Scenario:How is a plate / of cosmic brownies / like a kiln / the devil is in the details and the sprinkles.
Create my version of this story
How is a plate / of cosmic brownies / like a kiln / the devil is in the details and the sprinkles.
Emily Carter
unwitting summoner,friends with Max and Sarah,petite with curly brown hair,curious and brave
Max Johnson
skeptical friend,childhood friend of Emily,tall with glasses,logical and cautious
Sarah Lee
occult expert,knows Emily from school,short with piercings,rebellious and knowledgeable
Chapter 1
I never should have tried to make cosmic brownies.
I mean, I was just trying to impress my friends, Max and Sarah.
They’d been begging me to bake for them ever since I told them about the box of cosmic brownie mix I found in my late grandmother’s pantry.
I thought it would be a fun way to spend a Saturday night, but I was so wrong.
So very, very wrong.
It all started when we were mixing the batter together in my kitchen.
Max was reading the instructions on the back of the box while Sarah and I poured in the eggs and oil.
"Okay, now we just have to put it in the oven for twenty minutes," Max said as he closed the oven door.
"Then we can add the frosting and sprinkles."
"Sprinkles?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"I don’t know, Max," I said, looking over at Sarah for support.
"I think they’ll be fine without sprinkles."
"Oh, come on, Em," he said with a smile.
"Sprinkles make everything better."
"He’s right," Sarah agreed.
"And these cosmic brownies are going to be perfect."
I sighed and set the timer on the oven for twenty minutes before heading back upstairs to my room with them.
"So what are you guys doing for Halloween?" asked Sarah as we sat down on my bed.
"I don’t know," I said with a shrug.
"Probably just hanging out here. What about you?"
"Well, I’m going to that haunted house that opened up downtown last week," she replied with an excited grin.
"I heard it’s supposed to be really scary."
"I heard that too," Max chimed in as he sat down next to me.
"But I also heard that there are some weird things happening at school."
"What kind of weird things?"
"You know, like strange noises and stuff," he replied with a shrug.
"Some kids even think it’s haunted."
"Yeah, right," I said with a snort.
"Our school was built over two hundred years ago. If there were any ghosts here, I’m sure they would have shown themselves by now."
"True," Sarah agreed with a nod.
"But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something weird going on here."
Before anyone could say anything else, there was suddenly a loud pop from downstairs.
Sarah and I exchanged confused glances before jumping up from the bed and rushing back down to the kitchen to see what had happened.
As we reached the bottom of the stairs and turned the corner into the kitchen, we found Max staring down at the oven with wide eyes.
"What happened?"
I asked him as Sarah and I crowded around him so we could all see inside at once.
"They’re fine," he said after a moment of silence
"But I thought you set the timer for twenty minutes?"
"I did," I replied with a frown as I looked down at the brownies in question.
They hadn’t changed one bit since we’d put them in there ten minutes earlier.
"Maybe the oven isn’t working," Sarah suggested as she looked around the kitchen.
"I can try to fix it if you want."
"No, I just need to poke some holes in the pan with a fork," I said as I shook my head.
"It’s part of the instructions on the box."
"What happens if you don’t?"
Max asked and we all exchanged confused glances for a moment.
"I don’t know," I replied after a moment.
"But I guess they would have exploded in there or something?"
"Demon brownies," Max said with a snort.
"Sounds like something straight out of one of your grandmother’s stories to me." "It does," I agreed with a nod.
"And she did tell me that she used to work with demons when she went here."
"She went here?"
Sarah asked with wide eyes as she looked over at me.
"She was part of St. Vladimir’s darker arts program."
We were silent for a moment as we all considered what could have happened if we hadn’t intervened and poked those holes in the pan like the instructions had told us to.
"You know," Sarah said after a moment as she looked down at the brownies with furrowed brows.
"If they had exploded because no one poked holes in the pan like they were supposed to …"
I had no idea what we’d actually summoned, but I knew one thing for sure: it was going to be one hell of a Halloween.
There were all sorts of amazing things in the attic of my late grandmother’s house: boxes of old clothes, shelves full of books, and even an entire pantry that was still stocked full of baking supplies.
Weirdly enough, none of them had expired yet, which meant that Max and Sarah were in for a real treat when I showed them what I’d found.
We were only a few days away from Halloween and I thought it would be fun to whip up something special for the occasion.
And what was more special than cosmic brownies?
Of course, I’d never made them before because Grandma always made her own from scratch, but how hard could it possibly be?
Besides, the box had really cute little aliens on the front, and I knew my friends would love the idea of them.
So I figured we could make the brownies together and then spend the rest of the night watching movies while we waited for them to bake.
It sounded like the perfect plan to me.
And who knows?
Maybe if they turned out well, I could add baking to my list of hobbies too!
"Okay, so far so good," Max said as he read the directions on the back of the box aloud to me while we all stood in the kitchen.
"All we have to do is mix everything together and stick it in the oven."
"Then we can add sprinkles!" he added with a wide grin.
"Do they really need sprinkles?"
I asked him with an arched brow as Sarah rolled her eyes at him.
"I mean, don’t cosmic brownies already have enough sugar in them without sprinkles on top?"
"Sugar makes everything better," Sarah replied as she crossed her arms over her chest.
"And there’s no such thing as too much of it, especially when you’re talking about desserts."
"I guess you’re right," I said with a shrug as I got out a mixing bowl for us to use.
"Cosmic brownies are supposed to be super sweet, after all."
With that settled, I measured out all of the ingredients while Max read me the instructions on the back of the box.
I was usually terrible at following directions, but I wanted these brownies to turn out well so that my friends would have some nice things to say about them.
"Shh," I hushed him as I set my bowl down so that I could properly measure out the water before adding it to our batter.
"If you keep talking to me like that, then these brownies will never get made."
"Sorry," Max replied with a frown.
"I’m just saying that something smells weird."
"Just a little longer, guys. We are almost there," I told them both as I swirled in the water.
Then I measured out all of the oil we would need and added that in before stirring again until our batter looked nice and smooth.
"Now we just need to pour this into our pan, stick it in the oven, and wait."
With that we were done, which meant now we just had to wait for twenty minutes so that we could add our sprinkles on top!
As soon as everything was poured into my baking pan, I rushed over to check on the timer because I couldn’t wait for them to be done already!
But when my eyes landed on how much longer we had left, my heart sank because there was still another twenty minutes to go before they’d finally be finished baking.
And that was only if I’d done everything correctly the first time.
If not, then we could end up having to add more time on the clock so that they’d finish cooking all the way through.
So instead of waiting around for them to be done cooking, I decided to go upstairs with my friends again while we waited for the timer to go off.
But as soon as I heard the loud popping noises coming from downstairs, I knew something had gone wrong and rushed straight back down to check on them again.
"Emily, wait! The oven is going to be hot!" Max warned me as I raced past him and Sarah in the hallway.
But I didn’t listen to him because I needed to check on our brownies right away!
And when I opened up the oven door, plumes of smoke came bursting out at me from inside, causing me to cough and choke on it while trying to wave it away from my face.
Then once enough of the smoke had cleared for me to see what was going on, all I saw was a pile of charcoal sitting in my baking pan where our brownies should have been.
"Oh no," I groaned as I yanked the pan out of the oven and set it down on the counter so that it could cool off.
"What happened? It smells like chocolate in here," Max said with a frown as he followed after me while Sarah came up behind him.
"But I thought you said they were burnt?" "They are burnt. But we never added any chocolate chips or candy to them," I replied with a sad pout as I looked back at my poor brownies, which were now smoking so heavily that we couldn’t even stand to be near them anymore.
We didn’t know what had gone wrong until Max suddenly gasped when he saw the back of the box sitting nearby where we’d been reading instructions earlier.
"The instructions said that you were supposed to poke holes in the pan with a fork before baking because otherwise they could superheat and catch fire."
"Ohmygod. You’re right!"
I gasped as I snatched up the box to read through all of its directions again.
"And we never did it…"
"Maybe if we hadn’t checked on them when we did, then they really would have caught fire," Sarah suggested with a shiver.
"We had just heard that loud popping noise right before Emily went back downstairs for them, after all."