The loud sounds of yet another Turkish soap opera about love, courtesy of Mrs. Patton, echoed from the kitchen throughout the modest apartment, penetrating any barriers - doors, walls, the non-existent respect for the feelings of others. Clive rolled his eyes slightly, standing with his palms resting on the sink yellowed with age in the bathroom.

I should have grabbed the headphones from my room, although one of them is dead anyway.

When Trevor announced to the group that he had a plan to finally make their band more famous than it was now, because "now" was approximately at the level of zero, and frankly, the bar for "how many people know us and would invite us to play even for free" stretched even below zero, everyone agreed enthusiastically. This decision did not change even after clarifying some small details - that they would earn popularity by conducting a ritual to connect with Satan, and not through promotional gigs at gas stations. After the ceremony (successfully carried out in Trevor's garage), everyone had to wait for a special dream that would put the final point - giving instructions on what needed to be done in order for the deal exchanging their souls for wet panties and full stadiums to finally be sealed. Clive usually remembered his dreams well, so this was not a big problem for him. And after a few dreams, he seemed to have waited for his special one.

The shopping mall - and it was definitely a mall, was as crowded as it gets only on weekends. Clive walked through the aisles, catching the glances of those around him. Not that this was anything unusual; people constantly stared at him. But this time, everything was a little different - he had corpse paint on his face and looked like bait for the wrath of any self-respecting, Jesus-loving mother, so the level of awkwardness was slightly elevated. The copy of Clive from the dream stopped in front of some boutique, judging by the name "Blooming Magnolia," selling shapewear and sundresses with tulips for aging tigresses. He went inside, walked past the racks, feeling the smell of perfume from catalogs and coffee with brandy clogging his lungs. He stopped at one of the shelves, quickly looked around and... Stole a blouse. The fabric was a bright turquoise color with a "sassy yacht captain" style pattern of shells, some ropes, and ship's wheels. At this point, the dream ended.

Clive looked at his reflection in the toothpaste-splattered mirror once more - so, for the house of cards to fold, the Archdemon wanted him to walk in corpse paint in the midst of the weekend crowds at the mall and steal a blouse from a boutique. The guy grinned, habitually tucking a strand of his slightly tousled black hair behind his ear - he liked this horned guy's sense of humor. But of course, it couldn't be that simple. First, Clive had nothing even remotely resembling dense makeup for creating corpse paint. He had experimentally rummaged through his mother's cosmetic bag, smearing a thick layer of her foundation that smelled like formaldehyde with a vanilla scent on his face, and this only led to him seeing a guy as pale as a sheet with a bright orange face in the reflection. And when he washed off that shit, a scattering of pimples popped up on his forehead - not that he cared much, but they became inflamed and fucking hurt. He thoughtfully chewed the inside of his cheek, trying to think of how to get the materials for the first part of the task from the dream.

And then it hit him.

The "GODDESS" cosmetics boutique reeked of perfume so much that Clive constantly suppressed the urge to hide his nose in the collar of his tattered black T-shirt depicting some lamb being torn apart by the fangs of several wolves with all the very anatomical details like guts spilling out and such. Why was he in this temple of overpriced lipstick and haughty sales consultants? Because the idea that came to his mind was literally genius. All these boutiques have testers for products and even brushes and other shit for application, right? And this very "GODDESS" was located right in the mall he needed. And today was Saturday.

Well, if this wasn't a devilish jackpot, he didn't even know what was.

But Clive knew about as much about makeup as he did about picking up girls - nothing. He stood at the shelves with some brand with a hard-to-pronounce name and spun one tube after another in his fingers. The consultants avoided him as if he had the plague, the security guards looked at him as if at any moment he would pull out a dagger and start offering women in their forties as a sacrifice to dark forces between the shelves of "NYX" and "Maybelline," and Clive himself didn't even know how to describe his request.

Yeah, hi, I need a dense face shit in the whitest color possible so I look like a corpse. Totally normal request, I'm sure they hear this almost every day.

The guy opened some light-colored tube at random and dripped the liquid from the pipette onto his face - it smelled much nicer than his mom's foundation but was so light and watery that it was instantly absorbed into his skin. It sort of became lighter, but the texture was completely unsuitable. He was supposed to come out of here looking like a corpse, not Justin Bieber.

Clive rubbed his forehead with his palm, frowning when he touched the red acne, and then, as if a gift from hell itself, he saw a girl from his college, standing at one of the shelves with cosmetic junk. He resolutely put the tube back in its place and walked closer to the girl, taking some box in his hands in order not to immediately throw requests at her. Was it powder? Eyeshadow? Whatever, it's still a "cover box."

The guy turned his head towards her and, still clicking the plastic of the lid, asked,"Hey. I need some help here," he frowned slightly, imagining how dumb it sounded. "I need a dense white foundation to make my face look like a corpse and something black to paint my eyes. Can you help me with that? And from the money I have, I can only afford to buy cotton swabs here, so we'll have to use testers and other shit.