TW: Character death

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"KERES!" Scott screamed as his boyfriend let out a painful shout of agony. He didn't have time to register tears even forming before they were streaming down his face.

Keres' pale skin turned paler and paler as a red crystal on the handle of Joel's dagger glowed brighter and brighter. Joel was killing him.

He was killing Scott's boyfriend, and it was their fault. If they only listened to Keres, if they were skeptical of Jimmy like Keres warned them to be, this wouldn't be happening.

Scott looked up when he heard Cleo shout, seeing her falling from her broom, which was snatched up by what looked like a beanstalk. She landed in a tree before being grabbed around the ankle by a vine and pulled out of the tree, landing hard on the ground. She seemed to hit her head on a rock and her eyes slipped closed, terrifying Scott even more.

"Stop!" they screamed, pulling just hard enough to get out of their captor's hold. They ran over and started to punch Joel's back, but they were weak from sobbing and being so afraid. "Stop it, you'll kill him!"

Joel scoffed and shoved Scott off of him. "He deserves it," he said simply, pulling the dagger out of Keres' side to let him bleed out then turning to face Scott. "Besides, you should feel lucky that you weren't a sacrifice."

Scott stared up at him, shaking on the ground. "Lucky?" he repeated, then yelled, "Lucky?! You just killed my boyfriend! How am I meant to feel lucky?!"

Joel rolled his eyes. "He's not dead yet, relax," he groaned. "You could probably still save him if you're quick enough."

At that, Scott scrambled over to Keres, who was weakly trying to stop his wound from bleeding.

"It's okay, Keres," Scott said, trying his hardest to ignore Joel's laughter as the brunette walked away. "I'll fix this-"

"Scoot," Keres managed to whisper, turning his head to smile slightly at his partner. "I love... you."

Scott let out a sob. "Stop, don't say that now," they mumbled. "Then you're going to die like those dumb cheesy movies, and-"

"Shh," the ravenette hushed them, slowly reaching up to cup Scott's cheek in his hand. "Don't... worry about... that." He took a shaky breath and winced at the pain in his abdomen. "Just... get stronger... okay? And- and beat his ass for me."

Scott let out a small laugh at that, putting his own hand over Keres'. "I will, I promise, but I can still save you," he said, then reached into a pouch on his belt. "I keep a healing potion in my-" They froze and dug around the empty pouch, finding a whole in the bottom. He looked over to where he was standing before to see the potion bottle smashed on the ground, the potion glowing in the grass. "No, no, no-"

"Looks like you can't save him," Joel said, then sighed. "Boo-hoo."

Scott glared up at the Light Magic witch. "You- you- evil witch!" he shouted, standing up and tossing himself at the older witch. "I hate you! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" They tackled him to the ground and began to relentlessly hit him with their fists, not even noticing that they were glowing. "I wish you would just disappear!"

Suddenly, as if Scott was using some kind of wishing magic, Joel was gone, his clothes and items the only thing underneath of Scott now.

"Oh, Hades, I killed him," Scott gasped, covering his mouth. He blinked, more tears forming in his eyes, then he began to laugh. "I killed him!" They ran their hands through their hair, laughing louder. "I killed him! Keres, did you see-" When he turned to his boyfriend, they froze.

Keres wasn't moving anymore. He wasn't making little gasping noises or clenching at his side. He was still.

He was dead.

Scott started to laugh again. "And I killed you, too, didn't I?" he said. "I killed my boyfriend." He fell to his knees, his laughter growing louder and louder as he simultaneously sobbed. "I killed my boyfriend! I'm an idiot!" He stared at Keres and their laughter faded back into crying. "I'm so sorry, I should have listened to you-" They leaned down to hug Keres' still, cold body, wailing into his chest.

I promise that I won't rest until I bring you back.

---

Cleo woke up not long after Scott's meltdown and brought him back to his dorm room.

"Thanks," Scott mumbled, clutching Joel's dagger tightly in his hands.

Cleo smiled softly at him. "Of course, Scoot," she said, then reached to pull him into a hug. "I know you'll figure this out, I believe in you."

Scott nodded slightly.

"Goodnight," she said, pulling away. "Don't stay up, alright? You'll have plenty of time to do research tomorrow when you're wide awake."

They nodded again. "Night," he said, then turned around and walked inside, leaving Cleo by herself on the balcony to worry about him.

Scott didn't listen to Cleo at all. They stayed up all night reading about that dagger, which was called a sarmentum blade and it was used for trapping demons and angels to summon later on. If used on any mortal creature, it would kill them. He also read three textbooks on necromancy from cover-to-cover and did more studying on hex casting.

He was falling asleep by the time the sun came up, and Cleo came to check on them not too long after eight o'clock.

"Oh, Scott," she sighed when she walked in to find Scott dozing off at their desk. "I told you not to stay up."

Scott startled themselves awake by snoring and nearly jumped out of their seat. "Hu- Wha- Huh-"

"It's just me," Cleo said, then she sighed again. "You should've gone to bed like I told you to."

Scott rolled his eyes, yawning. "Whatever, I'm fine," he said, then yawned again.

Cleo scoffed. "Yeah right. Get up, come on," she said as she pulled Scott from their seat, to which they whined. "Scott, you need sleep. You're already a zombie, you don't need to act like a brainless one because you're sleep-deprived."

Scott didn't protest anymore as she brough them to their bed and made sure he was comfortable and actually sleeping before she left.

He was lucky it was Sunday and there were no classes.

---

Scott let out a tearless sob after reading out of the seventh - or was it the eighth? - book on necromancy he could find. There was nothing on how to bring someone back that was killed with a sarmentum blade.

"What's wrong?" Naomi asked, her mouth full of pasta.

Cleo sighed and turned to whisper to her and explain what had happened the previous night. She nodded when Naomi gasped.

"No way!" Naomi said. "Oh, Scoot, I'm so sor-"

"Don't," Scott snapped, lifting his head to glare at her, "call me that."

Naomi froze and nodded stiffly, very obviously afraid of Scott now. "R-right..." She paused and pursed her lips, the three of them sitting in awkward silence for a moment. "So, when did the green glowy eyes become a thing? It's- cool?"

Scott blinked, his scowl disappearing. "My eyes are glowing?"

"Well, not anymore," Cleo said, then glanced down at Scott's hands. "I think you should get that checked out."

"What?" Scott looked down and gasped. His hands were now fully black. "Oh. My. Hades."

Naomi winced when she looked at Scott's hands. "It looks like you're withering," she said. "Milk should help with that."

Cleo hummed. "Maybe not withering, but becoming a wither?" she suggested, then reached forward to touch Scott's fingers. "Look, their fingers aren't turning to dust when I touch them."

"I thought you were a zombie," Naomi said to Scott, who sighed.

"I don't know what's happening anymore," they groaned. "I just want Keres back."

---

"Excuse me," Scott said softly to the librarian, who looked like she couldn't give a damn that he was talking to her. "Do you have any more books on necromancy?"

She sighed and grabbed a key off her desk and handed it to them. "There's a trapdoor on the East side of the library in the Light Magic building," she said. "You can search in there for whatever kind of unheard-of spell you're looking for."

Scott smiled brightly. "Thank you!" he said before rushing off.

He was going to bring back his boyfriend, all he had to do was-

Wait.

The Light Magic building?

But...

No, he had to go. He had to bring back Keres.

But Jimmy's there...

Scott shook themselves. "This is too important to be scared of a canary boy that gets walked all over by other witches," they said, and continued toward the Light Magic building. "This is my boyfriend's life. I need him."

As he was walking, they noticed that Lauren girl from before. They waved and she waved back nervously. He stopped and turned around to say hi to her.

"Hi, Lauren!" Scott called as he approached.

She froze and made a small squeak. "He knows my name," she whispered to herself. "Oh, gods, please don't use voodoo on me," she begged. "I just got over that drowning curse Pris put on me-"

"What?" Scott shook his head. "I'm not going to curse you."

Lauren blinked and tilted her head. "You're not?" she asked, sounding genuinely perplexed. "But you're a Dark Magic witch, aren't you?"

Scott sighed. "I want to be friends," they said straightforwardly. "I saw you a few times in the halls and at meals, and you seem pretty cool." Besides, you can sneak me into the Light Magic building.

Lauren smiled a bit. "Oh. Well, I'd be happy to," she said confidently, putting her hands on her hips. "Just... as long as you don't sacrifice me for your demonic magic homework."

Scott snorted. "I won't," he said. "I don't take demonic magic classes anyway."

---

"Thanks for showing me to the library," Scott said as they and Lauren approached the library. "I appreciate it."

Lauren smiled brightly. "It's no problem at all, Scoot."

Scott felt his chest tighten. "Please don't call me that," they said.

"Oh! I'm sorry," she apologised quickly. "My friend Naomi called you that, so I just..." She trailed off, looking away awkwardly.

"You know Naomi?"

Lauren looked back at him and laughed. "Of course," she said. "Everyone knows Naomi. She's friends with everybody."

Scott nodded. "She... does seem like the kind of girl that everybody knows," he said with a soft laugh. "Well, anyway, I should really get to finding my book. Thanks again."

"Of course."

They waved their goodbyes and Scott entered the library, immediately heading toward the East side.

He found the trapdoor the librarian was talking about relatively easily due to it being in the most obvious spot in the entire place; the dark corner in the back.

It was very dimly lit by soul lanterns (Scott might have to "borrow" some of those sometime - he read some spells that required souls) and everything was just radiating with mana. As he searched through, he noticed that everything there was Dark Magic, which confused them since this was the Light Magic side of the academy.

"Hades' sake," he breathed, reading the cover of a corruption magic book. "What do they even need all of this for?" He grabbed the book off the shelf and opened it to a random page. "'How To Summon Exor'? Wasn't that guy banished to the Nether millions of years ago?" They shrugged and put the book back. "All of this must be ancient magic, then."

They continued searching, finding tons of old artifacts and things that primitive witches used, including basic elemental glyphs and other old symbols used for spell casting.

"This is it," he heard a familiar voice say, then immediately hid. "I can bring Joel back."

Scott, confused, peeked over the stack of books he hid behind and his eyes widened when he saw Jimmy.

---

Woahhh lore!!

For those of you who haven't seen my announcements, this book is going to be a lot shorter than it was originally going to be because I just can never find the energy to write for it. I've shortened the plot significantly, but hopefully it'll still be as good as it was going to be!

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed! Have a wonderful rest of your day or evening wherever you, love y'all!! <33