Fingerlike clouds drifted beneath the moon in the cool night air. The city was dark and silent, save for the faint glow of streetlight in the distance and the odd rush of wind from a moving car. The hour was Midnight.

	“Chalk? Check. Full moon? Check. Candles? Check. Book of the dark arts for teens? Check…..Alrighty then, I think I’m set up!” a figure in the dark void of a city park declared aloud.
	She been waiting for this moment for a long time, everything need to be perfect to summon a ghost. Chalk scratched against the concrete square at the of a park, as a complex circular symbol was scribed on the ground. Her head raised for a moment as she worked, eyes scanning to assure that not a soul was in sight. The candles were meticulously placed and carefully lit by the figure with spike bound pigtails and a jacket of some description tied around her waist.
	“Ok… Let do this…” she muttered as she opened her book, “On the pale moon of midnight. Hear me now on which you might. Please oh please set my wish right," the chalk circle faintly reflected a dull red as the moonlight shone upon it, "Please give me a friend that will step to the light. It will fill me with delight!” Shiraki yelled out into the night, calling all spirits to hear her wish...

[hr]
	Only for nothing to happened. The muffled sound of a soft breeze filled the empty moments of waiting as disappointment mounted.
	“...Seriously?! That’s it?!” Shiraki cried out in frustration.

	A gust of chill wind ripped down from high in the sky, guttering against buildings as it blasted into the park. Pages from the book fluttered, as if the sky were defying her methods. Page after page of arcane symbols and complex rituals, seemingly rendered moot by a simple gesture of nature. The night became a wet, cutting cold, as the finger-like clouds swirled around the moon, blocking it out.

	Feeling defeated, she turned to head home, when she noticed the sudden cold. Was it about to rain? No, her weather app said that it’s very unlikely to rain tonight, so what was it? Did she really do it? Did she really summon spirits?

	Suddenly, a splitting crash sounded out behind her, causing Shiraki to jump. A bolt of lightning had come from the blue, and struck the radio tower, with its blinking green light. In the west, clouds billowed on the horizon, descending in strands of mist, as a fog bank began to roll in along the hills beyond. Making her way home, doubt continued to wrack her mind. All this was probably nothing, just the weather app was acting weird today and it just now about to start to rain.

	Well over an hour had gone by, before Shiraki finally made it home, a fog following her in the distance along the way, rounding corners she had long passed. She slowly and quietly unlock her door, not wanting to wake up her parents. Obviously, they didn't know that Shiraki have been out this late. She tiptoed inside and walk into her room, changing into her pajamas. As she was laying down in her bed, looking at the ceiling, Shiraki just felt disappointment. She thought that ritual may work, she thought she could at least summon something. But alas, it didn’t. Shiraki just need to face the facts, she doesn’t have a it takes to have a real friend... She’ll be forever alone...

[hr]

	Less than an hour later, the whole city went black. Power, internet, phonelines, everything went dead. Fog billowed down the streets, mounting into an ominous, oppressive heap in the park where the chalk circle had been drawn. The candles burned for a moment in an eerie blue, before being snuffed out with a twisted howl by the night air.

	When the power returned, the fog still hung thick in the night air. Traffic lights flashed a caution pattern, as the buzzes and whirs of household appliances returned. The blackout would have gone almost entirely unnoticed, if a second crash of lightning against the radio tower hadn't sounded out. The street cameras only came back on as the fog receded, drifting away in stringy wisps.

	There was a clatter in the corner of Shiraki's room, as if some object had fallen over in the dark.