The bunker was dead quiet now—too quiet.
Marco lay flat on the concrete floor, cold pressing into his spine like the grave. Dina sat curled in the farthest corner, arms around her legs, eyes wide but unfocused. The walls sweated mildew. The ceiling flickered with the sickly light of a single dying bulb, swinging back and forth from no wind at all.
Every second down here stretched like skin on a hook.
"Do you hear that?" Marco whispered.
Dina didn't answer.
"I said—"
"I hear it." Her voice cracked like thin ice. "I've been hearing it since we got in here."
The voice. It wasn't coming from the radio anymore. It was the floor now. The floor breathed. From the cracks beneath the concrete came a sound like sobbing. Like a child. Like Lukas. Small, wounded, asking for help.
"Please… why didn't you help me?"
Dina pressed her palms over her ears. Marco stood, stumbling toward the shelves at the back, fumbling through cans of food, rusted tools, anything to keep his mind from sinking. But every label he touched… Had his name on it. Not "Marco," but "Traitor. Coward. Pretender." Stamped in bold black ink, bleeding into the metal like rust. He threw the can across the room.
"You see them too?" Dina asked.
Marco turned slowly. She was staring at the wall. He followed her gaze. The wall had grown faces.
Shallow impressions at first—then deeper. Eyes, mouths, screaming silently. Lukas's face was there. Bee's. Enzo's. Ali's. Even Missy. All of them etched into the concrete like they'd been pressed in while it was wet.
And they were all weeping.
"Why didn't you stop it?" the wall whispered.
Marco gritted his teeth. "We didn't kill him. It was an accident. Missy—she didn't mean to. It was just a prank."
"But you watched," the wall said.
"You laughed," it hissed.
"You didn't save him," it sang.
Dina stood suddenly. "I can't do this."
She walked to the trapdoor, placed a hand on the lock. Marco grabbed her. "No. You open that door, we die."
"We're already dead," she said through gritted teeth. "She's in here with us. Not outside. In our minds."
"No. We just need to wait. We wait till morning. Then we run."
Dina laughed bitterly. "There is no morning."
Behind them, the lights began to flicker in a rhythmic pattern—on… off… on… off… Like blinking.
A single word scratched into the concrete above the light: "MOTHER." Dina dropped to her knees. She pulled Lukas's old school photo from her jacket—the one they had all signed in tenth grade as a joke. They had drawn horns on his head. Blacked out his teeth.
She stared at it now like it was bleeding in her hands.
"I don't remember his voice," she whispered.
Marco sat beside her, voice hoarse. "He wanted to be in the band. Remember? He showed up with a keyboard. We laughed. Called him Choir Boy."
"I started that nickname," she said. "God, I started it…"
The light above burst with a sharp pop. Glass rained down. Total darkness.
In the pitch black, the bunker walls began to echo wet footsteps. Not loud. Barefoot. Child-sized.
Then—dripping. And the soft sound of something being dragged.
Marco held his breath. Dina whispered, "Marco, I think I see something."
A soft red glow began to bloom from one corner of the room. No source. Just light, as if the darkness had given birth to it.
It lit the room in hellish crimson. And in the middle of it stood a small, hunched figure. Lukas. But not as they remembered him.
This version wore the same torn hoodie he died in. Face sagging like melted wax. Eyes empty. In his hand, he held the broken keyboard. A single key—Middle C—clinked as he dragged it along the wall. Clink. Clink. Clink. Each impact echoing like a funeral bell.
"I never wanted to hurt anyone," the figure said. Its voice was layered. Lukas's voice. Michael's. Marque's. Something else.
Marco raised the flare gun again. Lukas looked up. Smiled—a wide, hollow thing.
"I just wanted to belong."
Then he screamed. Not just a sound. But a wave of memory—the sound of Missy's sobs, Kevin's denial, Ali's disbelief, the gunshot, the laughter, the silence that followed.
Marco dropped the gun. Dina collapsed, sobbing into the dirt.
Lukas—no, the thing wearing him—began to step closer.
Then it stopped. It tilted its head. Its voice was a whisper now: "Mommy's coming."
The red light vanished. And the room went completely black. But the footsteps never stopped.
The bunker's walls were beginning to rot. Dina could hear them breathing.
It was impossible, she told herself—stone doesn't breathe, doesn't shiver—but the longer they stayed, the more the concrete seemed to hum with a low, wet rhythm. Like lungs.
Marco sat in the corner, legs pulled to his chest, staring at the wall. He hadn't spoken in over an hour.
Dina leaned near him. "Marco… we have to move. We have to get out of here."
His voice cracked like dry leaves. "It's her. She's here."
Then the lights flickered. Once. Twice. Darkness swallowed them.
Something groaned behind the wall.
Not from the forest. Not from outside.
From inside the bunker.
Then, her voice—soft, cruel, and unbearably warm.
"You were his friend… weren't you, Marco?"
It echoed like a lullaby dragged across broken teeth.
Dina grabbed Marco's arm. "Run."
But Marco didn't move. His eyes locked to the doorway as a figure descended the steps—graceful, floating, her body pale and soaked with black dripping like melted ink. Her face was porcelain, cracked and glowing. Her mouth smiled, but her eyes were hollow.
Marque. She didn't walk. She glided. The air bent around her. Photos on the wall curled into ash. Words disappeared from Marco's journal beside him.
"You laughed when he cried," she said.
Marco's mouth trembled. "No… I tried—"
"You tried to forget him." She reached out a long hand. "And so now, you'll never be remembered."
Marco screamed, but no sound came out. His voice was stolen from him. Dina tried to pull him back—tried to hold onto him—but Marque whispered something only Marco heard.
And his body split into red ribbons. Quietly. Gently. Like a paper doll unraveling in a storm.
His blood didn't hit the floor. It floated—suspended in the air like shattered glass. Dina screamed.
She ran, through the back hatch of the bunker, climbing through a rusted maintenance tunnel. Behind her, Marque's voice echoed like a mother calling for a child who would never come home.
Outside, the forest was no safer. Shapes moved—fragments of Lukas's memories twisted into monsters. One wore Lukas's old soccer jersey, stitched into its skin. Another had a toy gun for a face, repeating the sound "bang-bang-bang" like a music box on loop.
But Dina didn't stop running. Her breath tore her lungs raw. She no longer ran for safety. She ran because to stop would mean surrendering to madness.
Until—A flash. A shout. Gunfire. Dina collapsed into someone's arms.
"Kevin—she's alive!"
Missy knelt beside her. Her eyes were tired. Her hands were stained. But she was alive. Kevin stood behind them with a rifle, still warm from firing into the woods.
"You made it," Missy whispered. Dina opened her mouth to speak but only cried.
Meanwhile... in the heart of Harrington's house
Michael Harrington—what was left of him—stood before the body of his son.
Slick was strapped into the machine, gagged and thrashing. Above them, the tube containing Lukas pulsed with green light. The glass vibrated with heartbeats. Not from Lukas. From the machine.
The rebirth had begun. But something changed. The light around the chamber flickered.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway. Not stomps. Not boots. Bare feet. Wet. Dripping. Marque stepped in, her hair floating behind her like shadow smoke.
"I gave you what you wanted, Michael."
"I want him back," he rasped, voice nearly gone. "I want my son."
She smiled. "You'll have something... new."
And then Kevin and Missy entered the basement—guns raised, eyes burning.
"Let him go," Kevin demanded.
Michael turned slowly, barely recognizing them. His face was part metal, part raw skin, part grief. "You don't understand…"
"Missy does," Marque said.
And suddenly, the room went quiet. All the humming stopped. Lukas's body floated in silence.
Missy stepped forward.
"I'm the one who killed him," she said.
Michael didn't move.
"I did it. I drowned him. It was me. Not the gang. Not Slick. Not anyone else."
She dropped the gun.
"I'm not afraid anymore."
Marque watched her with inhuman eyes. "Brave girl. Dying for the truth."
Missy shook her head. "No. Living with it."
She pressed the detonator.
The explosives from Enzo's bag—now planted around the basement walls—lit red. Kevin fired at the tubes. The machine screamed. Michael roared.
Marque turned, her body unraveling into tendrils of smoke and hatred—but before she could reach them, the whole room exploded in a bloom of fire and glass.
Later…
Dina, Kevin, and Missy stood on a hill overlooking the crater that was once the Harrington house. Black ash drifted upward like snow.
"Is it over?" Dina asked.
Kevin didn't answer.
Missy stared into the smoke.
"We stopped them," she whispered. "But some things don't die."
"They wait," Kevin said.
"And they remember," Dina added.
Far off in the woods, something crawled from the rubble.
A small, pale hand.
And the faintest sound of a child's voice.
"…Missy?"
The end of Volume 5: The Boy Incident 1925 Part II
Characters:
Michael Harrington
Lukas Harrington
Elizabeth Harrington
Nara Lee
Mark Thomas
Missy Kirk
Kevin Mason
Dina Montana
Marco Wall
Enzo Murry
Bee Sin
Entities:
Lukas Harrington/The Boy
Marque
Wrath
Children of Marque