How Dealing With The Devil Shaped Me As A Person

Prompt 1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

Everyone wants to be the best. Some want to be the best writer, or the best musician, or the best scientist. During my junior year of high school, I wanted nothing more than to be the best student. To fully understand me as a person, and more importantly, as a potential student for [INSERT COLLEGE I AM SENDING THIS TO HERE], you need to know about Halloween night, 2018. That was the night I made a deal with a demon to bring my dreams to fruition.

You must know that my sophomore year was hell. Not the kind of hell that the demon came from, but the hell where your mom denied you food for getting 4s on your AP tests. I had an 89.9 average and scored a 1400 on the PSAT. I was part of only 10 clubs, including sports teams. I was nowhere near college material. When junior year began, it just got even worse. I began to have a habit of sleep-crying-while-studying and started to carve SAT tips into my skin with a mechanical pencil. As my life began falling apart, I found an old book in a closed-down church downtown while trying to find somewhere to sleep after school. I dusted it off and found that it was riddled with incantations and ancient runes. After opening the book, I found various pictures of demon anatomy and steps on how to summon one. Immediately, I began forming a plan.

On Halloween night, I drew the pentagram, lit the candles, and cut open a subway rat in order to harness the demon’s power. Once I placed the rat guts in the middle of the symbol, I heard a rush of wind, saw the candles’ fire grow larger than my tiny apartment could handle, and felt a powerful energy surround the room. When I regained my bearings, I looked up to find a demon looking down at me. “Alright,” it said. “What do you want? Money? Fame? Revenge? If you just wanted to see if it was going to work—”

“I want to be the perfect student,” I straightened my back. “What do I have to give you to make this happen?”

The demon crouched down.

“Mere academics, huh, mortal? I can do that.” It pulled out a contract. “Here’s the deal. I will possess you. That’s what I’ll get out of this. I will take over your life, and when you regain control, you will have amazing grades, be in so many extracurriculars, and ace every test. Just sign here, and I will make your pathetic existence everything you’ve ever wanted.”

Without thinking, I grabbed my multicolored Muji pen and scribbled my name over the contract. No one ever read the Terms of Service anyway. The demon rushed into my body, and I felt its flames surround my skin as I screeched in agony before I blacked out.

When I woke up, I was on my bed, and it was the beginning of senior year. Disoriented, I picked up my phone, only to realize my password wasn’t working. The demon was sitting at the foot of the bed. “I changed it. Your previous password was 1234. I changed it to 666imdumb666. Much safer,” it said.

Once I opened my phone, I went on Messenger and tried to talk to my friends, only for them to blow me off. I looked at my Facebook notifications and found that I was getting enormous amounts of angery reaccs on every one of my posts. “What happened?” I turned toward the demon.

“What happened? I just used your body to habituate in this plane of existence. Had some fun.” Memories of the past year began rushing into my head. I remembered how the demon made me act horribly toward everyone I knew. How it made me run for a spot in the Student Union and totally embarrass myself. How it made me act out toward the teachers and got me suspended for two weeks. How it got me caught for academic dishonesty. How it made me scream cringy old memes in the hallways. Then I remembered the last one was just a memory from freshman year. I had perfect grades and was part of 100 extracurriculars, but at what cost?

The demon had made me so obnoxious that no one would even go near me when I entered school. And the worst part was how the teachers reacted toward me. I was always singled out as a troublemaker, as someone to be mistrusted under any circumstances. That’s when I realized that the demon still found a way to destroy my future. Specifically, it totally decimated any chances of me getting a good college recommendation.

Now, I am writing this college essay. I am writing this essay to show you how this experience created the person I am today. Every word is essential to both this purpose and the purpose of fulfilling the word count for the application to [INSERT COLLEGE I AM SENDING THIS TO HERE]. I fully believe that this was the most influential part of my life. This experience shaped me as a person. It taught me that everything has a cost. It taught me to anticipate the consequences of things.

Most importantly, it taught me to read the Terms of Service at all times.