Maisie sat on the edge of the wide windowsill, fingers curled tightly around the smooth edges of her comm unit. The sudden buzz shattered the fragile silence of the room, sharp and insistent like a distant alarm. Across the hall, Dash's device buzzed too, their screens lighting up almost simultaneously.
Their eyes met, tense and wary, charged with unspoken questions. For a moment, neither moved, the weight of the moment pressing in.
Maisie's breath caught as she tapped the screen, and Gene's voice flooded the space: calm, measured, but with an undercurrent of urgency that made the words impossible to ignore.
"You need to see what he's become. Not what they made him."
The statement echoed between them, cutting through the static of confusion and fear. It was more than a message; it was a plea, a challenge, and a flicker of hope all at once. Maisie's eyes narrowed, searching Dash's face for a sign of agreement. Dash's jaw clenched, his expression tightening as if wrestling with the surge of emotions, guilt, fear, and a flicker of reluctant hope.
The silence stretched, heavy with everything unsaid. This message was a turning point, one that demanded they finally confront the truth lurking in the shadows of the estate. Gene's words weren't just a warning. They were a call to action.
Maisie's grip tightened on the comm unit, her mind racing with possibilities and the undeniable knowledge that things could never go back to the way they were. Dash exhaled slowly, a grim nod signaling his reluctant acceptance.
The screen crackled to life, the footage flickering like a faded ghost from another time. Igor emerged from the tunnel's shadow, his movements slow, hesitant, almost staggering. His bare feet pressed weakly against the rough earth, the skin cracked and raw, smeared with dirt and congealed blood that left dark trails with every step.
One wing hung crookedly, feathers matted and stained, some broken and peeling away like dried leaves; it scraped harshly against the ground, sending out a rasping, grating sound that punctuated the eerie silence of the footage.
His body was hunched, each breath ragged and shallow, the skin around the wound on his back swollen and glistening with pus, the infection burning beneath like a living fire. His eyes, wide, glassy, and unblinking, scanned the dim world around him, haunted by exhaustion and pain, flickering with a fragile spark of awareness barely breaking through the thick fog of delirium and trauma.
The cold glow of the monitor cast ghostly shadows over Maisie's pale face, etching the ache of grief and fear into every line. Her fingers trembled as they pressed against her lips, holding back a breath that seemed too fragile to release like exhaling might unravel the fragile thread of hope woven into Igor's haunted eyes. Each ragged step he took, each faltering motion, stabbed at her heart with bitter clarity: this was no longer the quiet servant they'd known, but a broken soul trapped in agony and confusion.
Beside her, Dash's jaw tightened until it ached, his fists clenched so hard the skin stretched taut over knuckles that blanched white. The sight of Igor, wounded, weary, barely holding himself together, ignited a storm of guilt, anger, and helplessness deep inside him. It was a brutal reminder of everything they'd lost, everything they'd failed to protect.
The silence hung dense and oppressive, charged with a tension that felt ready to snap, threatening to unravel the fragile calm that barely kept their fractured reality intact.
"He could've killed us," Dash murmured, his voice trembling as if the weight of the truth was too much to carry alone. The raw mix of fear, sorrow, and disbelief cracked through his usual guarded exterior, revealing a vulnerable fracture beneath. "But he didn't. Not once."
Maisie's gaze met his, unwavering and resolute, a quiet fire burning beneath the surface. "Because he remembers," she said softly, each word deliberate with meaning.
"After all they did to him, after everything, he still remembers who he is. That memory is fragile, but it's real. And that means we owe him the truth. Not just to save him, but to save ourselves."
Dash hesitated, the words hanging in the air like a live wire. His eyes flicked back to the frozen image on the screen, Igor hunched, injured, wings dragging like tattered shadows behind him.
The guilt swelled in his chest, hot and suffocating, mixing with something harder to name. Hope, maybe. Or penance. He swallowed, the motion slow, like forcing down broken glass.
His voice, when it came, was low and resolute. "Then we find him," he said, each syllable pulled from somewhere deep and bruised. "Before someone else does. Before they twist what's left of him into something no one can control."
He turned toward Maisie, jaw tight, eyes storm-dark. "Because if we don't... I think we already know how that ends."