My Professor

Chapter Eight

There is a murderer on campus...

Those words weighed heavily on her mind as Lucianne walked down the hallways of Ravenspire Academy. She knew from the history of the town that the Hex Beast was a mythical creature that was born from what happened with Genevieve and apparently there was a killer on campus using that myth as a way to get away with murder.

She continued musing to herself, her curiosity piqued by the Hex Beast. She attended all her lessons for the day, her mind always elsewhere on the lore of the town. Eventually, the day came to an end and she found herself wandering to the library.

When she reached, there were only a few other students walking about, taking books off the shelves and bringing them to tables to study with them. She strolled to the counter and smiled at the librarian who was wearing all navy.

"Hello," Lucianne said. "May I know where the books on the Hex Beast are located?"

The librarian gave her a scowl before she scribbled on a piece of paper and passed it to her. She took it and saw the aisle and shelf number on it, and walked away to find the section where they had those books.

When she found the section, it was deep inside the library, at a dimly lit place that had stale air from poor ventilation. She shrugged and stepped past the stacks of books piled on either side of the floor until she was finally staring at the books she was looking for.

There were many titles she was interested in. She took one book out and flipped it open. There were drawings everywhere of a fearsome beast with sharp teeth and claws and she began to read.

Superhuman strength. The Hex Beast could pick up a bus full of mature adults and fling it skyward, and when it came back down, everyone in the bus would meet with instant death. She flipped more pages.

Subsists on souls of the innocent. It got its power from devouring those with pure souls. It had no interest in people who had killed before, or who spent their lives living for themselves.

She returned the book to the shelf and took another out. This one was about the origin of the Hex Beast and she had to dust the cover before she opened it.

Legend had it that upon Genevieve's terrible order on the town, there was a lady who was scared out of her mind that her own baby would be killed, but she did not wish to kill another to protect her own. But whenever she walked about the town, she received knowing looks from the townspeople. They knew she lived alone, and that she was an easy target.

The lady had recurring nightmares as November approached and on the last day of October, she ransacked her house, looking for hiding places for her baby. She searched and searched, until finally she discovered a place for her baby. She fed it, then hid it and as the clock struck midnight, she slept in peace.

She awoke the next day to her neighbours knocking on her door. She invited them in with the brightest smile ever and they sat on her table, eating her food, walking around the home, obviously looking for her baby.

They asked her where her baby was, and she told them she had no idea. That her baby had died not too long ago. They didn't seem like they believed her but they gave up searching her home in the end.

When she closed the door behind them, she was so overjoyed that she danced for a whole hour in the dining area. She was so happy, dancing, drinking, until she passed out on the floor. When she woke up, she decided it was time to feed her baby again.

So she went to the trapdoor she had kept her baby in. But when she unlocked it, her baby was not there. She closed it, wracked her brain, then realised that it was one of the places she had considered, but decided not to hide her baby there after some thinking.

She went to a secret compartment behind her wardrobe. But her baby was not there. She climbed up to the rungs on her roof, her baby was not there. She paced about, thinking where she had left her baby.

And that was when she heard the cry of her baby, calling out for food. She called back, telling it that Mama would come soon, and she ransacked the home. But she couldn't find her baby. She could only hear her baby. In all her desperation to look for a good place, she had forgotten which hiding location she ended up putting her baby in.

She collapsed to the floor, shouting for her baby as it cried for food. Where are you, my love? Where are you, my life? She couldn't find her baby! She cried and cried and hours passed. Days passed. Weeks passed. Her baby never made another sound and she never saw it again.

And so the Hex Beast came to life from the grief of mothers like this one. Pure, untainted souls who had lost their reason to live because of Genevieve's bloodlust.

But after the Hex Beast was born, it developed a taste for revenge. It turned on the reason for its birth, which was to seek revenge for the mothers. Instead, it decided to feed on the pure and haunt the town forever. Why that was, the book was just about to get to it...

Lucianne ran her finger down the paragraph, her breath leaving her mouth in visible smoke. She breathed slowly, fear in the back of her mind. Why did the Hex Beast turn on its reason for existence? Another smoke of cold air left her mouth. She read and read, until something caught her eye.

Just as more smoke left her mouth, another plume of smoke came from the side behind her.

She was not alone.