Chapter 5: The Red Ritual

Chapter 5: The Red Ritual

The fear of nightfall was gone, replaced by a hungry, impatient hum that lived deep in Leo's bones. Sleep was no longer a monster-haunted abyss to be avoided, but an arena he was eager to enter. During the day, the world had lost its color. School was a muffled drone of distant voices, meals were tasteless fuel, and his parents' worried smiles were flat, two-dimensional things. His real life, the life that mattered, now began the moment he closed his eyes.

The Smiler was a constant, sullen presence. It trailed him through the house and school, its left hand still clutched to its chest, a permanent monument to his first victory. The blankness of its face was an infuriating canvas, and Leo found himself longing to paint new expressions on it: frustration, fury, despair.

That night, when the familiar cold drop of the dream-state pulled him from his bed, there was no disorientation. He was standing in the grey, silent kitchen as if he had never left. The air was just as sterile, the light just as timeless. This was his workshop. His abattoir.

He moved with an unchildlike economy of motion. The drawer slid open without a sound. His hand found the familiar cool, black handle of his mother’s sharpest knife. The weight of it felt good, a solid promise in this world of ghosts.

He approached the butcher's block. His left hand, of its own volition yet in perfect harmony with his will, settled onto the scarred wood, fingers spread. He looked down at the four remaining fingers. The phantom of the first sacrifice was a ghost of a memory, a validation of the power he now wielded.

There was no hesitation. The target was the middle finger.

Don't look, a small, frightened part of him whispered from a great distance. Don't watch.

Leo ignored it. He watched everything. He watched as he positioned the blade over the knuckle, analyzing the angle. He watched as he pressed down, his small body leaning into the cut. He felt the cold, clean parting, the pressure giving way to the solid thud of the blade sinking into the wood below. He was a surgeon excising a tumor, a craftsman shaping his materials.

He lifted the knife and calmly observed his work. His dream-hand now bore two empty spaces. The severed middle finger lay placidly beside the first. A neat, orderly collection. The Red Ritual, he thought, though there was no red here, only the cold grey of the dream and the stark black of his purpose.

He awoke to the gentle orange glow of his nightlight. The first thing he did, now a ritual in itself, was examine his left hand. It was whole, perfect. A deep, satisfying warmth spread through his chest. He turned his head towards the corner.

The Smiler’s reaction was different this time. The raw shock was gone, replaced by a simmering annoyance. It was no longer clutching its hand as if it were a fresh wound. Instead, it held its left arm stiffly at its side, the shadowy fingers curled into a tight, frustrated fist. Its posture was rigid, indignant. It was the stance of a king being pestered by a fly. A wave of its irritation washed over Leo, and he drank it in like water. Annoyance was a good start.

The next day, Leo found he could control the flow of his tormentor’s emotions. Whenever he felt the Smiler’s hollow gaze on him, he would idly tap his left middle finger against his desk. Each tap sent a visible shudder through the creature’s form. Its shadow would flicker, its outline blurring with agitation. He was no longer just its prisoner; he was its jailer, rattling the bars whenever he pleased.

His parents, seeing him quieter and less prone to outbursts, began to relax. They mistook his cold, predatory focus for calm.

"He seems to be doing so much better," his mother whispered to his father one evening, believing Leo was asleep. "Maybe it was just a phase."

Leo lay in his bed, listening, a faint, cruel smile touching his own lips in the darkness. He was better. He was stronger. He just wasn't theirs anymore.

The third dream came as easily as breathing. The kitchen. The knife. The cutting board. By now, the sequence was as familiar as tying his shoes. This time, it was the ring finger. The motion was fluid, practiced. He was getting good at this. The thud of the blade was a punctuation mark, a declaration. This is mine. I am in control.

He woke up, and the air in his room was thick with a new emotion. It wasn't annoyance. It was anger.

The Smiler was vibrating. A low, silent hum of fury emanated from its form, making the shadows in the corner of the room seem to deepen and crawl. It was no longer just standing there; it was locked in a state of absolute, motionless rage. Leo could feel the pressure of its anger against his skin, a psychic static that made the hairs on his arms stand up. It was terrifying, but Leo found himself grinning in the dim light. He had provoked it. He had made the monster furious. The feeling was intoxicating.

The final act of this gruesome stage was a foregone conclusion. He fell asleep that night with a sense of grim finality. The grey kitchen welcomed him like an old friend. The knife felt like an extension of his own arm. He placed his hand on the block. Only the pinky remained. It looked small, lonely.

He brought the knife down. Thud. The set was complete.

When he woke, the room was electric.

The rage had broken its chains. The Smiler was no longer still. It was pacing, a frantic, caged tiger of pure darkness. It moved from the bookshelf to the closet door and back again, its steps utterly silent but charged with furious energy. Its ten-foot tether was a leash pulled taut, the only thing keeping it from lunging at him.

Its form was unstable, flickering at the edges as if it might boil away into nothing. Tiny flecks of shadow seemed to drip from its mangled left hand, sizzling into nonexistence before they could touch the floor. A palpable wave of absolute, unrestrained hatred rolled off it, so powerful it was almost a physical force. It wanted to tear him apart. It wanted to destroy him.

Leo lay propped on his elbows, watching the silent, furious display. The seven-year-old boy who had cried and hidden under the covers was gone, burned away by the cold fire of the ritual. The fear was a distant echo, a ghost of a memory.

All he felt now was a profound, chilling satisfaction. He had taken the creature’s most terrifying weapon—its ever-widening smile—and wiped it from existence. And in its place, he had carved his own emotions onto its blank face: pain, annoyance, anger, and now, glorious, impotent rage.

This was his addiction now. Not the cutting, not the dream. It was the control. It was the exquisite pleasure of watching his tormentor writhe. He looked at his own, whole left hand, then back at the raging shadow. He had taken all four of its fingers. But the hand wasn't enough. The arm was still there.