Operation Witchcraft

Chapter 1: Resurgence

Parking garages, for most people, are a hell designed by civil engineers to get you as confused as possible while trying to get to the store you want to go to. Or at least, that's what Ella Newberry firmly believed. The quick turns and long hallways of low ceilings and parked cars made Ella feel like she was trapped in a nightmare where she couldn't run fast enough to get out. Not to mention how easy it is to kiss the wall with your front bumper. Parking garages, Ella decided, should just stop existing.

But the good news was, when she finally got parked and out to where the store entrance sat gleaming at her, she had navigated her personal hell to finally see her best friend after a month of being apart. From across the lot she could see her friend, in a dramatic pink dress and knee high boots, her outfit contrasting and perfectly complementing her dark skin. Ella always marveled at how well her friend could dress, as she usually looked like a tornado had dressed her that day.

"Olivia Gossette rises from the dead," Ella said, her arms outstretched to wrap Ollie in a hug, "you heard it here first." Ella squeezed her friend, who squeezed her back with an almost deadly force. Ollie pulled back, her gold hoops jingling slightly.

"You're one to speak, Ms. Newberry, intern at Ingenium Corp., I haven't heard from you all month," Ollie smiles, "and don't you try to blame the wifi."

Ella rolled her eyes in response, "I'll blame the time difference instead. How many hours ahead is France?"

"Nine hours."

"Uhuh," was Ella's only reply. She hooked her arm around Ollie's, and turned to walk into the clothing store before them. Ella wasn't a huge fan of clothing shopping, but Ollie made it fun enough that she could bare it. Besides, she was 20 years old, and needed to get a decent closet for work.

Ollie skipped from rack to rack, pulling out bargains that she "swore would look great" on Ella, and a couple pieces for herself. Ella mostly just smiled, listening to Ollie ramble about the fun of France, the people she had kissed, the networks she had built for her parents. Ollie helped her parents network at business conferences because of how freakishly charismatic she was, and she was paid handsomely for it. Occasionally Ella would pipe up with a comment about color here and a remark about style there, but Ollie was the fashion expert and Ella just ran with it most of the time.

As Ella weaved through the rows, she spotted Wendall, one of her coworkers, across the store in the Men's section. He wasn't a hard one to spot, his messy hair peeking out from his colorful bandana. Today he had settled on a blue headpiece, which stood out against the reds of the store. She knew him only in passing, one of the other interns that were always running around on assignments she had no part of. He was apparently a third year intern, on the edge of getting a job with the Corp., which was everyone's dream.

Ollie got Ella's attention back by throwing a blouse at her face.

"Who are you ogling at?" Ollie looked at Ella with her hands on her hips.

"I'm not 'ogling' at anyone, I saw a coworker across the store," Ella retorted. Ollie's eyes widened. Perhaps Ella had been a bit too quick.

Ollie quickly scanned the store, "Oh my god, who?" Ella turned to find him, but Wendall had vanished.

"I... don't know. He was just over there," she said, motioning in the general direction he had been, "but never mind that. Have you found everything?"

Ollie pursed her lips and stared at Ella. "Yea."

As the pair made their way to the fitting rooms Ella spotted another man. He wore a dark suit, which adorned an emblem that scratched at the back of her memory, memory she had purposely suppressed. A simple red square with a horizontal blue line. They made eye contact, and he seemed to bore into her soul. She looked away, squirming a bit under his gaze. She tried to shake the man off as she tried on her clothes, but couldn't get his face, or that emblem out of her mind.

"Ella, are you done?" Ollie said, pulling Ella out of her thoughts.

"Uh, yeah. Let's go check out, okay?"

"Sure."

Outside, the man was gone. Nowhere to be found. Ella breathed a sigh of relief.

They approached the cash registers and paid, and Ollie and Ella left the store. They went back to Ella's car arm in arm, the scent of burning wood drifting through the air. Ella could have sworn that she had heard a guttural, inhuman scream from behind the store, but it was too far and too muffled to hear. She did her best to shrug it off. Probably just a prank or some kids filming a dumb internet video.

It wasn't until later that night, in the safety of her home, that Ella was able to pull out the book she had been thinking of all day. She rummaged through her closet to pull out a dusty old box from the back of her closet, it was all that remained of her days in foster care. She had a journal, one she had kept from her first day in. It was locked, with no value to most, but she kept it. It was her parent's dying wish for her to keep this book safe.

She looked at the front, and etched into the cover was a red square with the blue line across it. A word echoed across her mind. One she hadn't heard in years. One she had hoped she wouldn't ever have to remember.

Sanctuary.

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Hello everyone!

Welcome to the rewrite of Operation Witchcraft, an old book of mine from when I was younger that I have finally decided to pick back up. The process of writing this will be slow, and I have a lot of old material to sift through, but I'm aiming for 1 chapter a week.

I hope you keep with me!

Please vote and comment, tell me how I'm doing :)

~Ekaterina