Wellspring of Lies

The dungeon's throat tightened with every step. Ayla counted the rusted iron rings bolted to the walls—each stained with generations of finger-shaped rust. Lila's choked whimpers echoed ahead, syncopated with the drip of groundwater that smelled vaguely of powdered milk.

"Drop the blades," Selena's voice oozed from the dark. A flashlight beam sliced through the gloom, catching Lila duct-taped to a boiler covered in crayon scribbles. Childhood scribbles.

Ayla spat out her last throwing knife. It clattered near a puddle reflecting Selena's face—no glamour tonight, just raw-boned fury and smeared mascara. "Couldn't afford a real babysitter?"

"Swap positions," Selena ordered. "You kneel where the drain grate hisses. Let's see if maternal instincts skipped a generation."

(Three cells down, Lucas clawed at mortar. His blood sizzled where it touched the walls. Childhood nightmares oozed through the cracks: Locked in the toy chest for crying. Darkness peeling my nails.)

Lila kicked the boiler. A panel clanged open, releasing a flood of yellowed construction paper. Childish block letters swam in the flashlight's beam:

SECRET LAB MAP BY SELENA (AGE 6)

The map showed a stick-figure Lila chained to a furnace. Arrows pointed to a red X labeled "SISTER KEY."

"Touching," Ayla drawled, edging closer. "Grade school you had better penmanship."

Selena's boot crunched a paper pile. "I improved." She gestured to the walls.

Blood seeped through the mortar—not fresh, but aged, flaking like burnt skin. It formed words where the light hit:

MELISSA (Lila's birth name) HOLDS THE LOCK BREAK HER TO BREAK THE SEAL

Lila strained against the tape. "I'm not your damn skeleton key!"

Selena flicked a switchblade open. "You've always been... accommodating."

Lucas exploded through the wall in a shower of bricks and childhood trauma residue. His claws found Selena's shoulder—then spasmed. Puppet strings yanked him backward, throat impaled on a rusted pipe.

Ayla lunged. Too slow.

"Pathetic," Selena crooned, twisting the pipe. Lucas' gurgle sprayed blood in morse code patterns across the floor.

Ayla deciphered it instinctively—training from a lifetime of betrayal:

D-O-N-T B-L-I-N-K

Selena kicked Lucas' legs out. "Still playing messenger boy?"

His remaining hand signed three letters against the wet stone: L-I-E

Then the lights died.

The blackness was alive—thick with the scent of scorched hair and Lila's baby shampoo. Selena's breathing hitched.

"L-lights!" she barked. "Now!"

Ayla seized the cue. Her lighter flared, catching Selena mid-stumble. The invincible queen was flinching from shadows.

"Still scared of the closet monster?" Ayla tossed the lighter at a grease puddle. Flames leapt up to reveal the wall's full message:

MELISSA'S CRY BREAKS THE WALLS (But big sister hates loud noises)

Lila screamed.

The dungeon shuddered, childhood terrors made concrete as the boiler erupted with the sound of a music box playing backward.

Chaos in strobe-light flashes:

Selena clawing at the relit flashlight like a lifelineLucas scrawling "SHE FEEDS ON DOUBT" in his own tracheal bloodLila biting through tape to grab Selena's blade

Ayla tackled Selena into a mound of construction paper ghosts. They thrashed through macabre origami—a child's paper fortune teller stained with brownish blood opened to reveal:

WHO HURTS YOU?

▢ MOMMY

▢ ME

▢ THE DARK

Selena ripped it apart. "Enough games!"

Lila plunged the knife into the boiler. Steam screamed. The walls shed their plaster, revealing a tiny handprint glowing neon—Lila's, aged three, tagging the real weak point.

Epilogue: Nightlight

They escaped as the dungeon collapsed. All but Lucas.

Ayla found him propped against an intact section of wall, carving something into the stone with a shard of glass. His throat wound bubbled with each stroke.

"Leave him," Selena called from the tunnels. "He's just a—"

Ayla's fist connected with her jaw. "Finish that sentence and I'll staple your eyelids open."

The carving glowed faintly: CHECK THE CRIB.

Somewhere, a music box wound down. Somewhere, a flashlight beam caught motes of dust shaped like a child's rocking horse.

Postscript: Monsters Under the Bed

That night, Ayla dreamt of the nursery closet.

Selena at five years old, locked inside with only a glow-in-the-dark crucifix.

Her tiny fists pounding.

Nanny's voice through the door: "Quiet girls get dessert."

She woke with the taste of melted crayons in her mouth and Lila's whimpers in her ears.

Always the whimpers.