car here to take a breather. And now you say it is morning already.”

“Throw that away, freshen yourself up, and let’s go to the class; we are already running late.”

“What? No. What about my sleep? You know it’s important that a person should sleep for eight hours a day.”

“I know that, but if I left you here, you would just smoke that stuff for the rest of the day.”

“No, I don’t think you understand the situation here! Bro.”

“What about your new treasure you were texting about?”

“Yes, Bro. It’s awesome! I just got my hand on a ritual book and it’s awesome. Let me show it to you.”

“No, we are getting late for our class. Why don’t we complete our classes today, and after that we can talk about it? I will try to free up myself early today.”

“That would be great! I was planning to perform one ritual tonight. Ok, meet me at our place.”

Their place was a closed industrial site on the north side of the town, at least a mile from his home. It was closed due to the company’s bankruptcy. There was news about some other big company buying this company but there hadn’t been any official announcement.

“Okay.”

After a few minutes both friends were walking in college halls. Suddenly a redhead came running toward them and before they knew it the redhead was giving Erik a tight hug.

“Oh, hi Alice.” Henry recognized her.

“It looks like many things have changed since last time I was in the town.”

“Oh, hi Henry. It’s not what you think. We are just friends. Right, Erik?”

“Yeah, we are just friends.”

Erik was really confused, not just about Alice’s behavior, but her smell was different. It’s like she was a different person then what she was yesterday.

Her flowery sent was replaced by that of soil and her perfume was different from her usual. Instead of strawberry and vanilla it was a chocolate flavor.