Just A Peek

Everything was in place.

Wednesday sat on the floor of her bedroom, magic circle drawn in front of her, pages upon pages of notes scattered around it. The young witch had spent many sleepless nights preparing this spell, making sure the circle was drawn to exact specifications, making sure all the reagents she prepared were as high quality as she could find. The walls around her glowed with protective runes and symbols, even more than her paranoid self usually had set up, and her skin was freshly marked with tattoos just to be extra safe.

Her goal for tonight was simple. The coven were all very familiar with the creatures that stalked each of them, but to Wednesday their knowledge wasn’t enough. She had plenty of theoretical information, but if any of them hoped to break the entities grip on their families, they would need more concrete facts.

The spell itself was relatively simple. She intended to scry between the dimensions, the magic allowing her to learn whatever she can about the nature of the entity, and back out before it’s able to notice her. In the event it did, she had plenty of defences set up to give her enough time to cancel the spell, and even if those didn’t work, she her knife at her side. She could slash it through the spell circle and dispel the magic at will.

She’d thought this out completely, running the spell through her mind again and again. She was as prepared as she could possibly be.

It didn’t make her any less anxious.

Frodo’s warm body was at her side, his comforting presence there to help reassure her with little success. There wasn’t anything else she could do to prepare. All that was left was to take a deep breath, raise her arms above the circle, and begin the incantation.

Minutes passed, and everything was still except for Wednesday’s lips as she recited the spell, not stopping for a single breath, eyes closed as she focused all her energy on the ritual.

Her voice grew, remaining steady as she felt the magic gather around her, growing stronger, denser. She focused her will, channelling that power through the circle until finally, she opened her eyes.

Wednesday didn’t see, she felt through the circle, felt her awareness leave her body and stretch through the planes, navigating further and further until it came to an abrupt halt. So far so good. She just needed to look further until she-

Her thoughts were interrupted by a presence, an awareness, a feeling, an emotion that permeated everything around her.

Hate.

Directed at her.

No.

That couldn’t be right, it couldn’t have already detected her.

She felt that presence stretch towards her consciousness, felt its approach, felt that hate focus itself on her, and she fled. She retreated back to her body, back to her mind, not even sparing a single thought to her original goal. The only thing occupying her mind was the intense desire to run.

Her eyes opened again and she gasped, falling back away from the circle, deep breaths rapidly coming and going. The room still hummed with magic power, but she felt nothing, none of the malevolence that the spell had shown her. For that one moment, she felt safe.

And then the protective sigils on her walls shattered.

The presence tore through her defences like paper, she barely even had time to register what was happening before that feeling of hate jumped from the magic circle and slammed against her, knocking her flat against the ground, her glasses flying off in one direction while her knife skidded across the floor in another.

In a panic, her hand stretched towards the knife as something began to fill her sight, colours faded, shapes grew from the walls, insectlike limbs grew from around her, stretching towards her face. Frodo hissed, feeling something around them but unable to see any of the sights that Wednesday saw.

She screamed.

@EmiRose @PixelatedGlory

Her eyes glowed.

A sickly pale light shone through her eyes, appearing to come from far deeper than her skull would allow, like a bright torchlight refracting through grimy green water, constantly shifting and wavering. The spell circle in the centre of the room glowed with the same light, far different from the usual sharp white her spells possessed. Her body convulsed, limbs shaking against the ground, mouth agape as her screams filled the small room.

The entity touched her mind, she felt it within, burrowing through the grey matter and leaving its mark behind as it travelled in. As Saturday loomed over Wednesday saw him change in her eyes. Buglike things crawled all over his skin, embedding themselves in and growing over his face, eyes emerging from each covered spot and focusing their gaze on her, filled with the same hate she'd felt so strongly before.

Frodo was hissing in the corner of the room, the terror in Wednesday's mind being transferred to him even if he couldn't see anything happening.

In a moment of panic she abandoned reaching for her knife, wildly swinging her arms up, trying to shove him away as hard as she could, though with her physical weakness there was little force behind it. For a moment she abandoned all thought for an overwhelming need to get away from the thing that wasn't Saturday anymore.

The knife plunged into the circle, piercing through the magical energies that bound the spell together, and the enchantment took hold immediately. The circle burst, the magical energies bound within in suddenly being released, spreading through the air like water released from a dam.

The presence, the hate of that being that penetrated Wednesday’s mind was suddenly yanked back, pulled right through the path that it had taken into this realm, its entrance destroyed, causing it to pull back right into its own plane just as quickly as it had entered through the entrance the young witch had opened.

The spell was fading, and the unnatural glow from Wednesday receded along with the unnatural, unknowable visions they gave her.

But not before the intruding force could leave a parting gift.

Recognition returned to Wednesday’s face. She was in her room, she was surrounded by her coven members, her friends, people she knew. But something was wrong. There was something there with them, something that watched, something that constantly buzzed at the back of her awareness that she wasn’t even sure she understood what it was.

Her erratic, violent movements ceased after she recognised Saturday and Tuesday above her, she stopped trying to struggle against them, stopped trying to fight them off. However, the look of terror never left her expression. She simply pushed herself up into a sitting position, before scrambling back towards the nearest wall, leaning her back against it, crossing her arms in front of her defensively.

“They’re still here,” She spoke, voice quiet, shaky. “they’re watching me.”

The others would note, now that the spell was broken, there was no presence detectable. But Wednesday could see something, feel something that only she could feel.

Her left eye still glowed, not with the same unnatural light as before. It was unfocused, raw, glassy, like the eye of a blind man even though it followed the same motions as her other eye.