Blood on the Dance Floor
The gym erupted in a scream.
Not one scream—a thousand, tangled and shrill, breaking the night wide open.
Students stampeded, stilettos snapping, tuxedos tearing, as chairs toppled and streamers burned from the flickering red lights.
The creature—the thing Xavier had accidentally summoned—stood in the middle of the chaos like a storm wearing skin.
Its name crawled through the air unspoken:
The Murmurer.
It feasted on broken magic. On rituals defiled. On the trembling of young hearts and the fear of first mistakes.
It opened its jaws—wide enough to swallow a desk whole—and shrieked.
One teacher tried to shield a group of students. It crushed her like paper.
Another boy tripped near the exit. The creature's vines lashed out and dragged him back, teeth biting through his scream.
The floor slicked red.
Xavier couldn't move.
Couldn't breathe.
The world turned into pulses of noise and shadows. Screams. Glass. Blood. The choking scent of cologne and panic.
He tried to pull Dannie and June toward the bleachers, yelling at them to run. His body moved on fear and instinct—until he slipped. Hit the ground.
Looked up—
And the Murmurer loomed over him.
So many eyes. So many teeth. It reached down, mouth opening to feed.
"NO!"
Theo crashed into it like a firework, slamming a metal chair across its neck. The creature reeled back—but struck out.
And Xavier watched in paralyzed horror as a thorned limb tore through Theo's chest.
Blood sprayed across Xavier's tux.
Theo's mouth opened—gasping. A final breath.
Then he crumpled.
Barely breathing.
And the Murmurer, snarling, turned to mist.
Escaped.
Xavier crawled to Theo's body,
trembling, shaking.
"No—no, no, no… please, stay with me." he pleaded as Theo coughed up pools of blood before gradually lost consciousness.
He pulled him close. But the warmth was already leaving.
He was dead.
Teachers shouted. Sirens screamed. The room became a painting of chaos and carnage.
Xavier sat in the middle of it all—
Covered in Theo's blood.
Eyes wide.
Broken.
------
The Morning After
News vans lined the street in front of Paradise Hills High.
The sun rose over the town in mourning.
A town that hadn't experienced not even a hit-and-run situation, was now bumming with mysterious death.
"Fifteen confirmed dead."
"Over two dozen injured."
"Unknown animal attack?"
"Some say they saw something... impossible." the news caster announced in the news.
Students gathered on the lawn in black. Candles flickered in trembling hands. A wall of photos, flowers, and posters bore the names of the lost.
A framed picture of Theo Chester—grinning on the football field—sat in the middle.
Xavier never showed up.
---
He lay curled in his bed, face buried in Theo's hoodie.
Eyes dry, but red.
Tears long gone.
Xena knocked once. Gently.
"Xav… I brought water."
Silence.
"Please drink it when you feel thirsty" she told him but he didn't respond.
Gen sat beside him later, placing a warm cloth on his forehead. "You're alive, sweetheart" she whispered. "An that means something."
"I wish I wasn't," he said.
"Please don't say that, my sweet boy" she said hugging him as he curled into her arms.
---
The Nightmares
That night, the world didn't let him sleep.
Every time his eyes closed, the gym came alive again—red lights flickering like bleeding stars.
He could hear the screams. The music warped into a funeral hymn. Balloons deflated into lungs. Streamers twisted into veins.
Theo's voice echoed—soft, loving, then choking.
"Run, Xav."
He turned—and there it was.
The Murmurer.
Standing in the middle of the dance floor again, dripping shadows, vines whispering his name.
It smiled—if that thing could smile.
He saw himself again—frozen, useless. He saw Theo's body lifted, torn open like a page in a book that shouldn't be read.
Then it looped.
Again.
And again.
Each time, the Murmurer whispered something new:
"You called me."
"You fed me."
"You killed him."
Xavier screamed, but no sound came. Blood bubbled from his throat instead of words. His hands were slick with Theo's blood—warm, always warm.
He tried to wash them in the dream, but the water turned red. The tiles bled. The mirror cracked, showing Theo's reflection—smiling with dead eyes.
"Why didn't you save me?"
He woke gasping, chest heaving, fingers gripping the sheets like a drowning man clutching air.
His heart raced too fast to count.
And outside his window—just for a second—he swore he saw movement in the fog.
A shadow with too many eyes. Watching.
He didn't sleep again.
---
That same night before the nightmares, Selene came in.
She hadn't looked at him like that since he was five.
She said nothing at first. Just lay beside him, pulling his head to her chest.
And when his tears finally came again—violent, deep, guttural—
She whispered, "Shhh. I've got you, my baby boy. Mommy's got you now."
---
It was nearly midnight the next day when Selene finally spoke.
"She was a perfume maker," she said softly. "Your father's first wife. Mayra. That's how I met him. At her funeral."
Xavier blinked. "What?"
Selene gave a soft, bitter laugh, eyes glinting like candlelight on glass.
"He stood apart from the casket. Didn't cry. Just watched. Like a man who had already made peace with death long before it came for her."
Her voice trembled — not with weakness, but with awe.
"He was the most striking man I had ever seen," she whispered. "Tall — a little over six feet — with skin the color of melted chocolate under the sun. His eyes…" She paused, smiling faintly, as though the image itself could still make her heart falter. "They were green. Not pale or dull — but deep, bright, alive. The kind of green that made you think of new leaves after rain. His hair curled when it caught the light, wild and soft all at once. He looked like a poem the world forgot to finish."
She looked at Xavier and smiles.
"You know I see resemblance between you and him"she told Xavier.
She ran her fingers over the edge of the comforter, tracing invisible shapes.
"I asked him who she was. He said, 'The reason I learned what love was in the first place.' I should've known right then—the grief he carried wasn't ordinary. It was sacred. Heavy. Reverence."
Her gaze drifted somewhere far beyond the walls.
"He told me he was from another continent… a place filled with wonders. His people spoke to stars, he said — and they listened. I thought he was teasing me, until I saw the way his eyes shifted when he spoke of home. It wasn't fantasy to him. It was memory."
Selene's lips curved into something between a smile and a sigh.
"It wasn't easy to win him over. But oh, when he loved me…" She closed her eyes, letting the words fall like prayer. "It felt like lightning. Like the world cracked open just to say my name. Every touch was a storm, every kiss a spell I never wanted to break."
Xena stood in the hallway, frozen.
She hadn't meant to listen.
But now she did.
And she realized for the first time —
Their mother hadn't just loved a man.
She had loved a myth.
He wasn't just her father.
He was the pulse in every secret Selene had ever kept.
---
The Witch Who Bled
The night tasted like rust and ozone.
And Xena was out to hunt.
Xena stepped into the woods alone.
No circle.
No chant.
Just vengeance.
The Murmurer's trail pulsed through the forest like a living wound — moss blackened under its steps, bark split and wept sap that smelled of iron. The air hummed with whispers, voices of the dead caught in the creature's wake.
She followed the trail to the creek, where the fog hung heavy and alive, coiling around the trees like breath.
A shape rose from the mist, vast and half-formed — shadow and muscle, roots and bone twisted together. Its eyes burned like molten amber.
"You've come to finish what your brother started," it hissed, the voice shifting between a growl and a thousand murmurs.
Xena lifted her dagger, bone gleaming white against the dark. "No," she said. "I've come to end what I should have stopped before it began."
The Murmurer laughed — a wet, splitting sound that shook the leaves.
The laughter felt like a torn on Xena's skin, as though telling her that she a puny human being could never defeat something as ancient as it.
Then it lunged at her in fury.
The world erupted.
Branches shattered as it struck; claws raked across the earth, sending dirt and fireflies spiraling into the air. Xena dove aside, rolling through mud, the dagger sparking as it met the creature's limb.
The blade caught its hide — and blood like ink splattered across the roots, hissing where it fell.
She whispered a rune. Fire bloomed up her arm, bright blue and wild.
The creature recoiled, shrieking, its limbs splitting into a dozen writhing vines. They whipped toward her, slicing the air. She spun through them, each movement sharper than breath, cutting symbols into the air with her free hand.
Every sigil burned gold. Every strike left light behind.
The forest became a storm of magic and motion.
But the Murmurer was old. It learned her rhythm, struck when her guard faltered. A thorned tendril lashed across her shoulder, tearing through cloth and skin. Pain shot down her arm.
She screamed but didn't fall. The wound steamed; her blood glowed faintly, answering the spellwork etched in her dagger.
She drove forward again. Their clash echoed like thunder — bone against nightmare.
The creature's head split open into a mouth of petals and teeth. It howled, a sound that made the creek freeze solid in its bed.
"Why do you fight me, little witch?" it crooned. "Your brother called for me. And your blood still sings my name."
"Then let it sing your death," she spat.
She raised both hands and spoke the fire-tongue — the ancient syllables her Gen had forbidden her to use. The earth flared. Roots ignited. Light and shadow collided until the trees themselves seemed to bow.
The Murmurer struck again, faster than thought. Its claws tore her side. She stumbled, blood soaking her sleeve. For a heartbeat, she saw Theo's face — the horror, the guilt — and fury burned through the pain.
With a roar, she drove the dagger upward, straight into the creature's abdomen.
The forest fell silent.
She whispered the word that ended worlds:
"Xsvotheerain."
Light burst from the blade — not fire, not magic, but something purer, older. The Murmurer convulsed, limbs shattering into dust, voices screaming backward into silence. The ground shook as its body unraveled into ash and flame.
The echoes went on and on, fading into the dark.
When it was over, only the smell of ozone remained.
Xena dropped to her knees. Blood dripped from her arm, her shoulder torn and glowing faintly where the spell had seared it.
She looked up. The fog was lifting. Stars shone through the canopy again.
And somewhere, in the stillness, the forest whispered:
"She did it."
No witch had ever slain a Murmurer before.
Until now.