The final lantern fizzled out with a soft hiss.
The cellar was dark.
For a few precious moments, there was silence — thick, strangling silence — as if even the air itself dared not stir.
Then the noise began.
It was faint at first.
A faint clinking of chains on stone.
Metal groaning under a slow, deliberate pull.
Kian strained to take even breaths. He involuntarily shifted, and the iron cuffs bit deeper into his wrists.
Across the room, Ellie's figure tensed.
The Wraith was moving.
And it wasn't simply rattling the chains for entertainment this time.
It was *testing* them.
The chains were groaning louder now — pulled to their breaking points, threads of metal shrieking under impossible strain.
Ellie edged closer to Kian, talking in a near-whisper.
"We have to get out. Now."
"But how?" Kian spat back.
He tugged on the chains — nothing. They were heavy, well-fastened into the stone walls. Maybe if they had time — hours, days — they could wear them down. But they had minutes, at most.
Minutes before the Wraith gained its freedom.
A low rumble growl came from the cage, shaking the floor.
Then a snapping crack — the unmistakable sound of a chain link *snapping*.
Kian's stomach twisted up.
"We don't have an escape plan," he said, his voice shaking more than he'd like it to.
Ellie didn't reply for a moment.
Then: "We make one."
Another of the chain links snapped.
The sound echoed through the cellar like the crack of a whip.
Something else Kian heard in the dark — the soft crunch of dirt falling off above.
If the Wraith escaped, it would not just be fast — it would be vicious, a whirlwind of fury and hunger.
He glanced around them, his eyes slowly adjusting.
The cage was near the center. Their chains stretched tight from their wrists to massive iron loops riveted into the walls.
Above them — stone studded with roots. No escape up there.
Ahead — the stairs, shut behind the cellar door.
But beside the cage.
A soft glint.
Tools.
Left there by negligent villagers — maybe for their ill experiments.
Hammers. Picks. Perhaps something sharper.
Kian's heart jolted with desperate hope.
"Ellie," he whispered. "Tools. By the cage."
She looked where he was looking.
It was a gamble. The Wraith was almost free.
But doing nothing meant certain death.
Ellie nodded once — a sharp, grim nod.
"Follow my lead."
---
The next few moments were a blur of motion and raw terror.
Ellie braced her feet into the wall and heaved, all her strength into the iron ring.
It groaned, but did not give.
"Damn it," she swore.
Kian tried the same — pulling against the chain until his shoulders screamed in protest.
Still nothing.
Another crack — this time louder.
The Wraith was almost free.
The beast contained within the cage snarled low and deep. No longer entertained. No longer waiting.
It wanted out.
It wanted them.
The icy sweat along Kian's back froze at the sound of the cage door groaning.
*It was opening.*
Not yet shattered — but soon.
So close.
Ellie wheeled around, eyes wildly sweeping.
Her cuffed hands brushed against a sharp shard of rock on the floor — jagged, edge-sick.
She gripped it and began beating it repeatedly into the chain-link circlet about her wrist.
Sparks spat.
Each strike sounded louder than thunder in the claustrophobic darkness.
Kian lagged behind her, grabbing a chunk of stone too small to wield as a weapon, but hard enough to scrape.
Hammer. Hammer. Hammer.
Faster.
Harder.
Another sound tore through the cellar — the shriek of sheared metal.
The Wraith was half out of the cage now.
Kian risked a glance.
What he saw nearly cost him what little hope he had.
The Wraith's body twisted, its shape writhing unnecessarily through the gap gap. Its canted jaw hung, its silent roar.
It was starved.
Not for food.
Not for freedom.
But for *them*.
---
Ellie's chain snapped first.
With a gasp of relief, she tore free and staggered towards Kian.
The Wraith's head snapped towards the noise.
It powered on.
Chains still bound to its twisted limbs, the beast *burst forth*.
Ellie didn't hesitate.
She charged, seizing one of the discarded iron tools — a rusted hammer — and launched it with all her strength.
The hammer struck the Wraith's face.
A cloud of black, steaming blood exploded from the impact.
The Wraith reeled backward, shrieking — a noise that shuddered Kian's very marrow.
"Now!" Ellie shouted.
She darted to Kian, locking her fingers over his chains and using the broken stone to chop furiously at the weakened metal.
The Wraith regained nearly at once.
It charged again — impossibly fast.
Ellie gritted her teeth, slashing, cutting, rending.
Finally — thank the gods — Kian's chain snapped.
He stumbled clear as the Wraith slammed into the wall behind him, inches from his spine.
"No time!" Ellie gasped. "Stairs!"
They ran.
---
The cellar was chaos of screams and metal and blood.
Kian and Ellie made a dash for the stairwell, the Wraith's wails echoing up behind them.
They struck the locked door.
Trapped.
Ellie cursed viciously, shoulder-bashing the wood.
It didn't budge.
Kian urgently looked at the doorframe — old, rotting wood.
Weaker than it looked.
He retreated a pace, set all his weight on it.
The door groaned — but still didn't open.
Behind them, the Wraith was closing in.
It moved abnormally — its arms twisting the wrong way, its legs shuffling in an unnatural gait.
Kian shoulder-bashed the door again.
Another crack.
Ellie sprang after him, both of them flinging themselves against it with every ounce of strength.
One final bash.
The door *burst* open — wood splintering outwards into the church above.
They tumbled out into the open air.
But the village was no longer secure.
Villagers were outside the church, drawn by the noise, carrying torches and weapons.
And they were not there to help.
Kian barely had time to see the trap before the first arrow whizzed past his ear.
"They're with it!" someone cried. "Kill them! Before it gets loose!"
Madness.
The villagers thought they *called forth* the Wraith.
And now they hungered for blood.
Kian grasped Ellie's hand.
"Run!" he screamed.
Behind them, the Wraith exploded through the cellar, bursting open in a cloud of dirt and broken stone.
The villagers stumbled back in horror as the nightmare took form.
The Wraith was merciless.
It killed everything.
Everyone.
Chaos raged throughout the village square.
Kian and Ellie ran — through terror-stricken villagers, through fire consuming torches, through the church.
They dared not look back.
They couldn't.
Because behind them, the past was burning.
The village.
The hatred.
The cruelty.
All of it they had set ablaze themselves.
And in him, somehow, Kian felt a cold, bitter satisfaction.
They deserved it.
All of them.
But satisfaction would not keep them alive.
Only going forward would.
Only surviving.
Together.