My Friend Markus

[This story includes artistic descriptions of gore, minor alcohol use, and mental illness]

I had five close friends growing up. Their names were Samantha, George, Emily, Aaron, and Markus. Now you could probably tell from the title of this story that I'll be focusing on Markus. The thing is he wasn't real. Markus was George's imaginary friend from before any of us met. 

It started out as your typical talking to the air, and leaving a space open for him at the table kind of thing. One day in second grade George hadn’t done his homework, and he blamed Markus for stealing it. The entire class thought that was hilarious, and our friend group decided to adopt him. After that all five of us started talking to Markus when we played. He made our friend group an even number. When we would play soccer he might be a rock or plank of wood acting as a goalie. When we played video games he would be a CPU character. We’d always deal out an extra hand of cards towards that empty seat. Markus had an incredibly good poker face, but he just didn’t know how to fold.

Even as we grew up our friend group still referred to Markus as an inside joke. When I joined the robotics team I convinced them to name our robot after him. When Samantha and Emily started dating Markus was the first person they told. He was good at keeping secrets. As a prank we got enough students to vote him as prom king and he won. The prom queen, Amber Pines, looked so confused alone on stage. It was priceless.

Then in the blink of an eye it was time to go to college. All of us were traveling out of state except for George. He was going to a local community college. We promised to meet up regularly and maintain our group chat. George was skeptical that we could keep the friendship going, and we could all feel his anxiety building. Loneliness was very difficult for him. 

The summer before college we all got together for a grad party on the beach. George’s aunt owned a little vacation house on the shore, and she let us stay there. After hours of volleyball, burying ourselves in the sand, and moderate drinking it began to grow dark. The night was terribly brisk, but Aaron managed to get a good fire going. We sat in cozy blankets with marshmallows on skewers. All of us reminiscing about our time in school together. At some point the conversation shifted to Markus, and George seemed to perk up. He said he found something. A book that would let us make Markus real. He said it was a family heirloom, and that he brought it with him. With a mix of worry, intoxication, skepticism and genuine curiosity we all decided to humor him. 

George drew large symbols in the sand. It seemed like he knew what he was doing almost like he was preparing for this. He told us to each stand on a point of the pentagram. Samantha looked increasingly concerned, but Emily took her hand and convinced her it would be alright. I don’t think she believed in any of this occult stuff. George explained that we would all have to keep the image of Markus in our heads as we recite the incantation. Then the ritual began. We tried to follow his instructions as best we could, but something was off. Maybe we made a mistake in the pronunciation, or were too drunk to think clearly, or perhaps in some terrible way the ritual went perfectly. When we started everything was going according to the strange book’s description. As we spoke aloud the hastily written words we could feel a force pulling us towards the center of the pentagram. Our shadows stretched and met in the middle creating a point of incredible darkness that sunk deep into the shifting sand. I could feel my thoughts solidifying in my mind like crystalline shapes that grew and scratched the inside of my skull. Then it was over. In an instant the world shifted back and the five of us collapsed gasping for breath. George looked around confused for a moment. It seemed like nothing changed except for a small hole appearing at the center of the ritual circle about the width of my thumb.  

Cautiously we approached the little black dot in the ground, but before we could see what was inside the sand erupted upwards like a geyser. I fell backwards while shielding my eyes before there was a second wave of stillness. Slowly the dust cloud dissipated, and the five of us staired in absolute horror at the shape in the middle of that crater. 

I think we all had a different idea of what Markus was, because the thing that crawled out of the sand wasn’t human. It was made out of playing cards, LED screens, plastic figurines, wires, chair legs, motor oil, rocks, flesh, game controllers, amniotic fluid, a prom crown, skin, empty air, sheets of homework, a joke, a secret, and a friend. It writhed in front of us for a moment. His barely formed hands waved, pleaded, shook, and balled. The thing that was Markus sputtered laughter, tears, clever lies, blood and sparks before its own impossibility caught up with it. The amalgamation of our friendship collapsed into a heap before letting out his first and last breath. 

We all stood there staring at Markus' corpse. Samantha wept into Emily's shoulder as she looked on in shock. Aaron was pulling at his own hair as he muttered curse words. George’s eyes were closed and he shivered while repeating how sorry he was to nobody in particular. I was the first to move. I walked up to the pile of debris that some part of my mind once considered my friend, and wordlessly I picked up one of the pieces and threw it in the fire. It was a flap of leather from a football. It smelled like burning hair as it curled and blackened. Slowly the rest of my friends joined me one by one. Like family members throwing dirt over a coffin we sprinkled the bits of Markus into the hungry flames. He burned in vibrant colors and emitted odd smells. George held the final piece over the fire and hesitated. It was an old broken mirror that shone in the glow of the campfire. In its spiderweb of jagged edges were a part of each of us. We all looked back at him as he let it fall from his grip into the pile of burning debris. Then he collapsed to the sand with tears flowing down his cheeks. The four of us kneeled close and wrapped our arms around him. I promised that I wouldn’t let him go. None of us were leaving forever, and we would be back for the holidays. We held George tight as the fire crackled and consumed what was left of Markus. We stayed with him until the sky began to brighten and the flames finally died. We buried whatever parts didn’t burn.