Echoes of Chains

The smell of disinfectant in the abandoned maternity ward was mixed with the smell of wolf. When Elvira tied Eric to the delivery table with an iron chain for the fifth time, the crisp sound of his wrist bones breaking reminded her of the days when she bit into toffee. The moonlight poured in through the broken baby observation window, illuminating the wolf scar crawling under his collarbone - it had already climbed up to his Adam's apple, like a greedy parasite.

"Do it." Eric spat out the rust in his mouth and tore open the hospital gown to reveal the position of his heart. The operating light had long been transformed into a torture device. The shackles hanging down were hung with a carved silver blade. The handle of the knife was engraved with Lila's graffiti when she was six years old: **Good doctors don't give injections**

As soon as Lila's fingers touched the handle of the knife, the monitor in the corner suddenly jumped. The electrocardiogram did not depict the heart rhythm, but a simple drawing of Selena's smiling face when she was eight years old.

*(Deep in the basement freezer, children use frozen meat to piece together an upside-down stone statue of Lucas. Rotting blood flows down the freezer into an arrow pointing to an old-fashioned video recorder with a label saying "7A&7B Emotion Transfer Log.")*

The silver blade burned blisters on Lila's palms. Eric felt a double heartbeat in his chest, one of which was a perfect replica of the lullaby Selena sang in her childhood.

"Kill me," he bared his canines, "before it eats away all my memories."

Lila put her blade against his heart, and suddenly saw something reflecting deep in his festering scars - Selena's baby tooth necklace, embedded in his flesh and blood, rising and falling with his pulse.

"She put a receptor in you." Lila used the tip of her knife to pick at the rotting flesh. "This is fucking suicide!"

Eric grabbed her wrist and stabbed her in the heart: "Then let that bitch taste--"

The alarm went off. All the monitoring screens simultaneously played Selena's childhood diary:

**Today in Uncle Eric's coffee with wolfsbane ivy, he scratched my doll while rescuing. Deserved it.**

When Elvira kicked the door open, she saw the blade 3 centimeters into her flesh. Eric's roar shattered the IV stand, and his wolf-like right claw tore through the iron sheet of the delivery table.

"Stop!" She threw out the chain and wrapped it around Lila's wrist. "That knife is Selina's contract anchor!"

It's too late.

The silver blade began to multiply after absorbing blood, and fine thorns split from the blade and pierced into Lila's palm. Eric took the opportunity to smash the observation window and dragged his half-man, half-wolf body towards the stone statue of Lucas in the center of the courtyard.

"Come back!" Lila's cries were mixed with the smell of blood, "You will be completely out of control!"

The moment he looked back, the moonlight just happened to illuminate the contract runes spinning in his eye sockets: "It has been a long time ago."

The statue cracked under Eric's impact. Lava oozed out of the cracks, but it didn't flow - instead it solidified into the outline of Lucas's body in mid-air. The incomplete finger pointed to the statue's base, which was covered with children's crayon drawings:

**Rescue the Wolf Game**

① Find the bad dog's collar

② Feed it the burning moon

③ Wait for my sister to cry for the third time

Eric raised the silver blade and stabbed it towards the outline of the magma. The moment the blade melted, the entire stone statue collapsed, revealing the explosion-proof door of the laboratory buried underground. The electronic lock screen on the door lit up the surveillance footage of Selina's twelfth birthday - she was locking Lucas in a dog cage as a party entertainment.

Lila suddenly twitched, and her palm was pulled towards the lock screen by the multiplying silver blade. The moment Elvira hugged her waist, she heard the children singing in the distance:

**Stone blooms and people turn into wolves

My sister's tears are arsenic

The blast door opened, spewing steam that smelled of amniotic fluid. Eric stumbled into the darkness, his wolf-like right arm slapping the wall in search of a light switch. When the emergency lights came on, he found himself in Selina's childhood "treatment room."

- The wall is covered with Lila's X-rays

- The freezer contains a collection of deciduous teeth soaked in formalin

- The belt buckle of the treatment chair is engraved with **7A special restraint**

The silver blade fragment suddenly shot out from Lila's hand and nailed into the headrest of the treatment chair. A mechanical transmission sound was heard, and a burnt diary popped out of the secret compartment.

Eric used his wolf claws to turn the title page and saw his own handwriting when he was young:

**1989.11.3 Hypnosis results show that Selena believes that Lila is a fake who stole her mother's love. Emotional stripping surgery is recommended. **

Magma suddenly poured in from the vent. Lucas's half-body silhouette was reorganized in the waves of fire, and his lips opened and closed silently: **Go**

---

**Postscript: Expired Prescription**

Three hours later, Lila found a yellowed medical sheet in the ruins:

**Patient: Eric Sanchez

Diagnosis: Excessive savior complex

Prescription: Watch a loved one die three times**

Elvira cast the molten remains of the silver blade into a ring and put it on Lucas's magma-solidified finger. It rained heavily that night, but the heat from the ring continued to evaporate, drawing ever-changing words in the air.

The latest one is: **Don't believe my lies**

It always appears at midnight.