Silent Brand

The chapel's confession booth reeked of formaldehyde and mothballs. Max wedged himself between Ayla and a crumbling plaster saint, his breath fogging the grille that once filtered sinners' secrets. Outside, rain lashed the stained glass depiction of Selena's coronation—her child-self clutching a scalpel instead of a scepter.

"Your mother swapped their ID bracelets," he hissed, shoving a yellowed hospital log at Ayla. "Lila's crib was labeled Subject 7A twelve hours before Selena's birth."

Ayla crushed a cockroach scuttling across the ledger. "So the psycho queen's actually the baby sister? Riveting."

"Check the footprint." Max's trembling finger smeared a rust-colored stain. Lila's newborn heelprint glowed faintly beside Selena's forged record.

A gunshot shattered the window. Selena's laughter rode the storm inside.

(In the rectory, Lila's quill snapped. Vampiric script bled through her journal, overwriting her notes with Selena's looping confession: I was the cuckoo chick. She should've smothered me.)

II. Palimpsest of Guilt

Lila stared at the possessed page. Her inkwell bubbled, vomiting more of Selena's words:

First memory: three years old, biting through Lila's swaddle to taste mother's milk still on her lips

"Stop it." She slammed the journal shut. The cover seared her palms—Selena's baby teeth marks rising from the leather.

Erik slumped against the vestry door, his right sleeve torn off to expose the wolf-scar now spiderwebbing toward his collarbone. "We need to move. They're breaching the—"

The journal flew open. Pages fanned into a windmill of shame:

Age five: replaced Lila's asthma meds with crushed lightbulb powder Age nine: convinced the maid Lila sleepwalked into the furnace

Lila vomited on the communion rug.

III. Reliquary of Lies

Ayla kicked open the confessional. "Family therapy's over. We've got company."

Max clutched a reliquary box to his chest. Inside: a tiny hospital bracelet crusted with amniotic fluid. Subject 7A - Female - 6lbs 2oz

"Proof," he wheezed. "Your mother hid this in my—"

Selena's bullet found him first. The reliquary shattered, glass shards embedding in Ayla's cheek. Lila's matching cut opened below her right eye.

"Mirror wounds." Selena stepped through the smoke, polishing her pistol with Lila's stolen baby blanket. "Mother's little symmetry."

Erik moved before logic could catch up.

IV. Sacrificial Anatomy

The blade meant for Lila's throat caught Erik mid-lunge.

"Dumbass," he coughed, gripping the assassin's wrist as the knife twisted deeper. His wolf-scar flared, tendrils of black crawling toward his heart like ink in water.

Lila screamed. The journal pages erupted into flames, Selena's confessions rewriting themselves across the chapel walls:

I carved my initial into her femur I am the infection

Ayla shot the assassin's kneecaps. "Stay with me, Doc!"

Erik slumped against the baptismal font. Holy water sizzled where his tainted blood dripped. "Tell Lila… her lullabies were shit…"

His scar pulsed once—a grotesque heartbeat—before stilling.

V. Ashes of Origin

Lila pressed her palm to Erik's scar. It burned cold. "Why?"

"Had… debt…" His laugh gurgled. "Stole your… Halloween candy… age six…"

The chapel doors exploded. Selena's mercenaries fell as the walls shed their plaster, revealing the original nursery wallpaper beneath—Lila's name etched into the foundation beams with a child's pocketknife.

Ayla hauled Erik onto her shoulders. "Not dying today, understand? I need someone to mock my life choices."

Lila tore a burning page from the wall. Selena's handwriting disintegrated to reveal older text beneath—their mother's shaky script:

Forgive me. The weaker twin had to be stronger.

Somewhere, a hospital monitor flatlined. Somewhere, a wolf's howl choked into silence.

Postscript: Milk Teeth

That night, Lila dreamt of the maternity ward.

Nurses scrambling as two infants wailed in discordant rhythm.

Her tiny fist closing around Selena's ankle.

A scalpel slipping. Blood on a name tag.

She woke with Erik's scar pulsing in her palm and the taste of powdered glass on her tongue.

Always the glass.