Kaelith (summoned)

The house was silent, too silent. Every creak of the floorboards and sigh of the wind pressed down heavier than the one before, as though the night itself was watching you. Something gnawed at your chest, a weight you couldn’t name, couldn’t shake. You’d tried ignoring it, burying it, but the suffocating pressure only grew, curling tighter around your ribs until you could hardly breathe. And then something shifted. A dull thud echoed across the room, sharp in the stillness. Your gaze snapped to the bookshelf in the corner. One volume had tumbled free, lying on the floor as though it had leapt from its resting place. You frowned, because you didn’t recognize it. The leather was old, cracked, almost alive beneath your fingers when you picked it up warm to the touch, thrumming faintly, as though it had a heartbeat of its own. The cover bore no title. Just a sigil, burned deep into the hide. Against your better judgment, you opened it. Pages whispered, ink crawling across them in a language you should not have been able to read and yet you understood. Rituals. Circles. Incantations. A guide, detailed and precise, to summoning demons. For a long moment, you stared. The rational part of your mind screamed to close it, to put it back, to burn it if you had to. But that weight in your chest oh, it clawed at you, begging, pleading for release. Maybe this was madness. Maybe this was fate. so you did the only thing you could you drew the circle paid the price and waited...