"Lucy .."
His name slipped out as little more than a whimper, fragile and cracked. My breath came in uneven gasps, every inhale burning, every exhale a shiver. "What should I do?" Silence answered. I gripped fistfuls of mud until it oozed through my fingers like cold blood. The damp earth stung the scrapes on my palms, but I welcomed the pain, it was something, anything, when the world refused to give me words. "Lucy… what should I do?" Still nothing, for Lucy's eyes continued to darken. The night pressed closer, heavy and suffocating. Even the devils, for all their cruel amusement, had gone wordless, their grins brittle in the torchlight. The wind had stilled. The trees watched in a hush so absolute it felt like the sky itself was holding its breath.
My chest tightened until it hurt to breathe.
"Lucy !" The name tore from me, sharper this time, a cry pitched between a prayer and a curse. "Tell me! Please—please tell me what to do!" My voice splintered. I clawed at the ground as if I could dig an answer out of the earth itself. Mud smeared my arms, streaked my dress in dark, wet ribbons. My knees sank deeper, until the filth seeped through to my skin. "Tell me… tell me what to do!" The words came again and again, faster, harsher, until they no longer sounded like words but like a raw animal keening.
"Please… someone… tell me—tell me—tell me—"
My heartbeat pounded in my ears, drowning everything in a red, ringing roar. My shoulders shook with sobs I could no longer hold back. Salt burned my lips, and tears fell so fast they blurred the world into a whirl of shadow and torchlight. I was unraveling. "Lucy.. Please.." My voice broke into a whisper so hoarse it barely belonged to me. "Please… I don't… I can't…" My body swayed as though the weight of my own despair would drag me face-first into the mud. The world around me stretched and bent, the night itself seeming to reel under the force of my desperation. Then.. A sound. Soft. Deliberate. The squelch of a boot in the mud, measured and calm. I froze. The ragged rhythm of my sobbing faltered.
Another step.
Slow. Certain.
A figure lowered beside me.
Lucy knelt.
The same mud that caked my skin now clung to his robes, dark and wet, yet he did not flinch. He let it stain him as though the filth of the world had no power to shame him. He reached out. His hand, steady, warm, and impossibly gentle as it settled on the crown of my head. The touch silenced me. My breath hitched, caught somewhere between a sob and a gasp. The pounding in my ears softened, as though a great tide had finally begun to ebb. Lucy's presence was a quiet gravity, a stillness that pulled the chaos out of me. Around us, the night seemed to exhale; even the devils' cruel faces blurred at the edges, their mockery dulled into insignificance. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and deep, yet it carried through the dark with a clarity that seemed to still the world. "I'll choose for you." Four words. But they fell with the weight of a bell tolling across a valley. It was solemn, inevitable, and strangely, achingly peaceful. The storm inside me broke, not with a crash, but with a quiet surrender. My sobs subsided into shivers. The mud beneath my hands cooled. And for the first time since the night began, I felt the faint, fragile shape of calm.
Lucy rose.
The mud clung to his robes in heavy streaks, but he stood tall, shoulders squared as though the weight of the earth could not bend him. The night seemed to pull back, granting him a quiet space where even the devils' grins faltered for an instant. He lifted his chin, and when he spoke, his voice carried a stillness that cut through the chaos like a blade through smoke.
"Take me," he said, every word forged in iron. "And let go of Michael." The certainty in his tone struck like the toll of a distant bell. He was calm, absolute, unshakable.
Angelica, still on her knees, streaked with mud and blood, jerked upright in alarm. "No !Lucy, don't—" Her voice cracked beneath the strain. Lucy only turned to her and smiled. Not the fleeting smile of a man offering false comfort, but something deeper, a quiet assurance that made the darkness hesitate. It was a smile that carried both farewell and faith.
Bell's face split into a grin, his teeth gleaming like knives in the torchlight. Then came his laughter, wild and unhinged, a sound that rippled through the ruins like a storm breaking stone. He moved with sudden violence. In one swift motion he seized Michael by the collar and hurled the boy toward us. Michael's small frame crashed into the mud at our feet, the breath knocked out of him in a sharp cry. I lunged forward, catching him just as his knees buckled. Relief and terror knotted inside me until I could scarcely breathe.
Lucy began to walk.
Each step sank into the mud with a quiet, deliberate weight. The armed men that flanked Bell raised their weapons, but did not fire; something in Lucy's presence held them like statues. Bell watched him approach, his grin stretching wider, a predator savoring the scent of a cornered prize. When Lucy finally stood before him, Bell's eyes glittered with dark amusement.
"Ah.." Bell purred, his voice a low rasp of delight "you think this is the end of the game?" He swept a glance over his men, then back at us, his smile curling into something far more dangerous. "No.." he said, a cruel lilt in his tone. "This is where it begins." His laughter rose again, sharp and cold, before he barked the terms like a death sentence. "You have three days—three days to rescue your precious messiah." His eyes burned as he leaned closer to Lucy, voice dropping to a whisper that still cut through the night. " That little shit should know where to find us. And don't worry about atmosphere, it'll be a suited place incase i accidentally kill all of you." With a sudden jerk, Bell seized Lucy's arm. The messiah did not resist. And in the space of a single breath, they were gone. They were swallowed by shadow, leaving only the echo of Bell's laughter, and the weight of a clock already ticking. I looked down on Michael who was in my arms. A comfort filled me before the wave of guilt washed over me.
"..I forgot to thank him.."