Lightning crackled on a distant hill, illuminating my room with a flash. My shadow hit the wall for the briefest moment, my hunched-over posture suggesting some grotesque creature, some mangled and malformed monstrosity like the mutant flies I had examined in biology that afternoon. So this is what i’ve been reduced to, I thought with a smile. I turned my attention back to the book in front of me. “Dark Arts & Reality Manipulation”, read the tome’s dusty cover. I had found it in the linen closet. When I reached back to grab a towel, my fingers instead found a small knob, and within the tiny hutch it opened lay the text. I flipped to the chapter titled “manifesting your desires”. So this was what all those TikTok chicks were trying to do, huh? I read the instructions quickly and set up my room accordingly: 6 candles, a pentagram drawn between them (I substituted red crayon for blood). I spoke the words aloud as I scanned them, a Latin incantation: “Lorem Ipsum dolor, labore et dolore aliqua.” The rumble I felt in my body confirmed to me that they had taken effect: the vibration in my pocket meant I had received the foreseen email. As I clicked through, my hands shaking, I wondered what my future would hold, whether I had denied or accepted it by invoking black magic. I opened the final page, my eyes closed. I would soon find out the truth of my destiny. 3…2…1…

“DEFERRED???”