It all started with a bad night’s sleep, a broken French press, and a questionable YouTube tutorial titled Coffee So Strong It’ll Raise the Dead (Literally?).

I was aiming for bold, but what I got was a thermonuclear sludge that was the consistency of tar and smelled like burnt promises. I took one sip, and my soul screamed. When the coffee began to gurgle, the cat I didn’t own but who always sat in my kitchen window mocking me bowed, and the wallpaper began to peel.

Before I could pour it down the sink, the surface of the coffee rippled, bubbled, and then boiled upwards. A jagged clawed hand shot out, knocking over my spoon rest, and grabbing the sugar tin like it owed them money.

Steaming with the scent of burnt espresso and basement gym socks, a horned demon climbed out of my coffee mug.

He looked around, blinked twice, and snarled, “Who dares summon Clorvex the Scorched?!”

Holding my favorite chipped mug and a half-eaten piece of toast, I stared at him. “I think I… I just made coffee?”

Clorvex investigated the mug, sniffed, then recoiled. “You brewed the Bitter Elixir of the Forgotten Depths using French vanilla creamer?!”

“I was out of oat milk.”

He howled in existential despair, which made the lights flicker and probably voided my home of its overpriced home insurance. With a dramatic swish of his spiked tail, he vanished in a puff of brimstone and passive-aggressive disappointment, but not before knocking over my entire spice rack and taking my chipped mug with him.

“Drama queen”, I mumbled under my breath.

Now there’s a scorch mark on the kitchen tiles, the smoke alarm won’t shut up, and my Roomba is speaking Latin.

So yeah, long story short…I need a new mug, a mop, and possibly an exorcism.