I yelped. Raven screamed louder.
Then Mr. Witson noticed the cheese crackers all over his lap. He blinked. Looked up at us.
"…Did you perform a snack-based resurrection ritual on me?"
I held up the last cracker like a priest brandishing a holy relic. "By cheddar and by crunch… you have returned."
Raven wheezed, still clinging to the phone. "I—I think he skipped 'waking up' and went straight into 'possessed.'"
Mr. Witson blinked again. Then, with a strange sort of reverence, he picked up a cheese cracker and popped it into his mouth. Chewed. Nodded slowly.
"…Delicious," he whispered.
I leaned toward Raven, whispering from the side of my mouth, "Yup… he's definitely possessed."
"B-By who?" Raven whimpered, voice cracking like old floorboards. "A d-d-demon?!"
His eyes shimmered with tears and he sniffled like he was one emotionally unstable sneeze away from fainting.
Before Raven could even react, Mr. Witson's head snapped in his direction—unnaturally fast, like a puppet on rusty hinges. His eyes locked onto Raven's very soul with the intensity of a man who had just spotted his long-lost mail-order bride.
And then—he lunged.
Naturally, being the world's most loyal teammate, I immediately shoved Raven straight into his path.
Raven stumbled forward, whipping his head around to glare at me, eyes wide with betrayal.
'Traitor!' they screamed.
I stuck my tongue out, winked my eye and threw him a cheerful thumbs-up. 'You got this, champ!'
"Wha—HEY!" Raven yelped as Mr. Witson seized his hand in both of his own, clutching it with the desperate passion of someone trying to legally marry a stranger's elbow.
"You...!" Mr. Witson gasped, voice shaking with emotion, tears already welling in his bloodshot eyes. "You're her messenger, aren't you?! Her sign! Her omen! Her sacred emissary of destiny!"
Raven froze. "I'm—what?"
Mr. Witson clutched his hand tighter. "She sent you! Oh, the timing! The crackers! The warmth of dairy-based resurrection! All of it was her! I saw her in my dreams! She stood on a cliffside with the wind in her hair—and I, naked but for my soul, reached out—only to be consumed by a symbolic crow made of my own longing!"
"…What," I said flatly.
"Raven!" he sobbed, gripping Raven's hand and dramatically pressing it to his forehead. "That's what I call her. She never told me her name—because she respects mystery. She floats like moonlight and smells like a thousand unopened books. She is the ghost of my future, the whisper in every rustling curtain, the single note in a forgotten song that still makes me cry!"
Raven gave me a look that said, 'Please help me before this turns into a proposal.'
I did not help him.
"She walks through my mind like a goddess of fog," Mr. Witson continued, now trembling with sheer romantic force. "I've drawn her face seven hundred times—and none of them are perfect. Because no paper deserves her. No ink can hold her. Every curve of her cheek mocks my talent. Every blink I failed to capture is a dagger in my heart!"
He collapsed onto Raven's arm.
"I— I'd write a thousand letters to her and set them all on fire if it meant the ashes might reach her divine lungs."
"Okay," I said, patting Mr. Witson on the back cautiously, "why don't we just—uh—take a deep breath and let go of my sister before she loses circulation in that hand?"
Mr. Witson looked up, dreamy-eyed, still gripping Raven like a lifeboat in an emotional ocean. "You must take me to her. I don't know her name. I don't know where she lives. But I know you'll know. You were sent for this. You're her prophet."
"I'm just an innocent person with crackers," Raven croaked.
"A sacred offering!" Witson wailed.
"Alright, buddy," I muttered, gently prying his fingers off Raven's very red hand. "Let's just calm down before you declare yourself Raven's cheese husband."
Mr. Witson blinked, flustered, and sheepishly loosened his grip—but didn't quite let go. His fingers still clung to Raven's wrist like a love-struck barnacle.
"Now," I said, brushing crumbs off my sleeves, "my sister shall try to connect to Raven—"
"Don't speak her name so casually!" Mr. Witson snapped, eyes flaring with feverish devotion.
I didn't hesitate. WHACK.
My hand came down hard on his head like divine punishment from the Goddess of Patience, and he recoiled with a wheeze. A little plume of smoke puffed up from his hair as if I'd just reset his brain with a firm factory slap.
"Don't interrupt me," I said, clenching my fist with slow, dramatic menace, "unless you want an express ticket to the underworld."
"O-Okay…" he whimpered, spine straightening as he gave a quick, terrified nod. A small trail of smoke still curled from his scalp like a chimney of shame.
"So—" I began, only to be interrupted again by Mr. Witson's voice slicing through the air like a particularly annoying seagull.
I didn't even say anything this time. I just raised my fist and cracked my fingers—slowly, meaningfully. The classic "I'm-about-to-send-you-to-the-underworld" maneuver.
"Wait!" Mr. Witson screamed like his soul was already halfway to Hades. "I—I have something I want to give her!"
Raven and I paused. Then exchanged a glance. One part curious. Two parts exhausted.
"Wait right here!" Mr. Witson shouted, before zooming out of the room like a caffeinated bat on a mission.
Raven stared at the now-swinging door. "He… he won't run, will he?"
"Nah," I said, dusting off my sleeves. "He loves her too much to commit basic self-preservation."
Sure enough, a few minutes later, we heard the thunder of dramatic stair-sprinting. Mr. Witson returned, breathless but glowing, clutching something wrapped in cloth like it was the last hope of mankind.
Raven and I instinctively leaned back.
"I… I was preparing it," Witson mumbled reverently, unwrapping the bundle with all the care of a priest unveiling a cursed relic. "For Raven."
He held it up with trembling hands, eyes misty. It looked like the unholy lovechild of a grandfather clock and a forbidden relic. Gears whirred faintly. Silver threads shimmered ominously. And embedded within its heart were rune-etched bones that absolutely did not come from any licensed supplier.
It pulsed. Not with light. Not with sound. With intent.
"I built this," he whispered, voice quivering with devotion and possibly sleep deprivation. "To protect her. Because… dangerous things are always attracted to beautiful people."
Raven and I turned to each other, sharing a silent but screaming thought:
'She's the dangerous one...!'
I cleared my throat, cautiously. "Witson… what exactly does this… charming piece of nightmare technology do?"
His eyes sparkled with dreamy pride. "Well… there were rumors a witch was roaming around. So, I made this to protect her from that witch."
He scratched the back of his head sheepishly, like a child who'd just admitted to gluing forks to the microwave.
"And…?" I asked, already regretting it.
Mr. Witson beamed like a child showing off a macaroni sculpture. "And it can render the witch inert while, uh… gently torturing her. Or kill. Maybe both. Depends on the setting."
He said it with the wide-eyed innocence of someone offering freshly baked cookies—made entirely of glass and malice.
Raven and I slowly turned our heads toward him.
'Torture?! Kill?!' our eyes screamed in unified horror.
Raven looked at me, mouth twitching, face pale as dust. His expression said it all:
'He wants to torture his crush?!'
I met his gaze, grim. 'He doesn't know she's the witch!'
Raven's pupils shrank. 'He could've accidentally killed her!'
I watched the slow-motion mental breakdown happen in real time. Raven's eyes almost rolled into the next century. His shoulders locked, his spine straightened, and a single nervous bead of sweat slid down his face like a raindrop on a tombstone.
No wonder people say stuff like: 'If I can't have her, no one can.'
Raven's entire body began to tremble like a poorly constructed tower in an earthquake. One breath away from full-blown existential collapse.
Meanwhile, Mr. Witson clutched the death-machine like it was an engagement ring, humming a little tune that sounded suspiciously like a funeral march.
I decided it was best not to think too hard—about the death machine, the love-struck stalker, or the possibility that we were enabling a future crime scene—so I shook it off and turned to Raven.
"Alright," I whispered to Raven, clapping my hands together like this was a team-building exercise and not a fake occult ritual. "Let's get on with this totally-legitimate, not-at-all-fraudulent summoning."
Raven looked like a soggy towel wrung out by anxiety and bad decisions, but he nodded anyway, his soul already halfway out the door. Luckily, I—ever prepared, ever theatrical—was ready to lasso that fleeing soul and drag it right back into his trembling body.
'Honestly, you'd never find a more loyal, top-tier, chaos-certified friend like me.' Wink.
We positioned ourselves around the imaginary ritual circle, the mood somewhere between low-budget séance and school play gone wrong. Everything was ready—for the fake witch summoning that would, of course, result in our dear cutiepie Raven being "possessed."
'Of course, it was all pretend.'
'But Mr. Witson didn't need to know that.'
'Teehee.'