I wake up every day asking myself, why does God hate me. Let me explain what happened. So, it is a normal Monday, and I am heading to school and all of that. Nothing crazy happens, I just cross the street and head down the road for like five minutes then I am done. I mean sure I did step on this weird star in a circle, but like I said, whatever. I walk in on time, head to the first period, then I get a headache. Not like a normal headache but like one of those headaches when you are all numb from surgery.
And before I know it, I’m waking up.
I don’t know what’s going on, of course. Or really where I am, for a moment, just fuzzy cotton-stuffed pounding in my head, and then slowly, I actually take the time to glance around.
The place isn’t empty. It... it looks, a little, like the nurse’s office at school: beds and curtains, counters and sinks, but that’s about where the similarity ends. The nurse’s office at school is clinical blue, with wood detailing; this is brick and red and altogether forebodingly in poor repair. The ceiling looks one touch away from collapse, the walls cracked and crumbling, and the beds rusted.
Of course, there’s also the matter of the massive twelve-foot skeleton with horns sitting in the middle of the bed opposite me, flipping a coin between two humongous bony fingers, and staring directly at me.
“I don’t think this is my math class,” I say, and then cringe. Stupid.
The skeleton-giant-demon-thingy just inclines its head at me, and rumbles, “An astute observation.”
“...Can I get back to my math class?” I try. I assume this isn’t going to work, but...
“No.”
Ah well, never hurt to hope.
“What, exactly, do you want from me?” I ask, after a solid few seconds of silence.
It cocks its head at me. “You were the one who stepped on my summoning sigil. I believe that is a question better answered by you.”
“Who, me?” I asked, genuinely confused. I certainly did not sign up for a twelve-foot Home Depot skeleton eyeing me eerily (I saw a little Home Depot tag near the ankle.). It opens a small, dark notebook and flips through its fraying pages, before landing on one, ripping it out, and waving it vigorously in front of my face. I don’t have to squint to see my name scrawled on the paper with a dying pen.
“This you?”
I pause solidly for a minute, contemplating whether I’m just a syllable away from selling my soul. I decide “Sure” followed by a shrug is the best response. The skeleton appears to raise an eyebrow, except because it’s a skeleton it raises its… eye, more.
“Alright, so this is kind of awkward, but I have this coin here.” It sticks out its bony hand. “Flip a coin?” it asks.
“For what?? I mean okay, sure, why not, could it be worse?”
“No.”
So that’s a great start.
After considering what could possibly happen, I take the coin to flip it. It lands tails side up. “What happens now?” I asked.
The Home Depot skeleton creature smiled evilly. “Now you must rot in hell for all eternity!” it declared, and then laughed evilly as fire suddenly appeared and flickered ominously, thunder rumbling in the distance.
“But what if I don’t want to?” I questioned. The fire went out and the evil laughing and thunder stopped.
The skeleton frowned. “Oh, well, in that case I guess you can leave then.” With a flash and a pop I was back on the road I was walking on back when it was a normal Monday. This was really unfortunate because a car was crossing the street at that particular point in time.
I’m not exactly sure how it happened (I think I might have gotten hit or something), but the next thing I knew I was back in that same room with that same skeleton creature.
“So, would you like to flip a coin?”