Fennel stood center-stage beneath crumbling arches steeped in ancient grief, her silhouette still as stone. Behind her, Rill, Ivar, and Lysa advanced—boots clicking against fractured stone, each step weighted with unspoken dread. Dust swirled in torchlight, each mote suspended like a fragile memory caught mid-fall, trembling in silence.
A distant curtain quivered in the darkness—no breeze stirred, yet it rippled as though the theater itself exhaled. Fennel's voice trembled in answer, half-formed notes echoing through the hush, lips moving in silent ritual as though possessed. She didn't register their arrival—her gaze fixed and distant.
Rill's fingers tightened around her blade: metal and muscle braced against the unknown. "Fennel?" Her voice cut the stillness like a blade—an intrusion, but necessary. Fennel's head snapped around, motion uncanny—like a puppet jerked by unseen strings.
Ivar stepped forward, torch arm still and surgical. "Let it play." His voice clipped and precise. "Rill," he added softly, but firmly—no hesitation, just instruction.
Rill drew a breath, tension rippling through her. "No—" She swallowed the rest, folding into silence as the lullaby resumed.
But this was not melody—it was memory. Fragments of childhood lullaby stumbled out, wavering and out of time, twisted loops folding upon themselves. A half-forgotten ache—fear mixed with longing—hung at the edges of the room, as if the walls remembered too.
Between the cracked seats, pale wisps coalesced into something alive—sprites, flickering filaments of bioluminescent mist that drifted through the air like fungus spores on wind. They didn't walk—they floated, leaving whisper-trails in their wake. Rill swallowed; she couldn't exhale.
Lysa rubbed her arms—gooseflesh under damp cloth. "I know this," she whispered, torchlight catching her prayer-worn face. "It's my mother's lullaby… when she thought she was safe." A catch in her voice. "It should've died with her."
One sprite drifted closer—a heartbeat glow. Rill's breath locked. "Are they real?" she hissed.
Ivar's torch flashed, illuminating spiraling filaments in the sprite's core. "Irrelevant." He pressed closer to Fennel. "Control it."
Rill's voice cracked. "Fennel—stop! Do you hear me?"
No response—just the lullaby winding tighter.
The sprites inched closer—voice-ghosts drifting through the air: "sleep… forget…" Their hum pressed at thoughts like invasive roots.
Rill jabbed at the darkness with the torch—revealing a sprite's pallid glow. "It's like they're feeding—"
"Memory scavengers," Lysa snapped. "They collect 기억—fragments—not flesh."
Rill's teeth clenched. "So what do they feed on?"
Ivar's jaw tightened. He drew the torch back to Fennel and the fractured bone spiral. "She's channeling the Spiral. Her survival reflex is feeding its loops." He paused, voice dropping to a hush: "Everything the city buried… she's singing it back."
Rill's mind reeled. "Is it going to—kill her?"
Ivar avoided her eyes. "It might. Or it might consume her—until she's no longer her."
Fennel's song stuttered—broken loops falling out of time.
Lysa murmured, nearly to herself: "It's not conscious…"
"Nothing here is inconsequential," Rill retorted. Her palm itched to draw steel—but she didn't.
The lullaby wavered, trembling toward a fragile peak. Rill shoved her torch forward. "Stop. Now."
Fennel fell silent, shoulders shaking. The sprites drifted in, woven by sorrow. Their whispers bounced off walls, trailing in the dust.
Rill planted her blade point-deep in rubble. "Talk." No welcome, no question.
Ivar crouched, face inches from Fennel. "What just happened?"
Fennel's gaze flickered. "I—I don't know it. It came… I heard it…I had to."
Lysa sucked in a breath. "We have to decide."
Rill's voice steadied. "Decide what?"
Ivar's tone was soft, but final. "Let it go… or contain it before it takes her."
Rill closed her eyes—let out a slow breath. "Help me," she rasped. "If you'll have me."
Fennel's silence broke. "It wasn't me. It was this place. The Spiral."
The theater reacted—the curtain swung; sprites scattered into corners. They gathered as lingering echoes, refusing to leave.
Rill softened. "We help you stop being its vessel."
Fennel's voice trembled. "But if I stop…will it kill me?"
The cavern leaned in. Dust drifted. No answers came.
Ivar rose. "Together."
Torchlight dimmed. Dust cascaded like pale petals. Behind the stage, a stair of rotten wood twisted upward—toward Ravelyn's fractured roots. None of them spoke.
The lullaby's aftertaste hung in the air—familiar as blood. Something glided—a soft shift in air pressure, maybe a wingbeat, maybe just memory.
Fennel breathed in fragments, each exhale half-song. She stepped onto the fractured spiral—white bone cracks glowing faintly beneath her trembling feet. Her fingers shook as she pressed them to her chest, trying to find herself again.
Rill crouched behind her, voice low: "Center yourself. In it. Focus."
Sprites drifted closer, drawn like magnetized to the fracture's glow.
Ivar stepped forward, voice quiet but firm. "Enough. Stand down, Rill. She needs space."
Rill swallowed, torch dancing over the sprites. "They're amplifying."
"Resonance," Ivar corrected. "They reflect her memory—they echo it."
One sprite paused by Lysa's boot, trembling. Lysa lifted hers, quiet: "They aren't predators… just leftovers."
Fennel whispered as the lullaby proceeded: "sleep… don't… remember…"
Rill clenched her jaw. Nausea knotted in her stomach. "Gods…"
Ivar placed his hand steadying on her shoulder. "Wait."
Lysa leaned close to Fennel. "Breathe. She's the channel—not the source."
Tears welled in her eyes. "I can't stop."
Rill raised her torch like a signal. "Positions."
Fennel's lullaby rattled the space; sprites swirled like living dust caught in her throat.
Lysa murmured instruction: "Contain, don't cut."
Rill snorted. "Halting memory—easy, right?"
Ivar crouched, finger lighting a shard of luminous bone. "Remember with me. Coal nights, mother's hum. Anchor it."
Fennel inhaled, voice threading back together: "Sleep now, little one."
Rill's voice cracked: "That was my mother's lullaby… her last word to me."
Fennel froze, tears spilling. The lullaby trembled. Sprites drifted upward. Light pulsed.
Ivar's whisper steadied wall sound: "Hold it steady."
Rill whispered, "Unbroken."
Lysa's breath caught. "If we fracture her… it'll kill her."
The lullaby broke—but only once. Then—silence.
Dark pressed forward. Sprites scattered like ash. The spiral's glow dimmed.
Fennel collapsed into Lysa's arms. Her sobs wove through silence, hollow reminiscence.
Rill knelt beside them, hand warm on her back. "You okay?"
Fennel nodded—no words.
Ivar stood, torch trembling. "We paused it. Maybe."
Lysa whispered to Fennel's hair. "You carried us."
Rill brushed dust and tears from her face. "They haven't taken her. But recurrence—we never escape it."
A distant tremor—a single stone cracked. A slim arch yawned behind them, dark and deliberate.
Ivar stepped forward. "Something followed."
Rill drew her blade, muscles tight. "Then we meet it."
Lysa wrapped Fennel's arm around her. "Together."
They walked into the arch—the theater behind them exhaling dust and silence as a living thing.
No lullaby followed. Yet at the edge of hearing, just beyond the torch's reach, something shifted—barely audible. A scrape of stone. A half-breath. An echo that might have been memory—or promise.
And that was enough.