At Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Lalia Azali hides more than most. She's not just a surgeon-she's this universe's Scarlet Witch, a title whispered with fear and awe, tied to a power she never wanted and a fate she can't outrun.
Logan sees t...
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-Lalia
Luca coughed, his voice strained and urgent. "It's a trap. Get out of here, sestra. He's looking for you."
I shook my head, fire in my chest. "Then let him come. I'm not leaving you."
But before I could take another step, something slammed into me—a crushing, unseen force. My back hit the wall so hard I heard something crack. The breath fled my lungs. Luca collapsed, shouting, "Go! Get out!"
And then he stepped out of the darkness.
A towering figure with horns like twisted bone, skin the color of rot and ruin, eyes twin voids of soulless black. His face was skeletal, the edges shifting like smoke over bone. His cloak moved as if alive—slithering, writhing, whispering in tongues only nightmares understood. The air thickened, suffocating. The world seemed to recoil from his presence.
Chthon.
His power pinned me like a bug to glass, invisible chains wrapping around my limbs, pressing against my chest. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. He approached slowly, each footstep echoing like a war drum in the silence.
"Vrăjitoare Stacojie," he rasped, the words curling through the air like poison. "Scarlet Witch."
Vrăjitoare stacojie?"
The words echoed in my mind, stirring a distant, half-remembered fear. Where had I heard that before? Panic surged through me, and I thrashed against his unyielding grip, my breath coming in short, desperate gasps. His hold was ironclad, a vise that tightened with each futile struggle.
He continued his slow, deliberate march towards me, each step a heavy, ominous drumbeat that reverberated through the empty hall. The sound seemed to grow louder, more menacing, with every inch he closed between us. My heart pounded in my chest, a wild, frantic rhythm that matched the growing terror in my mind. The shadows around us seemed to deepen, swallowing the light and amplifying the sense of impending doom.
"Vrăjitoare stacojie," I whispered to myself, the words tasting of dread and forgotten nightmares. "Vrăjitoare stacojie..." The memory hit me like a cold wave. I had read those words in the journal, the one my mom left behind. My heart raced as the realization dawned on me, the pieces falling into place with a sickening clarity. It was Chthon, the man who had killed my parents and hunted me and my brother for years.
Panic surged through me with renewed force. I stumbled to the side, trying to put more distance between us, but the hall seemed to close in around me. My breaths came in ragged, frantic gasps, and my vision tunneled, focusing only on his approaching form. The terror of those days, the endless running, the constant fear—it all came crashing back.
"No," I muttered, my voice trembling.
My vision blurred with fear, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from his relentless approach. The hall stretched endlessly before me, a corridor of despair from which there was no escape. Each step he took was a reminder of the inescapable, the inevitable confrontation that loomed ahead.
