Eternal Dusk
The magma pool beat like a dead heart under her feet. Elvira stepped on the cracks of the cooled basalt, and the ring burned a scorch mark on her palm. Three hundred yards away, Selina used Lucas's half-petrified body as a cross to stand on the lava vent. The wolf scar on his right hand had spread all over his neck and solidified into black volcanic glass.
"Choose one or the other," Selina tapped Lucas's petrified earlobe with a scalpel, the tip of the knife stained with fragments of Lila's childhood medical records, "save your watchdog, or kill me?"
Lila's voice suddenly exploded over the communicator, with static: "Elvira! Don't believe her—"
Selina cut off the signal and held up a syringe filled with turbid liquid: "Or give him euthanasia? Wolfsbane serum can make him die like a human being."
*(Deep in the core of the earth, Lila presses her hand on the fingerprint lock of the self-destruct terminal. The screen flashes the surveillance footage of her when she was four years old: Selena holds her hand and teaches her to spell **SISTER=KEY**.)*
---
Elvira threw the dagger and shattered the syringe. The liquid splashed onto the rock wall, hissing and smoking, etching Lucas' name.
"Same old fashioned." She loaded the shotgun. "Don't you have any new tricks?"
Selina chuckled and dug her nails into Lucas's petrified collarbone. "Remember the first time you kissed? He was shaking. Not because he was in love - he was afraid that he would lose control and bite your throat."
The magma suddenly surged, and Lukashi's pupils flashed amber for a moment. Elvira saw his Adam's apple rolling under the petrified layer, and he lip-synched three words: **Kill me**
"Shut up!" she fired at Selina's feet, "You have no right to mention him!"
The shell fell into the magma, and the light it stirred up illuminated Lucas's right hand hanging by his side - there was a circle of tiny cracks at the base of the ring finger, and a substance like molten gold was oozing out.
---
Lila's thumb pressed on the self-destruct button. The terminal spit out a yellowed note, which was her childhood handwriting that she stuffed into the time capsule when she was six years old:
**How to save your sister:
1. Hold My Hand
2. Talk about going home
3. Don't cry
The screen suddenly switched to real-time monitoring: Selina was pushing Elvira to the edge of the lava waterfall.
"Fuck." Lila ripped the symbiotic curse pendant off her neck, and the glass tube pierced into her palm. "I'll play the game you want with you."
Blood dripped onto the keyboard, activating the hidden command:
**GAME MODE: SISTERS' LAST HIDE AND SEEK**
---
Elvira pretended to stagger and let Selina grab her arm. The ring took the opportunity to rub against her wrist, leaving a smoking contract mark.
"You'll never learn to love." Selina twisted her dislocated shoulder. "You'll only destroy."
"That's right." Elvira hit her nose with a headbutt. "So I'm good at this."
The magma pool suddenly boiled. Lucas's statue began to sink, and the crack on his ring finger burst open, and the molten ring floated to the surface.
"No!!" Selina showed panic for the first time, "That's my--"
Elvira grabbed the hot ring and put it on her finger. The magma solidified into a black basalt coffin around Lucas, freezing him in the final lip shape: **Go**
---
Lila's voice blasted through all the loudspeakers:
"Sister, take me home."
The entire facility began to collapse. Selina screamed and rushed to the control console, but her ankles were bound by blood chains formed by her childhood graffiti. Elvira ran wildly with her dislocated arm, and every screen she passed by was replaying her cruel childhood.
- Selena secretly wears Lila's birthday dress
- Lila takes the blame for arson for her sister
- Lucas smuggles baby Lila covered in blood
In front of the final safety door, Elvira looked back. The lava coffin was closing, but the ring on Lucas's petrified finger flickered slightly.
---
Postscript: Unfinished Corpse Hiding Game
Three months later, Lila found a graffiti in the rebuilt children's hospital:
**Selena's hiding place:
☑ Wardrobe
☑ Basement
☐ Brother's heart
Elvira stroked the burn mark on the ring. It sometimes burned on rainy days, like some soul trapped in stone typing Morse code.
It's always three short, three long, and three short.