Chapter 5 – The Serpent Is Medusa
Xelix's laughter exploded—like shattered plates hurled against a silent wall. The echo slipped into the pores of the room, splitting the stillness like a funeral bell rung too soon.
From her body emerged a giant white serpent.
It slithered slowly, its skin glistening like bones freshly stripped of flesh—gleaming with pain and menace. Xelix's skin withered instantly, leaving behind only bone and pale remnants of meat. She collapsed in her chair like a ragdoll dragged through time.
"Well… I didn't think you'd be willing to cooperate," Enver said. His voice was calm, but his eyes were no longer human—they belonged to something watching from beyond the veil of existence.
The serpent flicked its tongue into the air. But it hadn't come by command.
It had come... drawn.
Enver's beauty—an anomaly so close to sacred—had enticed it for a long time. It craved—not blood—but something far more dangerous: a beauty untouchable by nature.
Then the attack erupted.
Enver raised his pistol and fired. Bullets screamed—but passed through air. The serpent didn't move; it shifted dimensions. Blinking in and out, leaving only the trace of impatience in Enver's eyes.
Two bullets finally struck. But these were no ordinary rounds.
417Hz—frequency of purification. The pattern of the two shots wasn't random, but designed to form spiritual resonance. Enver aligned his pistol with the wound and fired again—as if aiming not at flesh, but the invisible threads laced through the serpent's soul.
White blood thickened—then burst from within.
Its body shattered. But not destroyed.
From its broken form, thousands of baby serpents scattered—like shards of living glass. They darted toward the walls, desperate to escape, to spread.
But jasmine flowers—white blooms that encircled Enver's home—absorbed them one by one, swallowing their fragments with sacred silence.
The white serpent returned… regenerating.
Too fast.
Enver narrowed his eyes. He knew now—this wasn't just a parasite.
This was an ancient being wearing a serpent's skin as a mask.
Xelix stirred slowly, trembling. Her hand reached for the table, toward the tarot cards scattered before her. Her face was drained, her body half-dead. The serpent's symbiosis had devoured her from within.
"Marva," Enver called. His voice sliced the room.
Marva rushed in—carrying a vial of spiritual cleansing elixir. She knew time was thin. But when she tried to pour the liquid into Xelix's mouth, she found it sealed—as if duct-taped shut by a spell.
"How can you be this foolish?!" Enver snapped, his voice steeped in anger and disappointment. "How many times have I taught you, Marva?!"
Enver's body was swarmed—what remained of the baby serpents morphed into jagged glass nails, piercing his skin, slicing into veins, ripping from within.
And Enver fell… silent.
Medusa revealed herself at last.
No longer hiding behind the serpent, she stepped out from the host—a woman crowned with snakes for hair, eyes like stone, relishing the sight of Enver kneeling.
Marva screamed within. There was no time.
She drank the elixir herself—then leaned in, kissing Xelix, forcing the liquid down her throat. Bitter. Foul. But it worked.
Xelix convulsed. Her hand moved.
"Pick a card… quickly!" Marva whispered.
Her fingers trembled. She chose.
Four of Swords.
And four spectral swords rose from the card. They flew—straight toward Enver.
But Enver smiled.
He caught one blade bare-handed. The edge bit his skin, but didn't truly harm. In fact—it seemed to strengthen him.
He stood. His blue eyes flashing like storm-lit oceans.
He fired again—at Medusa. Not to kill.
But to reveal what he truly was.
Not human.
Not a sorcerer.
But something deeper. More ancient. Unnamed.
Enver—the purifier of souls.
The bearer of wounds.
The guardian of beauty so profound, not even Medusa could turn it to stone.