"You don't kneel to the night for second chances."
The mill stood like a thing the world forgot how to bury.
Brick sagged under time. Ivy like stitches. Windows punched out. The building leaned forward, as if to whisper something from its rotting lungs.
Lucas Cain stared at it in silence.
Behind him, Victor Cross adjusted his gloves, the tremor in his fingers making the motion useless. Around them: six armed operatives in black. James lingered not far from Lucas's shadow.
The door was half open. Not pried. Not broken.
Inviting.
Lucas took a breath. The cigar in his hand burned steady.
"We go in quiet. If it moves at you, you shoot. If it talks—don't listen."
He put out the cigar. Exhaling the smoke "We split. Now. James — first floor. Victor— second floor. I'll cover the third."
He moved first. The others followed.
The air shifted as they crossed the threshold. Not colder. Quieter.
Like the mill was listening.
—
The Spiral Below – James
James led his squad of two through the first floor. Machinery bones. Shadows where workers once were.
Mannequins lined the walls. Cloth-skinned. Faces stitched shut. One held a rusted lunchbox. Another wore a child's drawing on its chest—a white woman with her followers kneeling before her. The paper trembled, though there was no wind.
A hallway folded inward.
At its end: a chapel. Small. For workers to pray, find solace during breaks. Now, forgotten.
Something pulsed on the altar.
One soldier whispered, "It's humming."
It wasn't. The sound was under sound.
A spiral was etched into the wood. Symbols shifting if you looked too long.
One soldier stepped into it.
His mouth opened.
Another voice came out.
James grabbed him, dragged him back. The spiral bled. Not ink—voice.
"We keep moving."
They didn't look back.
The chapel kept breathing.
—
Moths and Memory – Victor
Second floor. The air clung to skin like regret.
Victor led two operatives through hallways lined in names. Carved into walls, doorframes, even light switches, names of the taken.
At the end: a door. Bolted. Marked with a glyph that Victor saw at Caleb's home once.
"Open it," Victor said.
They did.
Moths poured out. Not flying. Watching.
Inside: a boy's jacket sat folded on a chair. Caleb's initials stitched in the lining.
Then the thing turned toward them.
Caleb's body—it was not. Bones too short. Eyes wrong.
His mouth was sewn shut, but the chest moved. Something inside was whispering.
Victor stepped forward. "Ca… Caleb?"
The creature tilted its head.
"Brother," it said, without opening its mouth. "Die. I don't want to die…."
Victor reached—
—a soldier screamed. Glyphs flared across his throat. His skin went black.
Victor fired. Once.
Center mass.
The body staggered.
Not dead.
The moths began to hum.
—
The Mirror Chamber – Lucas
Lucas moved with 2 men through the third floor.
This level had no rooms. Just one long hallway of mirrors veiled in stitched burlap.
Except one.
Uncovered. Waiting.
One soldier muttered behind him, "That's… that's me. But wrong."
The reflection blinked. Gerrad, who was the other soldier with him, saw it too.
The soldier collapsed, screaming. His voice turned inward, breaking.
His shadow remained. Still screaming.
Lucas stepped forward. The mirror fogged over.
A message scratched backward in frost:
YOU WON'T FIND THE BROTHER ON EARTH.
HE'S ALREADY IN HELL.
Lucas exhaled. The smoke blurred the glass. Then he spoke.
"Basement."
He didn't wait.
The mirror behind him cracked.
Gerrad stood beside the soldier—Royce.
"You breathing?" Gerrad asked.
Royce nodded, barely. "Good," he replied.
Royce: "So lets stay here till further instructions yeah?"
Something tapped. Down the hall. A shuffle, a breath, an echo that didn't come from either of them.
Gerrad cocked his rifle. "Oh forget it. Stay here. If it starts talking to you again,. Don't answer. I'll be back."
"Gerrad…don't…It probably wants you to…"
Gerrad's voice was calm. Final.
"I know."
He walked off.
A moment passed.
Then—three quick shots.
A scream.
Then….nothing.
—
The Becoming Room
The staircase down felt like a throat.
The basement wasn't brick—it pulsed. Like muscle. Wet.
Chains hung like veins. Some dripped. Others whispered.
At the center: a figure. Twelve feet tall.
Human once. Mouth nowhere to be seen . Arms open like a preacher's. Chest sliced wide, speaking truths older than language.
"He asked. She answered. He gave. She took."
Lucas said nothing.
The Kukri came free from his belt.
The blade sang.
One step. One cut.
The creature unraveled without a sound.
Behind it: a door of hair and flesh. Lucas pushed through.
—
Caleb Cross
The final chamber was womb-dark.
At the center: Caleb Cross knelt.
His hands chained to the stone, bare-chested, his skin cracked like scorched earth—like something inside had clawed its way out.
One eye was obsidian, void-deep. The other. Still afraid.
Ritual marks spiraled down his ribs, some glowing faintly, pulsing like old embers. His blood ran thick, tar-colored, stinking of rot.
Lucas knelt beside him. Silent. Patient. Watching.
Caleb's voice cracked.
"Damn her… she said… it wouldn't hurt. But it hurts. I just wanted to be better. To be stronger."
A tremble. A breath.
"This wasn't part of the deal."
Lucas paused. His voice low, flint on stone.
"She doesn't care. But I heard you."
A tear carved through the blood on Caleb's cheek. Then—his skin twitched.
Something beneath it moved. Shifted. Breathed.
The transformation tore through him.
Bones cracked and stretched. Veins bulged like ropes under pressure. Flesh peeled back, splitting along old scars.
Claws ripped free from his fingers, jagged and wet. His mouth tore open—too wide. Fangs clicked in, precise and inevitable.
But it wasn't just monstrous.
It was sacred and wrong.
His spine steamed—etched in ancient runes. Flesh wrapped in saltcloth.
The ritual held. And Caleb became.
Caleb screamed, not from pain. From becoming.
Something twisted through his body, cracking bone, bleeding light, etching marks not meant for men.
And then. He stopped.
Eyes burning, breath ragged, he turned. Met Lucas's gaze.
Just for a second.
And that second stretched.
Lucas didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't reach for his weapon. He watched.
Caleb flinched.
No threat. No warning. Just a presence—
An impossible silence pressing down on the world like a second gravity.
Something behind Lucas's eyes that didn't blink.
Caleb took a half-step back.
Like his instincts knew what his body hadn't yet accepted.
It was then when he completely lost his mind.
And he lunged.
Lucas moved first.
The Voidsteel Kukri flashed—a crescent of night—and found the space between ribs.
It buried deep and stayed.
"You don't kneel to the night for second chances."
Caleb howled. Swiped wild.
Lucas ducked. Struck twice.
A boot to the ribs. A jab to the throat. Caleb staggered. Lucas pressed in.
A knee. An elbow. A final hook.
But Caleb didn't fall.
He came back.
Caleb's arm blurred—hammer-fist like steel.
Lucas moved to block—too late.
CRACK.
The blow launched him across the chamber.
Plaster exploded. Brick screamed.
Caleb roared. A beast crowned in pain.
—
On the third floor.
Royce moved slow. Too slow. But his feet wouldn't move faster.
He turned the corner.
Just a rifle. Leaned against the wall.
The barrel still warm. Blood across the floor—not sprayed. Dragged. Like someone had been pulled upward.
Just before he ran, Royce heard something in the silence.
Breathing.
Not his own.
Not human.
Something behind the mirrors. Watching.
And it was laughing.
—
Brothers
In the Basement.
Victor entered the basement. The noise was inviting.
He froze.
It wasn't his brother.
It was something that had forgotten being Caleb.
It turned toward him.
Eyes—one blind, one burning.
"Big… brother."
Then softer. Flickering.
"Vic."
The voice was still in there. A candle in a collapsing tunnel.
Then Caleb charged.
Victor didn't shoot.
Not from fear. From memory.
A cornfield. A slingshot. A scraped knee.
"Don't cry, Cal. Big bro's here."
Victor blinked.
Too late.
Caleb lunged.
Lucas stepped from the ruined wall, blood running from his temple.
He twisted his shoulder back into place with a wet pop.
Then he moved.
One clean step. A violent pivot.
His boot collided with Caleb's chest—brutal, surgical.
Caleb's momentum broke. He crashed into the far corner, shaking the stone.
Lucas winced. Then smirked, blood in his teeth.
"I know you're in there. Spoiled brat."
Caleb screamed again. The pitch made Victor cover his ears.
They both moved again.
Twist. Strike. Slice.
The Kukri carved down Caleb's back.
Lucas drove a thick, carved block into the wound—a pungent mixture of Widow's Ash, and something older. Blackvein root.
The moment it sank, Caleb dropped—still breathing, barely twitching.
"Down you go."
Lucas looked at Caleb, then to Victor.
"He's not fully Marked," he said, steadying his breath. "But he agreed to be."
Victor fell to his knees.
Hands trembling.
He stared at Caleb's monstrous form.
The runes. The claws. The saltcloth binding him like a relic.
"I should've taken better care of you…" Lucas stood there, listening to Victor's regret.
His voice faded.
Then—
From the walls:
BECOMING.
Not just heard. Felt.
Like the stone remembered.
Then another voice.
A third.
More.
The chamber trembled. Caleb's body pulsed once—then stilled.
—
The White Minx
They emerged into the night.
The remaining soldiers hauled Caleb's cursed body, wrapped in saltcloth.
He twitched. A sleepwalker dreaming war.
One soldier kept glancing back.
The old mill watched them leave.
James asked:"Gerrad?"
Royce:"He's gone. Rifle's still here. But he's… gone."
He showed Gerrad's rifle. Silence.
Then, looking at the rifle, Lucas: "He must have skipped the ritual….Consequences."
A creak.
Above—fractured windows had shifted, shaped into a face.
No eyes. No mouth. Just the memory of watching.
The wind whispered:
BECOMING.
Lucas lit a cigar. Blood still trickled down his cheek.
Victor said nothing.
Lucas exhaled.
"Three pints of his blood. Mixed with Widow's Ash and Wormroot. Stirred under a new moon."
Victor turned.
"To save him?"
Lucas flicked ash.
"To trap him. Saving's not part of this."
A beat.
Then—
The mill's door creaked.
Not closed.
Sealed.
Lucas muttered, more to the dark than to Victor.
"She knows. The White Minx. She's been dreaming of me."
He smiled. Smoke curled between his teeth.
"Good. I want her to."
The light on the street died.
END OF CHAPTER 7.