Oops.....I summoned a Demon

I didn’t mean to summon a demon. Honestly. I was just trying to manifest my crush. That’s it. One tiny little love spell from TikToks. Cute. Harmless. Flirty magic. And it started, as all my worst ideas do, at 1:37 a.m. on a Tuesday—that dangerous time when my brain should be asleep but instead is in full, reckless mode. My thumb was doomscrolling through my For You page like it was my civic duty. It was pure algorithm chaos: A cat wearing a frog hat. A girl crying over her failed sourdough starter. Three different conspiracy theories about moon phases. And then—bam. 💘 BONDING SPELL — Soulmate in 3 Days or Less 💘 The creator—username @WitchyWifey—looked like she could hex a man just by raising one perfectly arched eyebrow. She was sitting cross-legged in a candlelit room, explaining how this “Bond Summoning” worked while dramatic harp music played in the background. She swore it was foolproof. She swore she’d used it herself to manifest “the literal love of my life.” There was a tiny, totally casual footnote where she said there might be side effects. I, of course, ignored that part. Three days or less to meet your soulmate? That was basically Prime shipping for romance. By the next afternoon, I’d assembled the most suspicious magical starter kit ever seen: Three vanilla-scented candles from the Target clearance shelf. One had “Happy Retirement” printed on it, but I figured the universe wouldn’t care. A circle of salt that looked like it had been poured during an earthquake. A pink sticky note with “Luke Henderson” written in my neatest cursive. Luke Henderson. The boy who sat behind me in Algebra last year and made my brain short-circuit every time he borrowed a pencil. The boy who walked past me in the cafeteria yesterday without noticing my brand new hair color—a risk-taking copper red that I was 92% sure made me look like I had main character energy. Pinterest said aesthetics matter to the universe, so I sprinkled glitter on the sticky note for ✨manifestation energy✨. It ended up looking like a preschool glitter bomb aftermath, but whatever. The chant I found online was… suspicious. Half Latin, half maybe Klingon. I Googled it. The translation came back as: Error: Unable to parse ancient script. That should’ve been my first clue to go to bed instead. But no. I lit the candles. Sat cross-legged in my salt circle. Cleared my throat like this was going to be my Grammy performance. And began chanting: “In nomina flammae et—” WHOOSH. The sticky note caught fire. The candle flames shot upward like they’d just had three shots of espresso. My Spotify paused mid–Olivia Rodrigo heartbreak anthem. A curl of smoke rose from the circle, twisting into the shape of a very broad-shouldered man. The smoke blinked. And then… it smirked. When it cleared, there was a 6’3″ nightmare in leather pants standing in my bedroom, shirtless, looking like he’d just stepped off the cover of f*******n Temptations: A Demon Prince’s Desire. “You rang, darling?” he purred. My jaw forgot how to work. “Who the hell are you?” “Correct on the hell part.” He stepped forward with a grin that screamed trouble. “I’m Kael. Prince of Mischief. Also—” he gestured between us—“apparently your eternal soul partner.” “…Your what now?” “You performed a Bond Summoning. I’m tied to your soul until death or… well, easier to just date me.” I scrambled back, tripping over my laundry pile. “I wasn’t summoning you! I was manifesting my crush!” Kael glanced around my room—pink sticky notes, heart doodles, half-burnt candles—and his smirk deepened. “Adorable. You wanted a boyfriend. The universe decided to give you an upgrade.” My brain was short-circuiting. My heart was doing that panicked thud-thud-thud thing it only does during both romantic moments and when I think I’m about to die. And that was the exact moment I knew: I was in way, way over my head.