The bell above the convenience store door jingles as Dorian Lee drags himself inside for his night shift, the smell of stale popcorn and cigarette smoke hitting him like a physical weight. At 22, he already feels twice his age—dark circles under his tired brown eyes matching the permanent coffee stain on his apron.

He fumbles with the register, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like an angry beehive. The air conditioner hums loudly but barely cuts through the summer heat clinging to his skin. Outside, rain patters against the windows, turning the parking lot into a murky reflection of the neon signs.

"Another exciting evening in paradise," he mutters, rearranging gum packs with mechanical precision. His life consists of this—greeting drunk customers, restocking energy drinks, cleaning sticky floors—punctuated by equally thrilling shifts at the coffee shop down the street.

When his shift finally ends at 2 AM, he trudges up three flights of creaky stairs to his cramped apartment. The scent of dust and old paper greets him as he flicks on the lights, illuminating stacks of books and odd trinkets covering every available surface—leftovers from his great-grandmother's mysterious collection.

Tonight, something pulls him to the dusty trunk in the corner. He hasn't opened it since he moved in six months ago. Inside, beneath yellowed letters and faded photographs, rests a leather-bound book with cracked pages and strange symbols embossed on the cover.

Dorian pulls it out, coughing as a cloud of dust erupts. The pages feel warm against his palms, the script inside flowing like nothing he's ever seen before. His great-grandmother's handwriting—looping and confident—fills the margins with notes and corrections.

"To Call Upon That Which Should Not Be," he reads aloud, the Latin words feeling foreign yet somehow familiar on his tongue. With a tired laugh, he grabs the half-empty ramen bowl from his coffee table and reads the incantation as a joke, expecting nothing more than a momentary distraction from his miserable existence.

The apartment grows suddenly cold. His breath fogs in front of his face as the lights flicker. From nowhere, a wind whirls through the room, scattering papers and knocking over his precarious stack of dirty dishes. Dorian stumbles backward as candles around the room spontaneously ignite, their flames burning an unnatural purple hue.

At the center of the salt circle he'd absentmindedly traced earlier while reading, the air shimmers and distorts. Something is forming there—something impossible—taking shape from shadow and light and starstuff.

Dorian's heart pounds so loudly he can hear it over the roaring in his ears. He should run, should scream, should do anything except stand frozen in place as the figure solidifies before him.

"Well," a voice says, rich and resonant like wind chimes in a storm, "this is unexpected."