Chapter Three - Companion Ritual
The wind blows Mara's long brown hair across her face sticking strands to the tear trails. She
finds herself at the beach at the end of trail she often frequents. Sitting there unsure of what
to do, the green current still present to reassure her that this is real and not some psychotic
break. Though she really wishes that she was going crazy rather than whatever is happening. Right
now, she is thinking about two things, one was her mother's voice, a product of a stressed mind
or the book. Second, could that companion ritual summon a companion. She is not thinking about
how any of this is possible. The green current around her fingers has made her accept the fact
that whatever this is it is as real as the ocean in front of her and the wind around her. The
reason why she is thinking about her mom's voice is-, never mind that, the reason she was
thinking about the companion ritual is because she really wants a companion to help her through
what is happening to her. If the ritual did what it said it would she would have made a person
bound to her. The moral implications she chooses not to ponder on as right now she needs
literally any escape. Which for her is to not to go about the typical way to make friends but
rather to make a friend using a ritual from a strange book that (possibly) talks to make her a
friend. It is, according to her, easier than small talk with a stranger as they give her a dirty
look. As much as she hates to admit it there is another part to her that sees this as some sort
of path that she can take down in life. This is a thought that she has been having since she
first woke up. She was never the type to believe in the supernatural.
However, she was always the type to find cryptids and other sorts of supernatural stories to be
interesting. She grew up watching and researching videos with titles such as "SUPER RARE BIGFOOT
FOOTAGE" or "NEVER BEFORE SEEN FOOTAGE OF UFO". She was enamored with a world beyond her own
understanding. It was not just the big, scary stories that everyone knows either, she loved the
idea of some of the sillier creatures rumored to be out in the world like the "fur bearing
trout". A trout thought to have fur growing on it due to the cold waters it inhabited. Though
everything always has a logical solution to the mystery. The fur bearing trout for example was a
bunch of loggers who saw some trout with a fungus infection, which grows in white and fluffy
along the fish scales.
This is something that always disappointed Mara, the world is never quite as magical, never
quite as remarkable as she once thought. There is no more mystery in the world, at least none
that the average citizen can investigate. This is why she sort of floats through life; she is
always looking to return to a world that never even existed. A world where everything is never
as it seems. A world where there is still stuff to be discovered, places to explore, knowledge
to obtain. Now she has it, or something that she thinks is it. It is at this moment this thread
of thinking is when Mara thinks about the tales throughout history where witches were burnt at
the stake for magical powers, a subject she researched endlessly during high school after having
to do a school project on Salem. She remembers reading in one of the court proceedings for one
of the "witches" trials. It had described the defendant (the accused witch) as having a sort of
ghastly current flowing around her left-hand coiling around her fingers like a lazy ghost. She
looks at her own left-hand and sees the faint current floating around, coiling in between her
fingers.
At this point Mara just laughs out loud as it begins to start clicking in her mind that perhaps
the world was just a little bigger than she once thought. She laughs even harder when she
realizes that for some reason the world decided to reveal this to someone who has and will never
achieve anything. She laughs at the irony of it all, maybe she was never meant to find the book.
Maybe it was meant for someone else, someone more capable of understanding where such a book
might have come from. Someone who knew the history of the esoteric, who has even the slightest
idea of what all this means. Yet she still can't help but feel that she was chosen to be the one
who would bring all of this into the modern world. She had never seen the side trail that led her
to the book before on the trail before. Needing to know more she has decided it is time to go
back and investigate the trail where this all started.
She stands up from the sand, wipes the tears from her face, and fixes her hair and starts to
head home. While walking down the trail she tries to find the side trail where she found the
book only to find no breakage in the foliage along the trail. As if the trail ceased to exist
after doing its job. Nothing, even after walking down the main trail several times. As she walks
down the trail one last time, the sun is starting to set, she notices that the current on her
left hand grows intensity. The trail may no longer exist but maybe she can find her way back
using the current. She walks until the current is at its brightest and then starts to lose
intensity. She returns to where it is the brightest and looks out from the trail. Saw palmettos
and trees extending as far back as she can see. She hesitates not wanting to go bushwhacking
without the whacking. Looking at her hand she sees within the green current streaks of small
green lighting jumping between her fingers. It is like heat lighting, flashing within a cloud at
night. She reaches out her hand, not knowing why she is, and tendrils of electric green lighting
flow from her fingers burning a path forward.
She stands there looking at the path she just made, unsure of how to react. Without thinking she
walks forward down the path. The air around her grows thick, a pit forms in her stomach. She
feels as if death itself has started to stalk her as if she is an easy prey to be pounced on.
She rubs her left hand for comfort, the lighting did not hurt her, in fact it felt like nothing.
The trail eventually ends at a creek; the water flows slowly. Her current flows forward from her
hand and into the creek around something poking out of the water. She goes in and grabs it,
revealing itself to be remarkably clean deer skull with the antlers intact. The air of death at
this point becomes too much for her and she turns around taking the skull with her.
