A Ritual

"For those four that seek power, place one hand to each heart. Speaketh these words for the ritual to start: shgiht ruoy neewteb elgnad sniol slived eht tel"

"That's super creepy. We should leave. Can we leave?" Hannah's heart was now racing.

"Chill out, weirdo! It's probably just a gimmick," said Scarlet.

"Yeah, it's probably just an art installation," Becca added.

"An _erotic _art installation."

"Ew, Em!"

Becca was the straightest laced member of the group, barring Amy Beth. A blonde, buxom cheerleader with a pure heart, she could never quite tolerate Em and Scarlet's crassness like Hannah could.

"Shut up, you two. Are we going to do this or not?" Scarlet said.

"What? You can't be serious," Hannah objected. "Are you crazy? Don't you feel the bad mojo around this thing?"

"Bad mojo? What are you, a hippie grandma? Come on."

"I'm not doing this!" Hannah said.

Scarlet looked at her closely, then looked to the others.

Em shrugged, "I'll do it. I don't have anything better to do and the edibles are about to hit."

"Come on Hannah, it's clearly a goofy Halloween prop," Becca said. "It's not actually evil."

Scarlet looked back at her triumphantly, "you don't want to be the odd woman out, right?"

Hannah felt the pull of peer pressure on her heart. It almost won out, but something stopped her. This was wrong. She could feel the wrongness in the air, hovering like poison gas. Something very bad would happen if she touched that obelisk.

"No, I'm not doing it."

"I'll do it!"

Hannah's blood ran cold. Amy Beth had taken her advice too literally.

"No, you won't," Hannah insisted.

"Don't listen to her, Amy Beth. You aren't lame like your cousin."

Amy Beth looked from Scarlet to Hannah, back and forth. There was a war going on behind her thick glasses.

"Please don't do this, Amy Beth. Don't you feel how wrong this is?"

The paleness of Amy Beth's skin, the quiver of her lips showed that she knew. Still, she wavered.

"I'll do it! I'm going to be cool!"

Hannah watched in horror as her cousin stepped up to the plate. Her mother was going to kill her.