Suddenly, I reached underneath the cabinets, moving boxes and jars aside until I found some cheap plastic razors the school provides for an all-male housing. With trembling fingers, I fumbled to get the blade out as thoughts of my neck being snapped in half flashed into my head. His teeth latching onto myskin made me slap my neck again before checking in the mirror to see nothing. Not even a scratch where his nail poked at my skin.
“Hey?!”
The knocking on the bathroom door did nothing to deter me as I heard my best friend and roommate Robert Calhoun just on the other side.
“Did you hear that damn morning announcement from the dean when you were on your run? The woman intends to wake us up every morning with that shit! Open up! Let me just grab my shit underneath the sink real quick bro!”
“Ahhhgh!” I screamed in anger as the bloody razor dropped in the sink. The droplets of red blood began to cover the counter as I pinched at the blade to grab again.
“X? Xavier?!” Rob shouted. “What the–––Shit…your damn alarm is going off in your room again! Why don’t you shut that shit off when you leave!? I hope you got the chance to settle the mess with Dani!”
I stared at myself in the mirror as I touched my neck again.
Pull the trigger…
“Xavier?!”
I opened the bathroom door with a sniff as I pulled at my blood-stained shirt. Rob was barefoot in his basketball shorts when he stopped short of walking and stared.
“W-what…what happened?” He asked. “Shit, what the fuck happened?!”
“I…I was attacked,” I said as I touched the side of my neck, feeling the blood building up from the wound against my neck.“I don’t know who it was…somebody in the First Family was waiting on me…I…”
I looked at my wrist as blood began pumping out of the split vein as droplets tapped onto the hardwood floor. Rob gripped his head, unsure of what to think but the fear was obvious.
“Was it…her? Was it Maggie that did this?”
I started to choke at the mention of her name, unable to say it without that chilling feeling of her brother standing behind me so I shook my head.
“They are hiding in plain sight now…they are waiting for the right moments to attack…”
“So they did this to you…they tried to feed on you, and you fought them off? No security or cameras caught any of this?!” Rob yelled. “How can the school let something like this happen?!”
The trigger had officially been pulled.
Chapter Nine
Souxie Lafayette
“Spirits!” Professor Langley said as he wrote on the chalkboard. I glanced at the empty seat beside me wondering where Ayira could be. “Are the children of elements and magic! They are the reincarnations of elements and magic! Earth’s natural wonders! The universe’s natural wonders!”
I looked down at my tote bag when my phone lit up and saw bits of Quan’s black hair scattered everywhere. No one has heard from Maggie or Ayira this morning. Even after sending a good morning text and scheduling a day to research spells, there was nothing. I knew Maggie would be mad because it seems like no one is on her side when in reality, everything that is happening is because of her and for her.
“Spirits are rare but not as rare as one may think!” The professor said as he walked over to his desk to flip through the pages of the textbook. “Gaia, the moon Goddess is said to be one of the most famous deities in the Underground next to Sol, Terra, and Kai…these are your famous moon, sun, earth and water names when they bind their spirit to attach to a soul and take the form of humans to create magic, yes?”
I began writing notes before glancing at the door just as it opened. A teacher gave us a short wave of her hand beforequickly rushing to whisper something in the professor’s ear. When his eyes widened, he looked back down at her.
“That happened this morning?” He whispered. She nodded. “Well is he alright?”
“Check your phone,” she motioned before hurrying back out.
“Professor, it says here Gaia in Greek mythologies was originally named the Earth Goddess or personification of Earth.”
“Are we not older than their civilization?” He asked as he pushed his glasses up before turning to write on the board. “When they mark history as fact and true, that does not mean it is the start of ours. Gaia is not her original name, no… Somewhere along the lines during colonization and twisted history, things became erased and recreated through storytelling so yes, Gaia means earth but in other cultures, it can mean something else. She goes by many names…Mawu, Iah, Gieti, Kalunga…there are several names she goes by. The earth hosts the elements and magic, but the moon can control it just like the sun…Just like Sol, the big sister…The original elements that were here without human interference or magical references.”
I watched him write down the elements on the board as I listened carefully.
“Water is the oldest of the cosmic family. You have the sun…the spark…the life force and awakening. The sun warmed the waters and created Earth, the foundation and host to all of us, and then there is the moon…an emotional and unstable force to be reckoned with was created when it collided with earth. The moon is the only one to take the form of a human vessel as we know it. The sun opted for which mythical being instead? What is the sun’s first spiritual bind that was introduced to the universe? Can anyone guess?”
