Inverse Totem

Moonlight fractured through storm clouds, casting jagged shadows over the rusted observatory dome. Lucas' claws trembled as he dragged them across Ayla's palm, blood mingling with the metallic sheen of her family's cybernetic crest. The sigil sizzled—not erasure, but transformation.

"Redraw the cage," he growled, his voice shredding between human and beast. The inverted crest pulsed like a newborn star, its edges sprouting sakura petals forged from his hybrid DNA.

(Three floors below, Lila's eyelids fluttered. Her first word in six years dripped from chapped lips: "Elsie." The name Selena buried in formaldehyde-filled childhood journals.)

II. Bloodtopia

Ayla's palm burned. The crest's fractal patterns crawled up her arm, dissolving synthetic circuitry into bioluminescent vines. Lucas' breath hitched—his muzzle brushing her pulse point as moonlight pierced the dome.

"Still think I'm her puppet?" His claws dug into her wrist, drawing twin rivulets that spiraled into the crest. "Look closer, mechanic. Your family's gift was always a shackle."

Memories detonated:

Age 14. Father welding the crest into her flesh. "This will make you invincible," he'd lied. What it made her was Selena's perfect test subject—the crest's frequency syncing with Lila's seizures.

The vines reached her collarbone. Lucas snarled, tearing open his own chest. Golden wolf blood splattered the crest, triggering a hologram: Selena at seven, stitching Lila's name into her doll with vampire fangs.

(Real-time: Lila's heartbeat monitor flatlined as she whispered "Elsie's crib had steel bars.")

III. Eclipse Protocol

The vines exploded into light filaments, cocooning Lucas in a chrysalis of fractured memories.

Five years old. Selena feeding him wolfsbane-laced candy. "Good dogs get rewards." Sixteen. Ayla's first kiss tasting of solder and betrayal. Last full moon. Lila's muffled screams syncing with his bones snapping.

Ayla pressed her luminous palm to the chrysalis. "You're not saving her. You're mirroring Selena's madness."

The cocoon cracked. Human hands emerged—scarred, shaking—to clutch her wrist. Lucas' human voice surfaced like a drowning man: "Madness is the only language she understands."

IV. Reverse Alchemy

The crest's vines coiled around his throat. Lucas choked out a laugh, tearing the sakura necklace from Ayla's neck. Moonlight refracted through blood-soaked glass, melting silver into a ring.

"Marry me," he rasped, sliding it onto her finger. The band constricted—Selena's fingerprint materialized inside, interlaced with Lila's infant whorls.

Ayla recoiled. "Is this a proposal or a curse?"

Lightning struck the dome. The ring's engravings blazed: Elsie & Lila - Subject 7A & 7B

(Flashback: Nursery monitors showing twin cribs. Selena whispering to comatose Lila: "We'll make him strong enough to kill for us.")

V. Shattered Symmetry

Lucas collapsed mid-transformation, his left half human, right half wolf. The crest's vines withered, leaving Ayla's arm mapped with scars mimicking Lila's diary pages.

"Three minutes," he gasped, clawing at the ring. "That's all she allows."

Dawn bled through shattered glass. The ring's fingerprints began rotating—a safe combination? Coordinates? Ayla didn't care. She yanked Lucas' hybrid form against her, the crest's residual glow etching their shadows into a single inverse totem on the wall.

Somewhere, a doll's porcelain hand twitched. Somewhere, Lila traced Selena's fingerprint on her IV bag and smiled.

-

The observatory's shattered dome yawned like a broken ribcage. Lucas' blood pooled around Ayla's boots, its glow exposing the truth beneath her family crest—microscopic valves pumping Selena's control serum for decades.

"Rewrite the code," he snarled, clawing deeper. His hybrid blood wasn't erasing the crest; it was hacking it.

Ayla's vision kaleidoscoped—suddenly she's six, watching Father calibrate the crest's implant. "For protection," he'd said. Now the machine parts dissolved under Lucas' blood, revealing organic circuitry shaped like Lila's birthmark.

(Three floors down, Lila's finger twitched. Her first word wasn't "help" but the name Selena burned from records: "Elsie.")

When the moonlight hit its zenith, the crest detonated into sakura projections. Lucas' human half surfaced just long enough to smirk. "Your turn, mechanic. Break her toys."

He melted the necklace—their childhood pact—into a ring. The metal scorched her finger, branding twin fingerprints inside. Ayla almost missed the significance until lightning revealed the names:

Elsie ███████ (expunged) Lila ███████ (subject 7B)

The storm died. Lucas reverted to full wolf form, but the ring stayed fused to her hand—a hybrid of vow and weapon.

Somewhere, a crib mobile spun with syringes instead of stars. Somewhere, a doll whispered in vampire tongue.