The Misfire

he cliff groaned under Ayla's boots, limestone crumbling into the abyss below. Her cherry blossom necklace swung wildly, catching slivers of moonlight to paint fractured halos on the rockface. Somewhere in the storm, Lucas' growls vibrated through the granite—half feral snarls, half choked whimpers.

"Come find me," she whispered, snapping the necklace's chain. Bioluminescent petals scattered, their glow mapping the cliff's fissures like a spectral trail.

(Twenty miles east, Selena's hunters planted bloodied clothing in a village well. Fabric scraps matched Lucas' shredded coat, down to the wolf claw embroidery Lila stitched at age nine.)

II. Fractured Lullaby

Ayla's heel slipped. Jagged stone gashed her calf as she clung to a root slick with lichen. The storm howled, carrying echoes of Selena's engineered wolves closing in from the ridge.

She hummed.

It started as a tremor in her ribs—a melody Lucas had composed during their stolen nights in the greenhouse, tuning forks pressed to frost-etched glass. The notes wobbled, sharpened by panic, then steadied as she leaned further over the edge.

"If shadows could weep We'd drown in midnight's keep..."

A boulder dislodged. Her grip failed.

Falling, she watched the necklace's glow refract through rain—a dying star cluster pointing to the cave where Lucas' wolf form cowered.

(Lila's diary entry bloomed in real-time: "Sister's knife tastes like his song. When she cuts, the notes bleed.")

III. Reverse Hunt

Lucas' claws tore at his ears. The lullaby drilled through wolf-instincts, resurrecting memories of Ayla at fourteen—bloodying her palms to pry open his father's rusted bear trap.

"Stop… humming…" he roared, voice mangled between human and beast.

She hit a ledge. Bones cracked. The necklace's central pearl shattered, releasing a hologram: Lucas at sixteen, etching the song's sheet music into a birch trunk.

"You… hated this verse," Ayla coughed, blood flecking the projection. "Called it sentimental garbage."

The hologram flickered. Teenage Lucas glared. "Still do."

(Flashback: Selena's lab speakers blared the same lullaby during "obedience training." Lucas' claws shredded his own arms to muffle the sound.)

IV. Echoes in the Bone

Selena's wolves breached the cliffside. Ayla rolled, hurling pearl shards into the pack. Bioluminescent venom ignited on contact—their howls syncing with Lila's scream miles away.

Lucas lunged.

His jaws closed inches from Ayla's throat, fangs dripping with venom that smelled of Lila's antiseptic prison.

"Do it," she rasped, pressing her forehead to his muzzle. "Prove her right."

The hologram's final note hung between them—a sustained G-sharp that matched Lila's heart monitor flatline.

(Three villages away, hunters staged a corpse with Lucian claw marks. Polaroids circulated before dawn: "Monster Among Us.")

V. Dissonant Truth

Ayla's hand found Lucas' chest. No heartbeat, just the tremor of wolfish muscle.

"They'll burn you," she said. "Burn us. Unless—"

His claws spasmed. She seized the hesitation, driving a pearl shard into his foreleg. Venom met blood, triggering a seizure that left him human-shaped for thirteen seconds.

Long enough to whisper: "Check… her IV… codename…"

Dawn exposed the cliff's secrets. Among scattered pearls, one glowed with coordinates to Selena's childhood dollhouse—its walls etched with the same lullaby.

-

The cliff face wept icy slurry as Ayla inched backward. Her necklace's cherry blossom pendant—its core a smuggled data chip from Selena's lab—scraped the limestone, sending phosphorescent sparks into the void.

"Still hate this song?" she yelled over gale-force winds. Humming crescendoed into a scream as another wolf breached the ridge.

Lucas' answer came as a boulder-sized paw swiping her into freefall.

She caught an outcrop, fingertips bleeding. The lullaby morphed into a war chant.

(Miles away, Lila's IV drip pulsed red. Her unconscious finger traced the song's notes carved into asylum walls—identical to Selena's childhood crib engravings.)

When the alpha wolf lunged, Ayla let go.

Falling, she watched Lucas' eyes flicker human—just long enough to recognize the pearl shard aimed at his jugular.

"Prove her right," she repeated, driving it home.

The cliff erupted in bioluminescent fire.

Somewhere, a dollhouse door creaked open. Somewhere, a forged corpse's hands grew cherry blossom tattoos.