The Awakening
The room was still.
Unnaturally still.
The twins floated-limbs weightless, hair fanned like halos, eyes closed, breath shallow. Time held its breath.
Then-
They dropped.
With a jolt that cracked the silence, they slammed back onto their beds.
Xena's scream choked beneath her blanket.
Xavier shot upright, soaked in sweat, pulse crashing in his ears.
They weren't floating anymore.
But they had been.
Hadn't they?
The air clung to them, thick and humid. Sweat slicked their skin, pajamas damp like wet paper.
Their bones still ached from where the air had held them..
Xena ran, the question already burning on her tongue.
She didn't knock. Just pushed the door open, heart hammering.
"Did you-?"
"I was dreaming," Xavier cut in. But it sounded like a lie even to him.
Her voice trembled with doubt. "I think... we were dreaming."
The room echoed with the sentence.
The ceiling fan spun slower than usual, whispering a low, droning hum. The lamps flickered as if listening.
---
The Kitchen
Downstairs, Gen stirred her tea in steady circles, pretending she hadn't heard the crash.
But the spoon in her hand trembled. Just slightly.
Her eyes lifted upstairs, toward the twins bedroom.
When the twins stumbled into the kitchen-pale, wide-eyed-Gen greeted them with a too-thin smile.
"Rough night?" she asked with an almost too calm and weird grin on her face..
Xena stared. "We were floating, Grandma Gen."
"It was a dream," she said quickly. Too quickly. "Dreams feel real sometimes."
"But it was real," Xavier whispered, voice low and distant. "Something opened up. I feel it. We both feel it."
Gen said nothing.
Her silence was louder than denial.
---
The Days After
The world outside felt sharper.
Harsher.
Every stare from a stranger felt like a spotlight. Every slam of a door made them flinch. Even the wind through the trees seemed to whisper.
Xavier stayed indoors more often. His hands trembled when no one was watching.
Mirrors disturbed him. He claimed they rippled.
His visions came more frequently now- even while he was wide awake.
Like sliding through glass.
Xena, meanwhile, journaled with fevered purpose. Page after page of symbols, drawings of flame, words she didn't remember learning.
Her room sometimes smelled faintly of smoke, though nothing had burned.
But she told no one.
---
The Accidental Spark
It happened on a Tuesday.
Cole Simmons-loud-mouthed jock-cracked a joke. Something cruel about Selene. "Witch blood." "Crazy mother." He said it to Xavier, but Xena heard every word.
And then-
His sleeve ignited.
Just the cuff. Just enough to send him screaming, arms flailing.
The fire died as fast as it began. No burns—just a scorched reputation. And that was enough.
But no trace of who caused it.
No one saw Xena move.
But her lips trembled.
And she stared at her hands like they were loaded weapons.
Others rushed to help.
Some just recorded the mystery on their phones.
---
The Book in the Cellar
That night, Gen descended into the cellar beneath Paradise Hills.
Cobwebs shivered. The lantern she carried flickered. She moved to the back wall, where her fingers found a hidden panel.
Behind it, wrapped in waxy cloth-lay the Book of Threes and Moons.
A name her mentor once whispered like a warning.
A book that should have stayed buried.
She hadn't touched it in twenty years. Never thought she would.
The pages felt alive under her fingers. Ancient ink. Spidery drawings.
One illustration stopped her breath.
Twins.
Moon-borns.
Drawn in blood, marked with a crescent moon and a sun wrapped in thorns.
A prophecy written in a dead language.
But Gen understood enough.
This had happened before.
And it would happen again.
---
Xavier's Collapse
Later, Xavier wandered into Selene's room.
He found her music box, dusty and forgotten. Picked it up. Cranked the dial once.
The tune twisted mid-note.
The room tilted.
Then-blackness.
He dropped.
Convulsions seized him. A silent scream etched across his face.
And then-
A battlefield soaked in blood.
A man bathed in shadow whispering to the dying.
Xena, eyes glowing red, feet standing in ash where a town had been.
Then himself-lips pressed to a creature with dying star-eyes, its fangs buried in his throat.
He awoke gasping.
Gen knelt beside him.
"I saw things," he choked slightly as he tried to tell her.
"I know," she responded in whisper.
Xavier then looked up at his sister who looked scared standing by the doorway, with trembling hands.
---
The Forest Beckons
Xena didn't speak of the fire. Or the stares. Or her fear after Xavier's big vision. Or the guilt.
That afternoon after the incident with Xavier, she slipped away quietly.
She didn't tell Xavier. Or grandma Gen.
She walked barefoot into the forest, breath frosting in the fog.
The trees whispered.
The deeper she went, the more the world bent.
And then-
She saw her.
A woman cloaked in midnight blue—skin pale as snow, scent of crushed flowers, smile far too wide.
She hummed the lullaby Selene sang to them as kids.
She stood in a clearing that shouldn't exist.
And her voice came like a thick cloud of smoke.
"I've been waiting for you, daughter of the blue flames." she says with a warm but sinister smile.
Xena froze.
And so did the day.