The cottage swallowed them whole.
The door yawned wider as they approached, its wood warping into flesh, its frame gnashing with splinters like teeth. With a single step, Cipher and Red crossed the threshold—and the world behind them slammed shut.
Inside, the air was suffocating, thick with the stench of rot and wet fur. Walls swelled and contracted, breathing like a ribcage. Lamps swung from the ceiling, their flames sputtering green, and every surface dripped with saliva that shimmered like ink.
Red clutched her cloak tighter, her voice small. "This… this is where it eats me."
Cipher steadied her with a hand at her back. His scythe hummed in his grip, runes burning faintly. "Then this is where we change it."
The Automaton hovered above, its wings spreading like fractured light. Its voice rang with quiet awe. "We stand within the Wolf's heart-chamber. All its lies, all its hunger, coil here. If you falter, it will devour not just flesh—but memory, story, everything you are."
The ground trembled. From the far wall, a fireplace twisted and groaned. Its hearth cracked open into a jaw, fire spilling like molten breath. Out crawled the Wolf.
No longer a stitched shadow, but something far worse. Its body filled the room, a grotesque parody of Red's grandmother. Her nightgown hung shredded from its shoulders, her wrinkled hands warped into claws that scraped the floor. The face was a shifting mask—sometimes grandmother, sometimes beast, sometimes nothing but rows of teeth.
"Come closer, child," it crooned, its voice shuddering between tones, a grandmother's lullaby bleeding into a beast's growl. "You always end here. You always die here."
Red flinched, but didn't step back. The crimson glow of her cloak pulsed like a heartbeat.
Cipher stepped forward, planting his scythe against the floor with a ringing strike. His voice carried, steady, unshaken. "Not this time."
The Wolf's head snapped toward him. "And you, shadow-bearer… You carry failure in your skin. The children you couldn't save. The promises you broke. You think you can teach her courage when you could not keep it yourself?"
The whispers surged from the walls—children's laughter turning to screams, desks collapsing into piles of ash. Cipher's knuckles whitened around the scythe, but he didn't look away.
"I know what I lost," he said quietly. "And I carry it every day. But she—" He glanced back at Red, his expression hardening into something fierce. "—she is not yours to write."
The Wolf roared, lunging. Its claws tore trenches in the floor as it hurled itself forward, maw gaping wide.
Cipher moved instantly, scythe flashing in a silver arc. The blade carved through the Wolf's chest, scattering shadows like blood, but the wound sealed as quickly as it opened. A story does not die from steel alone.
Red stumbled back, clutching her cloak. "We can't hurt it—!"
"Yes, we can," Cipher barked, dodging another swipe. He drove the scythe into the floor, sending a ripple of runes across the chamber. Shadows recoiled, but the Wolf pressed forward. "Not with blades. With you."
Her breath caught. "M-me?"
The Automaton's voice cut in, bright and urgent. "The Wolf's strength lies in the tale: girl in red, eaten by beast. Deny it. Defy it. Every word you speak against its hunger rewrites the ending!"
The Wolf's maw snapped shut inches from Cipher's face. He shoved it back, sparks skidding across the floor. "Red! Say it!"
The Wolf's false-grandmother mask twisted toward her, lips trembling in a sickly smile. "Sweet girl… you know the story. You know how it ends. Come to me. Be still. Be eaten."
Red's tears glimmered in the crimson light. Her body shook, but her fists clenched. She raised her voice, sharp and breaking but louder than before.
"No!"
The Wolf froze.
"I am not just food for the Wolf!" she shouted, the words trembling but true.
The chamber shook. The crimson glow surged outward from her cloak, burning through the air. The Wolf staggered, smoke hissing from its skin.
Cipher grinned fiercely, driving his scythe into the beast's ribs. This time the cut held, the wound burning where Red's defiance had weakened it.
The Wolf howled, its many voices cracking. "Impossible… the girl is eaten… she is always eaten…"
"Not anymore," Cipher growled.
Red stepped forward now, her cloak blazing like fire. Each word she spoke carried power, unraveling the threads of the tale.
"I am not helpless. I am not prey. This is not where my story ends!"
The air convulsed. The Wolf's body twisted, seams splitting, its form unraveling as though the script itself was tearing apart. Shadows screamed, fragments of false memories collapsing like broken glass.
Cipher raised his scythe high, its runes burning brighter than ever. He caught Red's gaze, steady and certain. "Finish it."
Red's breath came sharp, but her eyes blazed. She drew herself up, cloak flaring like wings, and shouted into the howling dark:
"My story is mine!"
The chamber erupted. Light exploded outward, crimson and silver intertwining, tearing the Wolf's form apart. Its scream echoed like a dying storm, fading into silence as its body scattered into smoke.
When the light dimmed, the cottage was gone. The breathing walls, the whispers, the fire—they had all dissolved.
Red stood trembling, her cloak still glowing faintly, her chest heaving with sobs she could not hold back. Cipher stood beside her, his scythe lowered, his shoulders heavy but steady.
The Automaton fluttered close, its voice hushed, reverent. "The tale is broken. Its ending undone. The girl in red lives."
Red turned, her eyes searching Cipher's face. "We… we did it?"
He nodded once, though his gaze lingered on the empty void where the Wolf had been. "For now."
And together, beneath the silence of a rewritten story, they stood—teacher, automaton, and girl in red—breathing in a future the Wolf had tried to devour.