After your epiphany the previous night, you did the normal thing and decided to ignore it until it became a huge problem. It usually worked—it got you through every other crush, after all. (Although, not all your crushes had been 'crushes', per se. Most of them had been platonic or aesthetic attraction; you just didn't understand the differences until years later.)

Your brain had created a fake scenario that it was convinced would happen if you admitted your feelings to anyone: you would end up in a life that resembled a weird fan-fiction that was a mash-up of Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey—the kind of fic where the readers brand the protagonist a 'monster fucker' and laugh during the smuts, making memes of the comical obliviousness of the characters.

If that happened, you decided, death would be much kinder.

Throwing yourself into your work was how you usually dealt with liking someone, but this time you decided to focus more on undoing the ritual. Maybe if you did that, and EJ became a human being instead of a demonic, eyeless serial killer, he would go back to uni, forget about you, and your feelings could fizzle out peacefully.

A little, nagging voice in the back of your head whispered, 'Really? You think you can just "let go" of feelings like that? You think he'll just leave after everything you've done for him? How disgustingly low. You should really start being nicer to him if you're oh so fond of the little bastard.'

You ignored it, and instead starting writing a list down in the notes of your phone while you waited for your slice of bread to pop out of the toaster. EJ was nowhere to be found, so you mumbled to yourself as you typed.

'Okay...tar...Chernabog...nighttime.' You frowned, flicking from the notes app to your messages.

you:

hey, greg, can you send me the notes you have so far about chernabog and the ritual? i have an idea.

His reply came through a few moments later as a PDF with no message attached. You saved it to your files, scrolling through it. You wandered around your kitchen, glued to your phone, buttering and cutting the toast with your spare hand.

Greg's notes were enough for you to formulate a plan properly. All you had to do was validate it and fill in any gaps with the help of someone you'd only spoken to once.

Shoving the last piece of toast into your mouth, you stuck your head through the slightly open backdoor and shouted: 'Kagekao! Get your arse over here!'

You had no idea how to summon the monochrome demon, so you figured that shouting once and looking like a total freak was better then hoping that fate would direct him over to your house in three to five business weeks.

Well. Guess that didn't work. Whatever.

Shrugging, you shut the door and turned back to your phone, jumping when you saw the girl sat on your worktop.

She was short, with long, thick, curly dark hair that was swept out of her face with a sky blue bandana. She wore a large grey hoodie and black ripped jeans, and a black face mask covered the lower half of her dark face. Her sharp lilac eyes were surveying you with curiosity.

She didn't glitch in the way you were used to. The way she glitched was like a broken TV screen; like she was glitching out of something more then just your sight.

'Hello,' she greeted in a soft, airy voice, 'you want help, right? Mr Kagekao isn't in the country at the moment, but I'm sure I can assist you in your mission.'

'Who are you?' you asked cautiously, taking a step back. 'You're...a Proxy. I've never seen you before.'

The girl looked slightly hurt at your retreat. 'That's the point. My existence is generally kept a secret—even from the others. I'm the Spectator, or Ophelia, if you prefer; I'm the one who makes records of the Proxies through careful observation. I think I have something that you might find interesting.'

'Such as?'

She hopped off the worktop, revealing a plain black notebook that had been hidden behind her back. Stepping towards you, she held it out for you to take. It had a white label stuck to the cover that had, 'Jack Nichols 'Eyeless Jack' written on it in neat black lettering.

'This contains everything I know about Mr Nichols,' she explained, 'including some things that are related to him, yet not about him as a person. Does that make sense?'

You nodded slowly, flicking through it as you lowered yourself into a chair. 'How do you know all of this?'

'Like I said: careful observation.' Her eyes widened all of sudden. 'P-Please don't think I'm creepy! Everything I do is purely professional, and what I document in the final draft is approved by Father.'

'Father...?'

'Slenderman. He adopted me after my real parents died, and I do this as a way to thank him and make myself useful.'

'I guess that makes sense,' you mumbled, not letting your brain dwell on it for too long to save yourself the confusion. 'Is there anything about the ritual in here?'

Ophelia nodded and said: 'Page one hundred and ten.'

Sure enough, page one hundred and ten contained details about the ritual, including how to summon Chernabog without a living sacrifice. Your eyes lit up.

'Can I copy this?' you questioned, pointing to the section you were interested in.

'Um, sure?'

You took a picture of Ophelia's carefully constructed notes, gleefully saving it. 'Thank you! You can have this back now.'

'I know what you're planning, and I don't think it's a good idea, (Y/N)—may I call you that?'

'Course. I know it isn't a good idea, but it's the only valid option I have right now.' Your eyes narrowed. 'Are you going to try and stop me?'

She shook her head, swallowing nervously. 'Of course not! I'm not allowed to interfere with humans or Proxies, so I wouldn't dream of trying to stop you.'

'Good. And don't give me a lecture, either.'

'I won't.'

'Good,' you said again. 'Hey, do you mind giving me a hand setting this up?'

'You want to do it now?!' Alarm flooded her features. '(Y/N), are you sure? Have you thought this through?'

You shrugged. 'If I thought this through, I would either never do it or I would've done it by now. Not to sound like some self-important hero, but...this isn't about me. I was given these eyes—' you tapped your temple—'for a reason, so I'm going to put them to good use. Now come on, we don't have all day.'

With a begrudging sigh, Ophelia took the notebook back from you and scanned the page. 'Are you not rushing into this a bit?'

'If I think about it, I might change my mind.' It was obvious that you were set on doing this, so Ophelia stopped trying to persuade you of it.

'I need a large room,' she said after a moment of silence, 'and some salt. I can take things from there.'

You decided that your office was the perfect room. All you had to do was push your makeshift surgery station against the wall, and there was plenty of space for Ophelia to do her thing.

You watched, intrigued, as she drew an intricate pattern with salt, not caring that it would be a pain in the arse to hoover up later.

'Do you need anything else?' you questioned, clasping your hands together nervously.

'No, thank you. I can do this, so why don't you write EJ a letter? In case something goes wrong. Chernabog has always been a bit—how do I say this? Temperamental?'

'What do I say?'

'Whatever you like. It's your letter, and your feelings.'

You had a sneaking suspicion that the girl knew more about you then she was letting on. Shooting her a quick, jaundiced glare, you plonked yourself down at your desk, pulled a notebook towards you and began to write.

At first, your pen barely moved, but after thinking, you decided to stop thinking and just...let it all out.

EJ,

I'm going to try and keep this short and simple, but forgive me if I end up rambling.

When you read this, something bad has obviously happened to me. Please just know that I don't have a death wish, I just wanted to help. I wanted to fulfil my promise and give you your old life back—the one where you weren't an eyeless serial killer that ate kidneys. To be honest, I'm not really thinking about myself right now. I'm thinking about you. God that sounds so weird.

I realised something last night thanks to a WikiHow article (I know, not very reliable, or cool) and I think that I have feelings for you. It might just be my lack of proper sleep, or the fact I'm doing something really, really stupid, but I want to write it down here so at least I said it! I don't care if you don't feel the same way. I mean, it would be nice if you did, but I'm not going to cry myself to sleep over it.

Anyway! Yeah. If the bad thing happens and you end up reading this, I hope you're a normal human now.

Faithfully,

(Y/N).

You tore the sheet of paper out of the notebook, swiftly folding it before anyone else could read it. Scribbling EJ's name on one side, you half-slid it underneath your keyboard.

'Are you ready?'

Ophelia was stood to the side of a large rune with four white candles in each corner. Where she had found the candles, you had no idea, so you didn't question it. You had learnt not to question a lot of things.

You nodded. 'Yep. As ready as I'll ever be.'

'Great. Please stand in the middle, and I'll get started.'

Obeying her instructions, you stepped into the middle of the rune and stood with your back straight, not daring to move. Ophelia said a few words in a deep and guttural voice, wandering over to stand behind you. It was a good thing she did, because your eyes rolled to the back of your head and you fell, unconscious, into her arms.

'As expected,' she said to herself, placing you down onto the floor as gently as possible. 'I'd be surprised if they didn't pass out. Entering Chernabog's realm like this would cause even the strongest exorcist to feel faint.'

A presence made itself known in the doorway. ''

'They have,' Ophelia said, stroking some hair out of your face. 'I did most of the ritual while they were writing their letter. All I had to do was read the final line and send them off.'

''

'Just in case things go wrong. It isn't for us, so we shouldn't read it.' She looked over her shoulder to give her adoptive father a stern stare. She wasn't advising him not to read it, she was commanding him.

'' He sounded disappointed. ''

'I am. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine.'

''

'Me too.'

finally thought of what i want the plot to be while in the shower so i wrote this. this chapter is probably super rushed but i was so excited to write this ajsfifhudsfnja

(oh yeah i never mentioned before but the reader is asexual because i cannot write allosexual characters or sexual tension or whatever it is the straight people do)

- gravity