Rainwater dripped through the collapsed roof of the abandoned chapel, pooling in the grooves of a crumbling fresco that depicted wolves devouring their own tails. Ayla's breath fogged the air as she pressed against the rotting pew, her fingers tightening around the brass bell. Its surface was pitted with green corrosion, but the inscription still bit into her palm:
NEVER ABANDON
(Twenty miles south, Lila's diary entry bloomed in real-time: "Tonight, Sister's nightmares stain the margins. She drew herself as an infant with three eyes. Why does her fear taste like my formula milk?")
II. Echoes in the Belfry
Lucas' wolf form crouched in the apse, his matted fur blending with the shadows. Moonlight sliced through broken stained glass, casting a fractured halo over the altar where Lila's baptismal gown lay moth-eaten. The bell's clapper trembled in Ayla's grip, emitting a subsonic hum that made his ears flatten.
"You recognize it," she whispered, thumbing the bell's dented rim. "You carved her initials here when she was born."
(Flashback: Age 16, Lucas filing down stolen bronze to forge the bell. Selena's voice through the lab door: "A defective prototype shouldn't play nursemaid.")
The wolf lunged. Rotting hymnal pages scattered as Ayla rolled behind a crumbling pillar. His claws gouged the fresco, releasing spores that glowed with the same bioluminescence as Lila's IV drips.
"Still running from her?" She dangled the bell by its frayed ribbon. "Or from the fact that you wanted this?"
III. Cipher in Patina
The bell struck the floor. Its resonance cracked the altar, revealing a cavity filled with infant bones wrapped in copper wire. Lucas recoiled, a whine escaping his throat as the wire pulsed with residual current.
Ayla pried a femur loose. "They weren't all failures, were they? Some of us survived long enough to be useful."
The bone's surface crawled with micro-engravings: Selena's childhood doodles of hybrid creatures—wolves with syringe tails, vampires grafted to diesel engines. Lila's latest diary entry flickered in Ayla's mind: "Her crib mobile had spinning scalpels. I thought they were wind chimes."
(Three days prior: Max discovering a photo in the observatory ruins—Selena at age six, drawing equations on Lila's incubator with her own blood.)
IV. The Binding
Ayla lunged, bell ribbon in teeth. Lucas' fangs grazed her collarbone, drawing blood that sizzled against the corroded bronze. She looped the ribbon around his neck, the "Never Abandon" inscription branding his fur.
"You promised her," she hissed, yanking the knot tight. "Now keep it."
Memories detonated:
Age 8, Lucas smuggling Lila out of the lab. Selena's voice over the PA: "Subject 7A's vitals failing. Initiate contingency protocol." The bell ringing in his pocket as Lila stopped breathing.
Present-day Lucas convulsed. The ribbon seared through his fur, leaving a collar of raw flesh. Ayla pressed the bell to the wound, its vibrations syncing with Lila's distant heartbeat.
V. Fractured Lullaby
Dawn bled through shattered windows. Lucas lay human-shaped, the bell's imprint glowing on his throat. Ayla crouched beside him, peeling back his eyelid to check for pupil dilation.
"Still in there?" She flicked the bell. Its toll echoed through the chapel's hidden chambers, activating dormant machinery beneath the crypt.
(The hospital: Lila sat up, tracing Selena's infant doodles on her IV bag. Her fingertip left trails of bioluminescent fluid that spelled "Find the third eye.")
Somewhere beneath the altar, a hydraulic seal hissed open. The scent of formaldehyde and cherry blossoms surged through cracks in the floor. Lucas' hand spasmed, carving "LIAR" into the rotting wood.
Ayla pocketed the bell. Its clapper had transformed into a key shaped like Selena's childhood tracheotomy scar.
"Rest now," she murmured, stepping into the rising vapor. "We're just following her script."
The chapel doors slammed shut.
-
The chapel's rotting floorboards creaked under Ayla's boots, each step triggering bioluminescent fungi to flare along the walls like Lila's fever charts. Lucas' growl vibrated through the rubble, dislodging a rusted crucifix that impaled a nest of wiring—vintage lab equipment repurposed as holy relics.
"Still think you're saving her?" Ayla spun the bell, its clapper striking random notes. "Or just delaying the inevitable?"
(Memory fragment: Age 12, Lucas teaching Lila morse code through nursery rhymes. Selena's scalpel scraping the observation window: "Sentiment breeds structural weakness.")
The wolf lunged. Ayla ducked, slamming the bell against exposed copper pipes. The resulting frequency shattered remaining stained glass, revealing Selena's childhood sketches etched into the stone beneath—infants connected by hydraulic umbilici.
"Her masterpiece," Ayla spat, kicking a severed doll's head wired to a car battery. "Too bad we didn't die neat enough for her display case."
Lucas' claws grazed her ribs. She jammed the bell into his muzzle, the "Never Abandon" engraving splitting his lip. Blood dripped onto the doll's head, jumpstarting a hologram: Selena at five, singing lullabies to Lila's embryonic pod.
(Real-time: Lila's heartbeat monitor flatlined for precisely 33 seconds—the length of Selena's recorded lullaby.)
As the hologram flickered, Ayla looped the ribbon around Lucas' neck. His transformation reversal cracked his ribs audibly.
"Welcome back," she whispered, pressing the bell to his ear. "Now hear what you've been ignoring."
Somewhere in the walls, dormant machinery began chewing through thirty years of silence.