“It’s working!” Serena whooped.

The circle was glowing, the colors shifting from blue to silver and gold. I held my breath. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing. We had made contact, magical contact with…

A buzzing sound fractured the air. The happy colors winked off, and a red glow emanated from the circle. Darkness filled the room, a dense fog that occupied all available space. We were soon engulfed, lost in a shapeless void.

The buzzing intensified. It now sounded like the scratchy static of a broken radio. Voices were coming through, voices that sounded gravelly and ominous.

“This isn’t good,” Serena croaked. Her face looked ashen, even in the eerie red light.

“That’s an understatement,” I whispered. This wasn’t good. It was a total disaster.

My experiment hadn’t been approved by any of the teachers. We thought we could get away with breaking the rules if we got everything right. The worst case scenario was that the experiment wouldn’t work. After all, we were just sophomores, magicians in becoming. However, magic is unpredictable and has a mind of her own. Magic makes the impossible happen. She breaks all the rules, when there are rules to be broken. And we had been breaking the rules. Magic had decided to help us, just in her own way.

The voices became louder, clearer. They were chanting, and I finally managed to make sense of what they were saying. Blood froze in my veins. Serena turned to me, her eyes wide and horrified.

“I think we made contact…” Serena whispered, “…with…with…”

“Yes, I know,” I replied.