.
.
.
Miss Kaur was leaning against me, one arm looped around my shoulder as we finally got out of the forest. Her breathing was still uneven, and though she kept brushing me off with a weak "I'm fine," I could see the poison still pulsing faintly around the edge of the bandage.
"Yeah, you look like peak health," I muttered, trying not to trip on a rock as I helped her down the narrow trail.
Her lips curved. "Sarcasm. Very healing."
"Shut up and walk properly. You're heavy."
That got a snort out of her.
We made it back to the main road and finally into the house. The moment the door shut behind us, Miss Kaur collapsed onto the hallway bench, dragging off her jacket with a wince.
I stood there awkwardly, unsure what to do.
"Go get the red box," she said through gritted teeth. "Top shelf. My room."
I nodded and darted upstairs.
Her room smelled faintly of sandalwood and burnt paper. A folded stack of spell cloths sat near the lamp. I spotted the box which was red, with gold trim on the top shelf, just like she said. Inside were strange vials, black thread, white moss, and a thick syringe that made my skin crawl.
When I came back, she already had her sleeve rolled up to the shoulder. The wound on her arm was way worse than I thought. Dark veins were starting to show around it, and her skin looked… greyish.
I handed her the box. "You need a hospital."
"This is my hospital," she muttered. She pulled out a vial, popped the cork with her teeth, and poured some of the glowing liquid directly on the wound. She didn't even flinch as it hissed.
I flinched for her.
"Are you sure you're not dying?"
"Too stubborn to die."
"Yeah, that sounds like you."
She gave me a side-eye glance. "If I pass out, there's a white pouch under the sink in the guest bathroom. Dump the contents on me. Don't sniff it unless you want to hallucinate aggressively."
"…You're not a normal teacher."
"Nope."
The room got quiet for a while as she wrapped her arm tightly with layers of black gauze, chanting something under her breath. I sat nearby, my thoughts racing.
The Forgotten Son's words still echoed in my skull.
"You're the result."
No matter how many times I told myself I wasn't responsible, something in me still carried that guilt. Like it was coded into my DNA. I didn't even want this curse, but it was sitting in me anyway, like an unwelcome parasite. Like a shadow I couldn't shake.
Miss Kaur finally looked up at me. "You good?"
I shrugged. "Mentally, physically, spiritually? Not really."
"Pick a distraction."
I blinked. "What?"
She jerked her chin toward the hallway. "Library. Go read something. I've got archives back there. You need to understand what's inside you, and how to fight it. You've got three months."
Three months.
The words didn't feel real.
But the forest fight had been. And so was that blade.
I stood up and made my way toward the library.
.
.
.
Her library wasn't like the ones in movies. It was messy, chaotic, and alive. Stacks of books spilled off every corner. Some were leather-bound, others looked handwritten. There was a globe with burn marks on it. A typewriter that still had paper jammed in. And in one dark corner, a mirror completely covered in runes.
I stayed away from that one.
I ran my hand across the book spines.
"The Ethics of Soul Transfer."
"Binding Spirits Through Metal."
"The Curse of the Seventh Blood."
That last one made me pause.
I pulled it down and blew the dust off.
Inside were notes scribbled in the margins. Some in ink, some in pencil, and some… in blood? Nope. Not thinking about that. I flipped through pages. Most of it was about demonic inheritances. How curses embedded in a family's line tend to resurface at specific generational markers, sevens usually. Why sevens? Because of cycle magic. Seven planets, seven days, seven chakras. The universe liked seven.
There were mentions of parasitic curses, ones that could sit dormant in a soul for decades and only activate when triggered by certain events. Like death. Or trauma. Or contact with the sealed object.
The mirror bracelet.
I gulped and kept reading.
Apparently, once the curse activates, the host either dies… or merges with it. The line between self and parasite blurs. You start seeing visions, hearing the other's thoughts, getting dreams that don't belong to you.
Check, check, and check.
I closed the book and pressed my fingers to my temple.
From the other room, I heard a loud clang.
I ran back in to find Miss Kaur collapsed sideways on the kitchen floor.
"Hey! Hey-" I rushed over and checked her pulse.
Still there. Shallow. Fast.
I grabbed the pouch she mentioned and dumped the stuff over her chest. It smelled like burnt plastic and cinnamon, which was weirdly gross. A few seconds later, she gasped and shot upright like she'd been shocked.
"Okay," she panted, blinking fast. "That still works."
"YOU ALMOST DIED."
"I almost die a lot," she muttered.
"That's not a flex."
She stood slowly, wobbling. "Alright. No more movement today. I'm gonna sleep. You read. No mirror touching. No spell attempts. If anything whispers to you, ignore it."
I saluted sarcastically. "Aye aye, poison victim."
She rolled her eyes and dragged herself upstairs.
I went back to the library, grabbed another book, and sat on the floor with my back against a bookshelf.
This one was called "Symbiotic Possession: Host vs. Haunt."
It had diagrams of brains. Notes on consciousness split between human and demon. Weird ink sketches of eyes in mirrors.
Every page made me feel more cursed.
But I kept going.
One line hit me like a truck.
"Some demons, once sealed, lose most of their will. But if the seal is incomplete or weakened over generations, they begin to regain fragments of control, especially through dreams."
I remembered the dreams. The forest. The voice. The broken mirror. The girl in the red jacket watching from behind glass. Btw the girl was miss kaur's 16 year old self. How do I know? Because I saw her baby pic somewhere in her house. I won't tell where tho. Fine, it was in her wardrobe when she was taking out dresses for me back then. Anyways I realised something.
That wasn't a hallucination.
That was a memory.
I suddenly felt cold.
At some point I must've dozed off, because when I woke up, the window was dark and the room smelled like old paper. My back hurts. My eyes were dry.
Miss Kaur was standing in the doorway.
Her arm was re-wrapped and she looked a little less dead.
"You survived," she said, eyebrows raised.
"Barely."
She stepped inside and picked up one of the books. "You got through Symbiotic Possession? Damn. That one's boring."
"I was trying to understand what's inside me."
She nodded. "It's not just inside you. It is you now. And it'll keep growing unless we train you to control it."
I looked at her.
"Will it ever go away?"
"No," she said bluntly. "But you can bend it. You can turn it into something useful. You can learn to live with it."
I leaned back against the shelf, exhausted. "This isn't what I wanted."
"Neither did she."
"…Who?"
"Your ancestor," Miss Kaur said quietly. "She didn't want to curse the next generations. She just wanted to protect what was left."
I didn't respond.
Because I understood that too well.
She pulled a thick scroll from the bottom shelf and unrolled it in front of me. It was covered in diagrams. Training routines. Ritual circles. Protection spells.
"You've got three months," she said. "Let's not waste a second."
I nodded slowly.
And again… I felt ready.