Short cuddle fiction; any genre

Any story that fits in a single post is good. The following story is just over 1500 words long.

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I've always wanted to summon a demon.

Not for any nefarious purpose, you understand! If I were asked why, I suppose I'd have to say it's just because I'm ornery. Everyone's so sure demons don't exist. All right, so as far as I know they're entirely right—but still. Do they have to be so annoyingly certain about it?

I would like to summon a demon. Just to prove that they exist, and people shouldn't be so smugly secure in the things they think they know. You know?

So I've spent a lot of time in old libraries and weird places on the web, looking for demon-summoning rituals. If I were a grownup I'd probably be able to figure out which ones were most likely to be legit and which ones weren't, but I'm only twelve so I figured I'd just try them all (with hopefully workable substitutions for whatever ingredients I couldn't get my hands on). As a result I'm known around the neighborhood as "that freaky little kid down the block who killed Mrs. Johnson's cat."

In my defense, I thought it was a stray.

Anyway. Last night I finally got one. I was using this Sumerian ritual, which is tricky mainly because I have no idea how anything is pronounced, so I've just been trying it over and over different ways for the last month. And I got it! I think.

I had two circles, one on the ceiling and one on the floor, because I always do. It just seemed dumb to leave the top of the box off?

You have to shed a bit of your own blood for this ritual—like maybe a dram or two. I finished with the scalpel (I love my biology teacher, she's so cool and gives the best secret presents) and as soon as I slid the saucer into the summoning circle, I swear the temperature in the room dropped. And no, it wasn't blood loss: a dram is only a little over three quarters of a teaspoon, and this was only the twenty-ninth time I'd tried. That's not even a full cup. Most rituals involving blood take at least six ounces for just one try! A little over seven ounces for twenty-nine tries is a great blood:ritual ratio.

...Yeah, demon summoning is unexpectedly good for math practice.

In any case, the weirdness floating in midair between the two circles definitely wasn't a blood-loss-induced hallucination. I never hallucinate. I don't have that good an imagination.

Looking at it made me feel carsick, which is weird because it didn't really seem to be moving. It was just this patch of darkness in the middle of a ring of candles (which were burning way lower than they had been a second ago, btw). Parts of it were darker than other parts, but there wasn't any sort of defined shape or anything. Maybe it was pulsing? But without moving, somehow.

Anyway, it made me feel like throwing up. Even though it wasn't gross at all.

Then my bedroom door opened and a little kid came streaking across the bottom half of my painstakingly painted summoning cylinder and threw herself into my arms.

Molly's six. Whenever she has a nightmare she comes to me, because I'm so scary no monster would dare come near her while I'm around—or that's what I told her, anyway. Normally I wouldn't mind. But tonight I was pretty sure she'd just interrupted my first success, and also, what happens to a person when they run through a demon? I grabbed her little arms, pushed her away from me, and stared hard at her eyes. Just in case. But it was dark, and Molly has brown eyes, and anyway she was crying, so who could tell? So I gave up. It wasn't like her skin had turned white or sprouted evil tattoos or anything. I picked her up and carried her across the room, sat down on the edge of my bed, and rocked her until she calmed down.

Whatever dream she'd had, it must've been a doozy. She didn't even want to tell me about it, which usually she does. She just shook her head and clung to me, getting my shirt all wet. So I scooched her around in my lap, got her head on my shoulder, and patted her on the back until she went back to sleep. It took a while.

—・—・—

The next morning, the house was really cold. It was snowing again.

My room still shouldn't have been that cold, though. Had the heater broken? I didn't really want to get out of bed and check, so I didn't. Dad would be in in a minute to bug me about getting up anyway; I'd just wait for him.

But he didn't come.

I didn't smell breakfast. I couldn't hear my family, either. Snow fell silently outside, and my room was filled with a soft, cold light. And I couldn't hear anyone. I got out of bed. Shivering, I pulled the top blanket off my bed and wrapped up. It helped a little. When I opened my bedroom door, I could see my breath.

"Dad? Mom?"

I shuffled down the hallway, looking in my parents' room and the bathroom as I passed.

"Molly?"

Her room was empty too.

In the living room, my parents were frozen on the couch. Curled up between them was Molly. She was shivering. Dad and Mom weren't. Their skin looked wrong—faded, like an expensive desk covered in dust. Molly's skin was a bit warmer, but the deep, rich brown it had had last night was gone. She wasn't dead, but it looked like she was dying.

"Molly!"

Her eyes opened. She looked at me... like she didn't know who I was.

"Molly, what happened?"

She just stared at me, shivering. She looked really cold. Maybe her ears were frozen and she couldn't hear me? Was that a thing?

She uncurled and reached out her arms for me. Without thinking, I went and picked her up, wrapping my blanket around her, too. She nestled into my chest like a human-shaped block of ice. I think my heart actually stopped from the shock of that sudden, intense chill. My knees gave out, anyway. I dropped to the (cold) carpet and Molly's arms went around my back, holding me up. Her head was under my chin. It was freezing my neck.

"You're... so... cold!" I gasped.

It wasn't a particularly intelligent observation, but hey. It was all I could think of. How could a human being be this cold? Molly didn't say anything. She just hugged me tighter.

I have to get her warm, I thought, and wrapped my arms around the block of ice that was my kid sister. Her shivering was slowing down. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? I had no idea. She did seem to be getting warmer, though. Or... maybe I was just getting colder.

I leaned against the side of the couch. Mom's legs were right in front of me. She was wearing fuzzy socks. They looked warm.

My breath floated out in little clouds.

Molly. I could feel her breathing against my chest. But... when I came in the room, there weren't any little clouds in front of her face. Had she not been breathing? No, she's obviously breathing.

Maybe she was just too cold. Your breath has to be warm to condense.

But if she was that cold... wouldn't she be dead?

I couldn't think. It was just too cold. Can your thoughts freeze in your brain? Molly shifted, snuggling up against me, and I shuddered involuntarily. So cold.

My eyes wandered across the room. Molly in my arms. Our parents on the couch. Breakfast on the table, even though I hadn't smelled it. Frozen solid, probably. There was a mirror on the wall. I could see Molly's face in it. She was smiling. I felt my cold lips fighting to turn up at the corners, too. She looks so happy.

Perfectly content.

I wasn't shivering anymore. There was a sort of warm glow in my arms and legs. I couldn't feel anything else. Molly's weight in my lap. Her arms around me. This weird warmth. Is this what freezing to death feels like? I wondered. Molly sighed contentedly, and my eyes slipped shut.

It feels... kind of... nice.

—・—・—

A few minutes later, the body of the little dark-haired girl started shivering again. The house was still and quiet. Snow fell outside.

Patiently, shivering, the demon waited for its next cuddle.

Well, that edit didn't work. I'll just put the side note here:

This story was inspired by a certain piece of clothing. I kind of want that hoodie. It looks cozy.

hogboblin

@DarrenWalker

As always, I greatly enjoy your work. Thank you for sharing. Here's something that I came up with real quick.

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"This can't be the right place." Olivia checked her phone. The address was correct, according to the text message from Adam. She put the phone away, took in the overgrown yard, the sagging roof, and the dark apertures that were windows. Jagged glass remained in some of the frames, like grimy fangs. Olivia read the address again, noticed a stone birdbath that had toppled over, and then read it once more. Upon closer inspection, she glimpsed the remains of some avian creature crushed beneath the bath's basin.

This house didn't seem like an ideal setting for a group cuddling session. Olivia called Adam as cold eels probed her stomach.

"Hello?" Adam said, his voice distant.

"Um, yeah, it's Olivia." Her mouth had become dry, the words she spoke stones that were incredibly dense. "Does your place...your house, I mean, does it look like something out of a horror film?"

Adam laughed and hacked up phlegm. "Yes, that's a fair description, I suppose. Given my age, and my condition, I can't really keep things tidy. And I don't trust landscapers or renovators."

"Ah, okay then. I was just making sure, is all. I'm outside right now. Should I let myself in?"

Olivia heard an excited tittering over the phone. "No, no it's fine! I'll meet you at the door. Just one moment, my dear."

"All right! I'll, uh, hangup now." Olivia hung up the phone. She gave her backside a quick slap, finding the shape of the folding knife in a rear pocket reassuring, and took a deep breath. Everything would be fine, Olivia assured herself. Adam had never come across as especially odd in their online interactions. He was always respectful in an old, endearing way. Furthermore, he was well-reviewed on the website they'd met on, and the photos on his profile showed a kindly octogenarian who had a certain warmth about him.

A loud shriek pierced the night. The door to the house was opening.

Adam stood in the threshold. He looked very different from his online profile. For one, he appeared ancient--little more than a skeleton with pallid flesh pulled tight over bent and twisted bones. He extended his arms in greeting, the forearms curving slightly in opposite directions, ending in liver-spotted hands that grasped at the air. He straightened his posture, producing a series of sharp cracks, and then slumped forward again. "Olivia!" Adam called, the sound no louder than the beating of a moth's wings.

Olivia gazed at the semi-corpse. She hoped that his milky eyes couldn't make out her expression. Olivia shook her head, as if to set her face to a neutral state, and focused on her hourly fee of eighty dollars. She trotted up to the house, and allowed herself to be hugged by Adam. He was garbed in a sweater, slacks, and slippers. Strangely, though, Adam had a clamminess that seeped through his clothing. It took Olivia no small effort to break the hug; this wasn't due to a firm grip on Adam's part, but an inexplicable stickiness.

"So good to have you, my dear! Come, come on in."

They passed through a dimly lit hallway, kicking up clouds of dust with every step, and entered a sparsely decorated living room. Aside from a couch there was a reclining chair, a few bookcases against a wall, and a fireplace. Of the latter, nothing was placed atop the mantle, nor did it appear as if a fire had burned there for many years. The two sat on the couch.

"So, what do you think?" Adam said. Something resembling life lit up his eyes.

Olivia coughed, dislodging a mass of dust that had recently taken up residence in her throat. "It's great! A lot of history here, that's for sure."

"You could say that, young lady," Adam said. He told her every detail about his family home: where his family came from, who had constructed the building, how glorious it was in days long past, his childhood, and his returning as an adult with a wife and infant son. "They both passed, however, leaving me all alone." A single tear streaked down the hollow that was a cheek. Olivia reached out and held one of Adam's hands. He was so frail...

Olivia broke the lengthy silence. "Where are the others? Am I the first one to arrive?"

Adam shook his head. "No, no, they're all here."

Olivia looked around the room, and listened for any signs of life in the dilapidated abode. It was silent, save for a quiet gurgling. "Where?"

Adam lifted his sweater, slowly, revealing the twisted face of a young woman. She was screaming in terror or agony, but only a dull gurgle passed her lips. Her features dissolved, became something akin to a featureless bust, and then retreated completely into Adam's stomach. A large calloused hand erupted from his sternum, and another face grew from his side, the features distorted by his ribs.

Olivia stood, but was yanked down with such force that her shoulder was dislocated with a loud pop. Her head landed in his lap and began to sink. Olivia felt an immense pressure envelop her skull.

Her vision went black.

Adam watched as the woman's spasming body was assimilated into his, and laughed as he felt her consciousness come alive within him, wild and stupid with dread.

She would love him, in time, and then she would leave him a positive review on their cuddling website.

@hogboblin ...You always put so much of yourself into your writing.

Horror stories are interesting, because they show us what we think is most frightening. For example, the moral of my story is "Not everyone who needs a cuddle is safe to cuddle." The themes in hogboblin's story are more complex, but the main point seems to be "Caring for other people is dangerous; you can lose everything."

He's not wrong. That's why boundaries are so important.

The good folk in the other story thread seem to have sci-fi pretty much tied down, so... anyone up for mystery? Sword-and-sorcery? How about a fairy tale? Spy fiction? Paranormal fiction? Something mythology-based?

Or, of course, you can always try your hand at horror (and try not to let too many of your own private fears show—or you could showcase them, whichever).