Books & Covers & All Of The Above (REWRITING)

Chapter 1: Hello Hello?

The tragic death of Arianne Vale started with a bribe of sugar, and the summoning of a demon.

A wild combination, but the complete and total truth as Arianne parked in the driveway of her childhood best friend, Saffron's house.

It was a normal day before then. She was starting yet another dismal day at college, the words her professors spoke going in one ear and out the other at about the speed of light, as her fellow student, Adam, once again asked to borrow one of her pens, and as per the usual, never giving it back. The vending machine trapping the soda she had just paid for as it almost plummeted into the drop before jamming which, to be fair, she was kind of asking for considering that machine in particular was prone to disappointment. Not to mention her car almost didn't start so that she could go home, the engine not quite turning over, making her scream and cry in her car for a good full minute, before it finally rumbled to a start, and rushed home, fully ready to hibernate for the coming heat death of the earth.

That is, until Saffron called, with the wild exclamation of, "Hey Ari, let's summon a demon!"

"Heh?" Ari replied, trying to blink sleep out of her eyes.

"Let's summon a demon." Saffron reiterated.

There was a long pause as she tried to recollect her thoughts, "Nah thanks, I'm good."

"Oh come on," she replied, the phone braking up slightly, "it'll be fun,"

"That's what they all say."

"Oh hush, you need to get out of the house anyway–"

"I get out of the house." Ari interjected, feeling only mildly offended.

"Longer than going to the grocery store and grabbing a whole bag of Ramen and a two pack of Bismark donuts."

The silence alone on Ari's side of the line was telling, as Saffron sighed heavily on the other side of the phone.

"Look, you know as good as me, this quote on quote spell I found will most definitely not work, and not only that, I haven't seen my twin in ages, and I bet you need a change of scenery. So what do you say? You in?"

"I really need to catch up on my stud–"

"I'll get us a box of donuts from the Wallflour."

"What time?"

Arianne was already starting to feel the anxiety bubbles filling her stomach as she let out a heavy sigh from the driver's seat, simply sitting and ruminating on the circumstances of the day in general, staring off into the darkness.

Maybe this will be good... she had been rather reclusive, sucked into her routine of school, work and sleep. An endless cycle of disappointments and stress making her feel more and more alone in her tiny miniature world, as though she were stuck in a snowglobe, frozen in time at her worst moments.

And besides, Arianne was curious. The kind of curious, she would soon discover, contemplated what satisfaction would bring the cat back.

The nervous brunette woman jumped in fright as a knocking startled her out of the thoughts, looking over to the driver's window to see Saffron bent over at the waist wheezing as she attempted to stop laughing.

"Not cool man!" Arianne cried out, turning off and getting out of her car, herself giggling.

Saffron was a short woman. Not at all as short as our main character, about half a head taller than Arianne's 5'1 self, she had a short pageboy style hair cut, dyed recently into a dark sort of brown, which gleamed red in the correct amount of light, she had pale hazel eyes and red splotches of vitiligo across her skin, and was wearing her nicest pair of sweatpants, and a shirt that says 'I beat people with a stick for fun'.