Arvid didn't hesitate.
He was already moving as the wolf turned toward the fire, boots gliding down the slope without a sound. His coat flared once with the wind, then he vanished into the trees.
Not hidden. Gone.
Ilya watched from the ridge, frozen. His legs wouldn't move, not from fear, but because the world had shifted. Something unseen had crept into the bones of the night.
The fire grew louder.
More shapes moved at the edge of the treeline. Smaller than the wolf, barely, but didn't take away its horror. Ilya blinked, and realized what he'd thought were rocks were teeth.
A small hand latched onto his sleeve.
He looked down. Anna stood beside him, her face pale beneath the orange glow. She was trembling, her breath shallow, eyes wide with something that couldn't even be called fear. Her fingers were clutching his coat like she was afraid the world would fall if she let go.
"Ilya," she whispered. "What is that?"
He didn't answer. Because he didn't know.
A flare of light streaked across the sky.
Lilya dove in fast, the missile-shaped Astra beneath her igniting like a second sunrise. Red light pulsed from its core, heat rippling in waves behind her. She launched into a hard arc above the burning orphanage, smoke trailing behind her like a comet tail.
Below, the wolf lifted its head and roared.
Lilya swooped lower.
The Astra rotated mid-flight, side panels snapping open to reveal twin turrets. A barrage of glowing bullets screamed through the air, tearing down two smaller beasts in a spray of fire and ash.
More monsters surged from the burning rubble, but Lilya moved like fire through air, cutting low, banking hard, already coming around for another pass. Her voice cracked through the smoke, laced with sarcasm.
"What's wrong, big guy? Afraid of something that flies?"
She leveled her Astra, climbed high, and cut the engine for a breathless moment. Then, she dropped.
The missile dived toward the wolf as she jumped before the impact.
Her boots left the Astra as it rocketed down, and she spun backward through the air. Below—
BOOM.
The explosion was thunder without warning. A bloom of fire erupted, hurling snow, debris, and bone skyward.
Ilya threw his arm around Anna and pulled her close, turning his body to shield her as the shockwave slammed into the ridge.
Heat tore through the air, hot enough to sting through their coats. Ash and snow burst upward like a second storm.
Anna let out a gasp, small and broken, clutching his jacket with both hands. Her face was buried against his ribs. She didn't cry, but her breath hitched like she was trying not to.
In a blink of red light and metal, her Astra reformed. It twisted back into shape mid-air, stabilizers flaring.
It caught Lilya just before she hit the ground.
She stood tall on its back, coat shredded at the edges, hair wild, one boot braced against the wing.
"Thank me later, White Ghost!" she shouted into the blaze, grinning like she'd just outplayed death itself.
From the trees behind the battlefield—
CRACK.
The gunshot didn't echo. It silenced the world.
It split the night so cleanly it felt like time blinked.
A single bullet.
The wolf jerked once, then dropped.
No roar. No stagger. Just the thud of a body larger than any beast should be, crashing into the burning bones of the orphanage.
A perfect shot, from somewhere unseen.
The wolf was dead.
Its massive body still smoldered in the wreckage of the orphanage, half-covered in flame and ash.
Lilya circled wide above the valley, her Astra sweeping slow and low now, watching quietly.
The battle wasn't over. But the worst of it had passed.
Only the smaller beasts remained, twisted creatures crawling out from shadow and flame. Most scattered into the trees the moment the wolf fell, retreating after the fall of their leader. A few remained, feral, aimless, driven by nothing but madness.
And one of them was running straight for the ridge.
One of the lesser beasts, canine in shape, but wrong in every other way, peeled away from the chaos and sprinted toward them. Its limbs moved too fast. Its head snapped back and forth like it couldn't hold still. Its eyes burned white.
Ilya reached for his rifle.
His hands weren't steady. They shook, not from cold, but from something else.
He raised the weapon anyway.
The world slowed.
His heartbeat pounded in his ears, but beneath it was something else, low and wet, like tar bubbling beneath stone.
The rifle felt heavier than it should. The wood was dark, almost black, but slick. The metal glistened slightly in the firelight, not reflecting, but dripping. Thick black liquid oozed from the seams, curling down the stock, as if the weapon was bleeding.
Anna didn't see it. She was ducked behind him.
The beast closed in, twenty meters. Fifteen.
Ilya's finger settled on the trigger.
For just a moment, he felt it. Not the shot, but the target. As if the rifle had already chosen where to hit.
Bang.
The shot cracked through the night, not like Arvid's clean snap. This one was deeper, wetter, like thunder swallowed in mud. The air rippled with it.
The bullet wasn't normal.
It flew forward, wrapped in black. Not spinning, but slithering. It struck the beast center-mass, and a sound like snapping bones echoed back through the smoke.
The creature staggered once, mid-charge, then something burst from inside it.
Roots. No, branches.
From the wound, a thin, jagged black tree erupted, splitting bone and muscle like wet paper. Its bark twisted upward unnaturally, pulsing, gleaming with thick inky sap that dripped onto the snow and hissed where it landed. The limbs reached skyward like claws.
The beast dropped, impaled from within, motionless.
Steam rose around the base of the tree.
Ilya stared at it. It hadn't been there before. It hadn't even existed a second ago.
He lowered the rifle.
His arms trembled. The weapon pulsed once in his hands.
Then silence.
He let it fall from his grip. It hit the snow with a soft hiss, dark ooze sinking into the frost.
Anna peeked around his side. "...Ilya?"
He didn't answer.
He just kept staring at the tree that shouldn't be.
***
By morning, the fire had died.
Smoke clung low to the earth like fog, curling around blackened stones and what little remained of the orphanage. The snow had melted in wide patches, revealing wet mud, scattered ash, and footprints that led nowhere.
Ilya stood in the ruins.
The heat of the fire had long faded, but the air still smelled scorched, like burnt cloth, like old iron, like something sacred turned inside out.
Beside him, Anna crouched in the rubble, her fingers brushing over a cracked ceramic bowl half-buried in soot. The edge was chipped, she had once eaten soup from it every winter.
She didn't cry. But her shoulders curled inward like she'd run out of room to feel.
"This was the dining room," she whispered, not to him, not to anyone. "I sat there... and you were by the window."
Ilya said nothing.
He was staring at the bell.
It had fallen sideways. Bent. The handle blackened, warped from the heat. A crooked piece of wood stuck out from beneath it, like the post it once hung from had collapsed mid-sentence.
A gust of cold wind scattered soot over the ground like dust across an old painting.
Behind them, two figures stood on the slope above the wreckage.
Arvid's arms were folded, but not in discipline. His expression was unreadable. His rifle was slung across his back, untouched since last night.
Lilya stood beside him with one hand resting on her Astra's frame, her gaze fixed on the siblings below. She didn't smile. Not even a smirk.
Neither moved.
Anna picked up a lump of melted wax from the ground and stared at it. "That was the candle I gave Mrs. Yara for New Year's," she whispered.
She pressed it to her chest and lowered her head.
Ilya didn't tell her to stand up. Didn't tell her they needed to leave. He didn't know where they'd go.
So he just stood beside her.
In the place where a home used to be.