Chapter Text
I was always told that your entire life flashes before your eyes moments before death. Bullshit.
The only thing I had flashing before my eyes was the vaguely human shaped beast capped in shadows that moved at an uncanny speed towards me. Their claw sunk into my chest with shocking ease, like I was a stick of butter left out overnight. Be it sadistic or otherwise, the creature took its time pushing one claw into my chest while the other claw wrapped around my throat. I felt my feet leave the ground as the beast lifted me high enough that I could only flail my feet helplessly in hopes I would catch something solid to stand on. Cries of pain were crushed in my throat before they could be voiced, with only the pathetic remnants of screams dripping out of my mouth. Too many thoughts were shooting through my mind to entertain a single one for more than a second. The only tangible thought my frantic mind could arrive at was-
Make it stop
It did. In a way, at least. The pressure around my throat cleared suddenly, giving me no time to react as I fell to the ground, legs crumpling helplessly as I landed on my side. The searing pain in my chest where the claw had been was ever present. I could feel blood quickly pooling around my body, soaking my clothes where I lay in a broken heap. Everything sounded muffled and distant, like cotton had been stuffed in my ears and my head. Shame that cotton wasn’t stuffing the open wound in my chest. Was this what it felt like to die? Not pleasant, though I suppose I never expected that to be the case.
“ Where is it?!”, the harsh tone of the creature cut through my dazed thoughts, the harsh sound bouncing against every corner of the room. I lifted my head with the little energy I had left to look towards the shadow-wreathed monster. It was frantically moving around the room, tossing limp bodies to the floor like discarded toys in search of something. The glowing orb in the center of the room, an unstable magical core, seemed just as frantic as the creature. What once was a purple sphere of magic was surging with black energy, shaking and quivering like it was being eaten from the inside. Perhaps bleeding out on the ground makes a man sentimental, I nearly pitied the orb as it shook with disturbing frequency, like it was crying out to-
Make it stop
Something I could relate to, I supposed. “No, no, not yet! Where is it?” , the creature roared out once more in search of something. My eyes landed upon a glinting amulet that rested near my head just as the creature did the same. I watched with fascination as the blood that streamed from my chest started to move towards the amulet. It defied the logic of physics, pulling itself up an incline and along the stone floor like it was magnetized to the amulet. The creature’s face lit up into a smile upon finding the amulet and moved towards the amulet. Something stirred inside, a nagging instinct that told me I needed that amulet even more than I needed to live. I moved my hand towards the amulet. I had little to no energy left, making the somewhat simple action feel like I was pulling my arm through a tube of barbed branches. The sick smile on the creature's face twisted into that of hatred. No. Fear ? Not that it mattered much to a dying man.
“NO! IGNORANT HUMAN” , The creature let out an ear splitting cry as it dived for the amulet. The tips of my fingers tore themselves asunder as the blood inside of them shot forwards and wrapped around the amulet to pull it into my palm. What the fuck?! Before I could process what had just happened, the creature’s claws wrapped around my hand. The tortured orb of magic had completely turned black at this point, shrinking into itself like it was cannibalizing its own existence before letting out a brilliant burst of magic. I felt my hand crack and give way under the creature’s strength as the wave of magic from the orb washed over the both of us. It burned, Gods did it burn. It felt like every piece of my being was being melted into something else, mixing and colluding with everything I never knew existed. I NEEDED IT TO STOP JUST-
Make it stop
It did.
*****
“Xavier?”
“Hm?”
“You look a little spaced. You still got a brain in there or have you been reading so long that it’s up and melted out of your ears and onto the page?”
“Very funny Vyra. A real knee-slapper.” I punctuated with the distinct lack of a knee slap.
“Jeez, what’s got you in the dump? High-minded History of Honorable Headmasters not bringing you the same kind of joy that it did the first 4 times you read it?” Vyra smirked and sat down next to me, not bothering to ask if I was okay with it first. I was perfectly fine with it of course, but it never changed the fact that she didn’t ask.
Vyra had always called me a teacher’s pet. A predilection for affirmations made me the perfect vessel for being a teacher’s pet. I had been thoroughly studious my entire education in order to reach the standards set by my parents, but it only got more fervorous the older I got. As soon as magic had been discussed in my classes, I was obsessed. I figured if I didn’t have any natural affinity like some did, I would need to work extra hard to make up for it.
Had that resulted in any ability to perform magic…? No. Maybe I’m just foolish, but it still hasn't deterred me away from my passion for the magical arts.
“I-I’m just stuck on something you told me the other day.”
“Ah, of course! Everything I say is prestigious enough it should be transcribed into the history books! …but let’s say for the sake of argument I don’t remember what you’re talking about.”
“Pft, I read history books for fun and even I wouldn't touch one with your name on the cover.”
The two of us laughed for a brief, but treasured, moment. When we stopped laughing, the only sound that stomped across the silence was the steady trickle of the fountain that we sat on the edge of.
“...I’m talking about Thursday. When you said something like ‘I don’t mind that he was an asshole, he’s barely the same person anymore’.”
“Oh shit, yeah! When I was talking about Stefen?”
I nodded. “Did you mean all of that?”
“That someone’s past doesn’t matter if the person who stands before you has changed. Yeah, why? Oh my Gods are you about to tell me you killed someone in the past? That would be so-”
“No!”
“-cool!”
“What?” I stared at her for a moment, replaying our conversation in my mind in order to ensure I had heard her correctly.
“Don’t ‘what’ me! You don’t think it’s kind of cool to find out your best friend murdered people in their past?”
“Gods you’re weird. No, I’m not a murderer, I just. The idea of someone being able to change like that is nice.”
I gave a soft smile. I wouldn’t disclose it to her now, of course, but my thoughts had been wandering about in the recesses of my mind. There were parts of myself I wasn’t fond of, so the idea of them being pliable enough to change gave me a glimmer of hope that in my heart that I could hold on to.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To not be Xavier?”
I turned towards Vyra with a furrowed brow. Did her voice sound different?
“You want to believe it’s possible to not be yourself anymore.”
No. No, I remember this memory. Vyra never said that.
That was definitely not Vyra’s normal voice. As she turned her face towards me, I saw that it no longer held her distinctive features. Her striking blue eyes, dark skin, all of it had fallen away to take the shape of a familiar monster. The same shadow coated beast rose from the fountain, the looming darkness that clung to its form gently reaching out towards me like it wanted to pull me in.
I turned to run, its claws sinking into my side and rooting me before I had a chance to slip away. It pulled me towards itself, gazing down at me with hungry eyes as I was enveloped in the suffocating presence of the monster.
My senses became distorted, flickering in and out of my consciousness like I was only half connected to my own body. I was nowhere. I was nothing. Yet I could feel the shivering pain of two souls becoming one that writhed along my non-existent form.
I felt like I was falling, plunging into a rapid array of memories that I could only catch unrelated hints of as I fell into nothingness. The memories only had one thing in common as they flashed past my mind.
They were all Vyra’s voice.
“Oh my gods, are you still reading that mouthful?”
“I’m Vyra by the way.”
“Would you be creepy about it?”
No, stop this.
“Oh my god, are you okay?”
“…Vilterbrin?”
“Got the name?”
Please, stop. I don’t want to remember.
“Nice to meet you ----”
“You cut your hair?”
“Are you ashamed of -----”
Not the name . Stop showing me this.
“---- I’m heading to dinner, want to come?”
“We’ll wait until you're ready.”
Vyra. I’m sorry.
Despite not having a physical form as I plummeted, I knew my heart was crying tears it couldn’t form. I was supposed to be dead. I died in that ritual! Why am I remembering all of this now?!
I can’t do this now, I just need it to stop. Just-
Make it stop.
*****
My eyes flitted open, the bright light of the sun beaming directly into my irises. Gods I was sore, every extremity resonated with a cutting pain that made me feel like I had run for miles the previous day. Soreness implied a body, and a body implied that I was alive. Was this the afterlife? All I could make out above me was eroded stone that had decayed enough to rid whatever building this was of its ceiling. I looked up at the building I sat in. It looked like some kind of church. The entire building was dilapidated and forgotten. The stone structure had been whittled away through the steady march of time, and though I would not claim to be an expert in dating things, I could easily tell this building had not seen care for centuries. Pushing aside the soreness, I attempted to push myself up onto my two legs, only to slip flat on my back with a resounding thud. Excellent dexterity Xavier, you really do amaze me.
When I turned my head to look at what I had slipped on-
“Fuck!”
I threw a hand over my mouth to stop from gagging at the grisly sight of an old man in front of me. Unfortunately, the hand that had just covered my mouth was slick with blood, forcing out a retch as I accidentally smeared pungent ichor across my lips. The nauseating scent drifted into my nostrils no matter how much I tried to avoid it.
An old man with a gaping cavity where his heart should be lay squarely in the center of the floor. It was overwhelming to the senses. The thick scent of death was just as nauseating as the gore painting the aisle. I couldn’t get away from it, blood stained most of my body. It was only now I realized I was wearing what could only generously be referred to as ‘clothing’. I had been wrapped up in some sort of fabric. It tightly hugged my chest, down to my thighs, like I had been mummified before someone left on a lunch break and never returned. The fabric itself should have been white, but with the viscera covering me, it was more of a ‘suggestion’ of white. I noted that the fabric covering most of my body was absent from the majority of my back, only covering up to where my ribs began and nothing above.
The entire scene was horrifying, but even more so were the implications. Did I do this? I have no memory indicating that I did, but I couldn’t deny what lay in front of me. My arms were stained a dark red, like I had been attempting to excavate the man’s entire body with just my fingers. A disgusting thought, made infinitely worse when I felt something stuck in my teeth.
No.
Surely it wasn’t…
I closed my eyes, tears slowly collecting in the corners of my eyes as I reached a hand into my mouth to pull out whatever was stuck in my mouth. With minor difficulty I managed to pull it out only to have to stare hopelessly at what looked to be some sort of organ.
A vacuous bile left my throat as I heaved.
It had to be a nightmare. I had just had a nightmare about the monster. This could just be another cruel trick of a dying mind confused as I die.
As much as I wanted to believe this was just a bad dream, every one of my senses screamed at the all too real viscera before me. It didn’t feel like a dream, it didn’t smell like a dream, and when I slipped onto my back, it certainly didn’t feel like a dream. I looked at the poor clergyman that lay lifelessly beneath me. Through blurry vision I could see the expression of shock across his stiff face, and knew it would be stupid to think he died for any reason other than myself. What had I done?!
“W-why..?”. I croaked out through tears. Even my voice sounded wrong. My usual deep voice sounded lighter, still masculine, but an octave above what it used to be. It sounded harsh as well, like there were bristles in my throat slicing into my words. What was I? What was happening to me?
I needed to get away, every second that I continued to stare at the corpse, I felt a looming sense of guilt and disgust overtake me. I scrambled towards a large altar that sat at the end of the church, worried that every step I took might result in discovering more horrors beyond my imagination.
Behind the altar sat a collapsed tapestry soaking in a disgusting pool of water. The mold that stretched across the tapestry told me just how long it had been sitting untouched. When I moved forward to examine the tapestry, I caught a glimpse at my reflection in the collected water.
I had the same short black hair that I always had was still there, though it almost looked longer than it had been just yesterday. My eyes. Shit. My eyes were a deep pulsating red, no longer the soft green that they had always been. They looked furious, like just by staring at myself I was within the gaze of a predator that threatened to pounce. Most notably, I saw a dark tattoo stretched across my neckline. The markings were obviously deliberate, looking almost like some sort of language that I had never seen in my life. The tattoo looked alive, like an inky cloudiness was swirling across my front. So many features had changed that I didn’t want to believe it was me. Panic rose in my chest, the rapid heart beats pounding at the chest that it so desperately wanted to be freed from. When I moved my hands to my chest to clutch my ribs in pain I noticed they were changing. My hands were wreathed in a thin translucent shadow that coated my skin like a filmy layer of coalesced darkness. The more I started to panic, the further they coated my arms, shifting my fingers into razor sharp claws that terrified me despite being attached to me. I backed away from the water, tripping down the small steps as I moved back over towards the dead body on the floor. The sight of the old man once again sent a pulse of revulsion through my throat. Breathe, Xavier, breathe. It took me closing my eyes and trying to focus on a happy memory from the academy to begin to steady my nerves. The more I calmed myself, the more the shadows receded until they were only present in my memories.
Voices. Distant voices that only seemed to get closer as I stood frozen over my nightmarish canvas. People were coming. I looked down to the body that lay in front of me, and the blood that had stained my body and my mind.
Fuck.