The Crimson Brand

In the autumn of 2019, I was a student at Meridian Academy, a boarding school perched on a windswept moor. The nearest town was a half-hour drive, and the school itself was a labyrinth of stone corridors and creaking floors. My name is Elias, and I had been there for two years, but the place still felt alien. The other students were either locals or wealthy city kids, and I was neither. I kept to myself, finding solace in the school’s vast library and the quiet corners where the janitors never bothered to dust.

It was the night before the annual cross-country race, a grueling run through the moors that had become a school tradition. I had gone to bed early, hoping to get enough rest, but I woke with a start at around 3 AM. The moonlight filtered through the frost-patterned window, casting eerie shadows on the wall. As I lay there, trying to remember if I had locked the door, I saw a face materialize in the dark corner of my room. It was not clearly defined, but I could make out sharp features, a dark complexion, and eyes that seemed to glow faintly. The face hovered for a moment, then dissolved into the darkness. My heart hammered in my chest, but I convinced myself it was a trick of the light. I buried my head under the pillow and tried to sleep.

Five minutes later, a heavy weight pressed down on my chest. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even blink. My limbs were pinned by an invisible force, and a cold sensation crept up my spine. I felt something like a needle prick on my neck, followed by a slow, agonizing suction. It was as if something was drawing my lifeblood out. I knew I had to pray, to think of something holy, but my mind raced with terror. I fought to move my right hand, the one that held my mother’s old copper ring, a family heirloom she had insisted I wear. With a Herculean effort, my fingers twitched, then my hand rose slightly, and the pressure suddenly vanished. I gasped, drenched in sweat, and saw red marks on my arm, like small bruises in the shape of a claw.

This wasn’t the first time. Twice before, in the old house we lived in, I had experienced the same thing. My grandmother used to call it the ‘Crimson Brand,’ a mark left by a spirit that feasted on the life force of our family. She spoke of a man, a witch doctor from her village, who had cursed her family generations ago. He had been hired to bring prosperity, but when the family refused to pay his exorbitant fee, he swore they would always be haunted by a presence that would drain them slowly, leaving only after each victim had been marked. My mother and grandmother bore similar marks, and I had always dismissed it as superstition. That night, I was no longer so sure.

The next morning, I was exhausted. The cross-country race was a blur of mud and wind, but I finished, barely. Afterward, I tried to find more information about the curse. I remembered my grandmother’s story of a man named Malakar, who had been a practitioner of ‘high science,’ as she called it. The school library had a section on local folklore, and I scoured it for any mention of him. A tattered book, ‘Moorland Mysteries,’ had a chapter on the ‘Door Opener,’ a spirit that supposedly guarded the boundaries between worlds. The description matched what I had experienced: the paralysis, the blood-draining marks. The book said the spirit could be summoned by a specific ritual involving a lock of hair, a piece of iron, and a mirror.

I realized that the curse might have been carried to the school. The key was that the spirit needed to be ‘let in,’ and I wondered if someone at the school had unknowingly brought a cursed object. I remembered that my roommate, a quiet boy named Thomas, had recently found an old iron key in the walls during a renovation. He had kept it as a curiosity. I brought it to the library, and as I examined it, I noticed strange engravings on the bow. It matched the illustrations in the book. Thomas had opened the door.

That night, I decided to confront the spirit. I followed the ritual from the book, placing the key on a mirror and ringing a bell. I spoke the incantation, my voice trembling. The air grew cold, and the room filled with the smell of damp earth. The face appeared again, but this time it was more defined. It was the face of an old man, with deep-set eyes and a missing ear. He spoke in a whisper that seemed to come from the walls. ‘You carry the blood of the betrayer. You must pay the debt.’ I tried to reason, to plead, but the spirit only grew more agitated. I raised my mother’s ring, which was said to protect against malevolent spirits, and the spirit recoiled. I quickly broke the mirror, and the face vanished with a sound like a sigh.

The next day, I found Thomas in the infirmary, weak and pale. He had red marks on his neck. I knew the spirit had moved on to a new victim. I decided to end this once and for all. I went back to the library and found the origin of the curse. Malakar had been a healer, but also a sorcerer, and he had a weakness: he was bound to the iron key that he had used to seal the curse. The book said that if the key were melted down and the iron reforged into a blade, and that blade were used to cut the threads of a spider’s web at midnight under a new moon, the curse would be broken.

I waited for the new moon, which was only a week away. I stole the key from Thomas’s things and took it to the school’s metal shop. I melted it down, using a small furnace I found there. The process was arduous, but I managed to forge a crude dagger. On the night of the new moon, I went to the old chapel on the hill, where cobwebs lined the rafters. As midnight approached, I held the blade up, ready to cut the central thread of a large web. But just as I was about to do it, the face appeared before me, more menacing than ever. It spoke in a low growl: ‘You think you can break my bind? You are but a child.’ The temperature plummeted, and I felt a familiar paralysis creeping over me. But this time, I had the blade. I forced my right hand, the one with the ring, to move, and I slashed at the spirit’s face. The blade passed through it, and the spirit screamed. I then cut the web, and a burst of light erupted, blinding me.

When I opened my eyes, the chapel was quiet, and the spirit was gone. I felt a sudden release, as if a weight had been lifted from my entire family. The marks on my arm faded, and I knew the curse was broken. I returned to the school, and Thomas recovered. We never spoke of the incident, but I knew we shared an unspoken bond. The Crimson Brand was no more, and our family was finally free.

Years later, I still carry the copper ring and the dagger, hidden away. Sometimes, on silent nights, I think I see a faint face in the mirror, but it is only a shadow. I have learned that some doors are best left closed, and some keys are never meant to turn. The moorland is a lonely place, and its secrets are deep. But I will never forget that autumn, when I faced the Door Opener and broke its hold on my bloodline. The red marks are gone, but the memory remains, etched into the very core of my being.