The air was thick and heavy, like trying to breathe through damp cloth. Each step Cipher took echoed on the slick glass beneath his boots. The ground rippled as though it were not solid earth but a reflection of something broken. Red clung to his sleeve, her eyes darting around the warped expanse, where fragments of the fairy tale hung in place like shattered constellations.
A wicker basket floated by, turning slowly in the air before disintegrating into dust. A bedframe loomed upside down above them, swaying as though caught in some invisible current. Farther off, the twisted outline of a door stood without walls, pulsing faintly with a sickly glow.
Red's voice was a tremor. "This… this isn't the forest anymore."
Cipher kept his gaze forward, scanning. "No. It's the story itself. A story that's been torn apart."
The Automaton, perched on his shoulder, flickered with tiny arcs of light. "This is the belly of the tale. Here, what is consumed does not die—it lingers, trapped as memory and fear."
Red swallowed hard. "So all of this… it's everything the Wolf has eaten?"
Cipher nodded once. He didn't tell her what he was already piecing together—that this wasn't just scraps of food and setting. It was people, lives, moments of courage devoured and suffocated before they could bloom.
The void trembled. Whispers echoed across the space like overlapping voices in a crowded room, but none belonged to the living.
She runs… She is eaten… She is gone…
The whispers crawled under Red's skin. She hugged her torn cloak tighter around herself, every muscle screaming to hide, to vanish. Cipher slowed his pace, crouching slightly so she wouldn't have to look up at him.
"They want you to believe this is your end," he said quietly, his tone firm but steady. "But every whisper is a chain. You've already broken one when you said no. Remember that."
Her eyes flickered at him, uncertain but listening.
A low growl slithered through the air, and shadows peeled away from the black ground like ink lifting from paper. They rose in jagged forms—wolves, but wrong. Their bodies twitched, limbs folding at grotesque angles, muzzles stretching too wide. Each of their eyes burned with a pale white glow.
Red's breath hitched. "Not again…"
Cipher shifted, placing himself between her and the pack. His scythe slid into his grip, runes sparking faintly as though responding to the corruption around them.
The Automaton's voice carried a warning edge. "Careful. These are not mere shadows—they are fragments of the Wolf itself. Each one carries the weight of its hunger."
The first shadow lunged. Cipher's scythe carved through it, the strike trailing silver fire. The beast dissolved into smoke with a scream that wasn't a scream but a line of the tale— She is eaten!—before vanishing into the void.
Another came, and another. Cipher cut them down, his movements swift, deliberate. But for every shadow that fell, two more clawed their way out of the ground. Their voices were a chorus now, choking the air with inevitability.
She is eaten. She is eaten. She is eaten.
Red's hands clamped over her ears. "I can't—I can't fight that! They're too many!"
Cipher slammed his scythe down, scattering three shadows in a burst of starlit sparks. He turned, eyes locking on hers. "Red! Look at me!"
She flinched, but his voice anchored her.
"Courage isn't silence. It's speaking louder than the fear." His gaze sharpened. "Say it again."
Her throat caught. Tears burned her eyes. The shadows loomed closer, circling.
"Say it, Red!"
Her fists clenched at her cloak. Her voice was weak at first, trembling: "I… I am not just food for the Wolf!"
The void trembled. The shadows hesitated, their forms glitching like broken reflections.
Cipher's tone surged like a command. "Louder!"
She screamed this time, voice raw, shaking the air: "I AM NOT JUST FOOD FOR THE WOLF!"
Her cloak ignited with crimson light, blazing brighter than before. The radiance rippled outward, slamming into the shadow-wolves and scattering them like ash in the wind. The whispers faltered, choking into silence.
Cipher stood still, scythe lowered now, watching her with a small, rare smile.
"That's it. That's you writing your own line."
Red collapsed to her knees, gasping. But her eyes—though still wet with tears—held something new. Not just fear. Defiance.
The Automaton's glow pulsed in approval. "Her tale bends. You've given her a foothold."
Cipher extended his hand. Red stared at it for a long moment before taking it, letting him pull her back to her feet.
"Stay with me," he said. "This story isn't finished yet."
In the distance, the warped outline of the grandmother's cottage loomed larger now, its windows glowing like fiery eyes, walls pulsing as though alive. A final whisper rolled across the void, deep and resonant, echoing from everywhere at once:
Come, child… come and be eaten again.
Red shivered but did not step back this time. The crimson light of her cloak flared faintly, enough to hold the darkness at bay. Cipher adjusted his grip on the scythe, eyes narrowing at the nightmare cottage.
"The Wolf's heart is in there," he said. "And we're going to cut it out."
Together, they walked toward the glowing house.