henry - err, wolf - had a journey ahead of him to find crow. it wasn't going to be easy : their neighbourhood was vast and things tended to change when you looked away for too long. no matter, he had a mission, so he pressed on.
sophie and wolf had divided their search thusly : wolf would scour the old quarter, and sophie the new. wolf had a gut feeling that crow would be in the old, and bel in the new. sophie didn’t voice her opinion on the matter.
wolf visited WOLFSDEN first. he always hated the place, and not just because of the name. no sign of crow there. he moved on to LIONTREE, where raph took tea with iris every day at five... he wasn’t allowed inside.
he kept searching. his heart pounded at the thought of having to take a trip up to the desert, where BALT, the forgotten god, dwelled.
crossing the LAVENDER FIELDS, wolf found himself standing between AKASHA and the ANGEL LIBRARY.
the air smelled of mint; this was sam's domain. better not loiter.
AKASHA was empty.he scanned the books and the names carved into the shelves—names that were foreign to him. who was demetrius? it didn't sound like an occupant of his neighbourhood, rather someone entirely different, a dweller of a different dimension entirely.
he walked out, and went towards the other library, a white tower where everything seemed to glow faintly. it looked like the skeleton of a church...he imagined this was how ocean creatures felt, swimming through the ribs of a whale.
holograms of angels drifted past. students. in his solitude, sam had created an institution where he could feel like he belonged.
ffrom the top of the tower, CEMETERY HILL was visible. a new place. wolf left that one to sophie.
he’d have to make his way to the desert now.
he skipped the SECRET GARDEN, where he had started, where the SNAKESHRINE stood. he already knew it was empty without phen, though he always suspected phen kept secrets buried beneath the soil, hidden in the riverbed...
and then he made it. between the MARBLE MANSION, STAR LABORATORY (owners of the travel corporation that operated in his neighbourhood), and the DESERT TOWER.
STAR LABORATORY. the easiest to start with was STAR LABORATORY.
he pushed open the broken iron and glass door; it groaned, and shards rattled within its frame.
the air was thick with dust, each breath stinging like gasoline. he passed the information desk - a broken computer screen with a yellow post-it was all that was left there. he squinted at the post-it, and could make out that it was for a password. "sinful"?
he passed the locker rooms, and the empty dog cages where he’d found phen so many years ago.
this was a place of unimaginable cruelty. a place once packed with children that were experimented on, for reasons beyond him. there phen was, covered in blood and grime, the corpses of the starved children in all but her cage - she had eaten the ones in her reach to survive. her blonde, curly hair, was matted, and her nails were long and darkened, and she had lost an eye to sickness, yet her other eye gleamed still.
sinful. damned right.
he shook his flickering flashlight and carried on, before stopping in his tracks.
the basement.
he remembers the basement. he had been caught during his rescue mission, and shoved into one of the rooms by ////
...and it had been designed to flood. he couldn’t recall how he’d escaped, how he’d saved phen and made it out alive-
and the old office where his peers would gather had been moved there. he never understood why. he hated going there, it was a grim reminder of past horrors, but to his peers, it was just real estate. he’d never shared any of it with them.
the basement. he walked down the stairs. it was dark, and mold covered almost every surface.
but there it was. unmistakably, he saw a light at the end of the corridor of rooms. a light, and a buzzing sound - that was new.
wolf approached the light and stood before a door with a small glass window. peering in, he saw cables and lights tangled along the walls—was this a server room?
the door was locked.
he took out his gun and shot the lock.
he kicked the door open, looked around what was indeed a server room, and-
WOLF: CROW !
amid the cables was the limp, mangled body of a small woman in an oversized sweater, black jeans, and thick boots. cables and thin wires were holding her up - a few of them passed through her mouth, like a gag. the wires pooled below her. nodes stuck out of her black hair. her glassy eyes were ever so slightly open. a necklace of what looked like two wyverns was tangled among some wires. there were small screen nestled between pieces of machinery that showed psychedelic patterns, colourful shapes that seemed random. dried vomit coated some of the cables and tiled floor. there was no blood.
he pulled at her necklace to make sure it wasn't choking her - it wasn't. he cupped her head in his hands and inspected the nodes. a slight touch caused one to unplug, and it didn't leave any mark. confused, he took them out one by one. he saw cables coming out from under her sweater, and grabbed them and pulled, and more nodes came out. the buzzing grew louder, so he did what he thought was most logical and untangled as much of her body as he could, before cutting the rest. he pulled her out : she was breathing. he covered her ears and shot at the walls until the buzzing stopped.
crow's eyes shot open. she gripped wolf's arms, and gasped-
CROW: RED... RED... BEL...
WOLF: Breathe, breathe, take it easy!
CROW: BEL'S... RAGE... SO... MUCH... so much...
she went limp again, foamy drool slipping from her mouth’s corner.
WOLF: Crow? CROW!
her pulse was slow, but she was breathing.
he carried her out. as he looked back one last time, he noticed that the screens were all stuck on the same flickering image.
...
after reaching the garden, he laid crow gently on the grass. she looked peaceful, as if nothing had happened. he called sophie.
no new messages from jacin.
the RAMSTEAD was still. sophie strolled along its edge, poppies blooming in her wake with every step. in a swirl of dark feathers, she willed herself to the WISH TREE, standing quietly as she watched galatea tighten the knot of a charm on a low-hanging branch. galatea knelt, a dark, fragrant rosary clutched in her right hand.
sophie noted that galatea was more than halfway through her prayer.
GALATEA: Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
galatea rolled a bead between her fingers and then froze.
GALATEA: ...Sam?
she looked around, then stood up. her pupils narrowed to pins. her breath misted in the cold air, her heart pounding faster.
she didn’t see sophie. after a few tense moments, still standing, she finished her prayer. sophie slipped away quietly.