Chapter 5

Night pressed against the windows like a living thing.

The world outside blurred into a sea of black and swaying branches.

Inside, the house seemed smaller somehow, as if the walls had shifted closer while Aika wasn't looking.

She sat on her bed, clutching ΔLight against her chest, her heart hammering too loudly in the silence.

The evening had started normal.

Almost... pleasant.

Her mother had been humming and laughing softly as she cleaned the dishes, telling little jokes to herself.

The kind of domestic calm that should have soothed Aika's fraying nerves.

But then—

The sun touched the tree line.

The light died.

And the change happened.

It was immediate, like a string snapping.

Her mother's voice dropped into that slow, chilling hum—the same lullaby she had sung Aika every night since childhood.

Only now Aika knew better.

Now, the sound made her blood run cold.

ΔLight pulsed faintly in her arms, the softest glow leaking through the stitched fabric of his body.

He wasn't speaking out loud, but he was inside her mind all the same, like a second heartbeat.

Memories—but not hers—pressed against her brain.

Fragments.

Whispers.

Translations.

The lullaby wasn't just a song.

It was a spell.

A chant.

A death sentence.

Aika scrambled to grab her journal, scribbling the words down as fast as she could before they faded:

"Little light, do not wake,

Let the bloodline slowly break,

By the flesh, the spell shall bind,

One will stay, and one shall die.

Silent eyes and open skin,

Call the Devil, let him in."

She stared at the paper, hands trembling.

Every night of her childhood—every bedtime tucked-in kiss, every soft hum through the door—had been this.

A ritual.

A curse stitched into her skin by the mother she trusted.

And Hana—

The last song Hana ever heard had been this too.

The air in Aika's room thickened. The house seemed to breathe.

A faint scrape came from the vent near the ceiling.

A wet, sliding noise.

Something moved.

Aika's eyes snapped upward—just in time to see a thin, black tentacle withdraw into the shadows before it could break through.

ΔLight's glow flared, and the thing retreated.

He was protecting her.

Even if he was something strange.

Even if he wasn't fully human or fully safe.

He was hers.

And he was fighting back.

Aika locked her bedroom door, dragging a chair against the knob for extra weight.

She wrapped ΔLight in a ring of salt from the kitchen pantry. She didn't know if it would work, but she needed something. Anything.

Downstairs, the humming grew louder.

Her mother's voice swelled, lilting and sharp, filling the house like smoke.

And then—

A new verse.

One Aika had never heard before.

She pressed her ear against the door, listening, the words sinking like ice into her chest.

"One will burn, one will rise,

One will wear the devil's eyes..."

Aika's stomach twisted.

That verse was meant for her.

A warning—or a promise.

She wasn't just being lulled into death anymore.

She was being claimed.

Clutching ΔLight tighter, she backed into the corner of her room, staring at the door as the humming grew and grew and grew...

She would not sleep tonight.

She would not dream.

She would survive.

ΔLight would see to that.

[Aika's Diary – 7/12/20XX – Nightfall]

The lullaby has started again.

It's happening again.

Her humming started just as the sun dipped below the trees.

Like a switch flipped.

One second she was doing the dishes, laughing at her own jokes.

The next, her voice dropped into that slow, eerie rhythm—the same lullaby she's always sung to me since I was little.

I used to think it was just some old language.

A cultural thing.

Something her mother passed down.

But the doll… ΔLight… he's been whispering.

Not out loud. Not with a voice.

But in my head.

Like memory, but not mine.

Like he's feeding me pieces of what the words mean.

And now I know.

She's not singing to calm me.

She's not even singing to me.

She's chanting.

Here's what the lullaby means, word for word, translated:

"Little light, do not wake,

Let the bloodline slowly break,

By the flesh, the spell shall bind,

One will stay, and one shall die.

Silent eyes and open skin,

Call the Devil, let him in."

I'm shaking as I write this.

That's what she sang to me before bed every night.

That's what she sang before she killed Hana.

She was conditioning me. Preparing me.

ΔLight stopped the tentacle tonight.

I saw it twitch in the vent, but it didn't come through.

He protected me.

And now I understand.

The lullaby—it's not a comfort.

It's a key.

A signal.

A curse.

I think each night she sings it, she's weakening me.

Draining me.

Preparing me for the shrine.

But the doll is resisting it.

ΔLight is interfering with the ritual.

I'm not going to bed tonight.

Not with her below.

I've locked the door.

I've wrapped the doll in salt I found in the kitchen.

I don't know if that's what's working, but it's something.

She's still humming.

Louder now.

And she's added a verse I've never heard before.

I'm writing it down:

"One will burn, one will rise,

One will wear the devil's eyes..."

I think that one's for me.

– Aika