The Ritual

The ritual was a dark one - one that invoked the voices of the abyss and decanted their evil passions into a monstrous hymn that sought the awakening of the Demon. It was first practiced by the Old Ones - the ancestors of those who would perform the ritual today. They carried it out at the darkest corners of the world, far from the eyes of the god-fearing and where sins endlessly pour forth from the human soul.

Today was no different.

Today, they effectuate the ritual from a shopping mall.

It was night. The mall was empty, devoid of any human or humane activity. They had killed the security guard in a gruesome, gruesome conversation.

Their leader, Damien, was the one who killed the old man. "Hey mister security man," he had said. "We're gonna perform a satanic ritual in the premises if you don't mind."

"What? HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA," laughed the security guard. Soon after, amidst all the laughter, the security guard clutched at his chest. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!" he continued laughing. "I'm laughing so hard I'm gonna die of a heart attack! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!" And then, he died of a heart attack.

They walked on, Damien in front. He was clad in black. He donned black robes that hugged his body and hinted at his athletic frame. The 6-year-old boy could not walk tall among his peers - he was the shortest and, by 20 years, the youngest in the group. But you could not mistake his lack of fear and his total confidence in what he was about to do.

They reached the place of utmost sin within the compound of the shopping mall. They were behind the counter of a certain fast food restaurant.

Damien proceeded to draw a pentagram on the floor, while his peers prepared for their own roles in the ritual.

Herbert, a strapping young man of 67, put his bag down next to the pentagram. In the required order, he extracted the contents of his bag and placed them in the heart of the pentagram.

“First up,” Herbert announced. “50 kilogram cannonball.”

Collectively, the groups' eyes bulged. 50 kilogram cannonballs usually don’t appear out of the backpacks of 67-year-old men.

"Secondly," Herbert said darkly. "A rubber...ducky." The old man took it out with his wrinkled hand. He gave it a squeeze and the duck quacked, the last whiff of goodly air in the accursed place. He carefully placed the rubber ducky on the cannonball.

"Thirdly," Herbert said, looking at a third member of the group, Ingrid. Ingrid used to be a woman. After a complicated sex reassignment surgery, Ingrid became a man with a functioning penis. Herbert continued, "Thirdly, urine of transsexual."

Ingrid stood over the pentagram, and flourished his recently-constructed penis. He had prepared heavily for his role in the ritual by drinking a lot of water and walking to the mall, squirming and clutching his crotch. Within moments, there was the sound of water trickling on a rubber ducky. Due to the sheer force of Ingrid's urine, the rubber ducky fell off the cannonball, onto the pentagram.

Ingrid's urine trickled to a stop, the machine gun drips running out of its liquid ammunition.

After a few moments, Damien began chanting, his voice ethereal as it sought the dark spirits that roamed the world between ours and the dead. His words ranked with vileness and morbidity. "My loneliness," he began. "Is killing... Me." Tremors shook the restaurant. "I must confess... I still believe." Damien looked at his peers. They were nervous, and sweating. Unlike him. "When I'm not with you I lose my mind. Give me a sign..." Damien took a deep breath. "Hit me baby one more time!"

The ritual was over. Now they needed a sign. A sign to see if the cannonball was exactly 50 kilograms. A sign to see if the rubber ducky was really made of rubber. A sign to see if Ingrid was truly a transsexual, and that her surgery was not botched. Damien's procedures in the ritual, however were not questioned. They knew he did his job to perfection.

For awhile, there was silence. Nobody dared to say anything. Nobody dared to move.

(To be continued...)