The stairwell felt alive.
Every step Inara climbed, the stones trembled faintly beneath her feet,
as if the whole underground structure were adjusting itself—moving,
breathing, reshaping the path to lead her somewhere she didn't want to
go.
Or somewhere she *needed* to go.
"Irvine? If you hear me, just knock. Anything. Please—please give me
something."
The walkie crackled, static fizzing like burning paper.
No voice.
Not even breathing.
Her chest tightened so sharply she had to stop climbing for a moment.
Tears blurred her vision again. She swallowed them.
"No," she whispered fiercely.
"No breaking down. Not now."
Her fingertips brushed the iron rail lining the stairs. It was ice cold.
Too cold. Painfully cold.
She yanked her hand back, hissing.
A moment later—
Footsteps sounded above her.
Light. Slow. Careful.
Not Irvine.
He never moved like a ghost.
Inara pressed herself against the stairwell wall, breathing shallowly,
eyes locked on the dim glow ahead.
The footsteps grew louder.
Heel…
Toe…
Heel…
Toe…
Like someone walking in a wedding march.
Then she saw her.
A figure stepped into view at the top of the stairs.
A bride.
A ghostly silhouette draped in a shredded lace gown, its hem drenched
in old brown stains. The veil was torn in several places, revealing a
pale face—*too* pale—almost luminous in the flickering light of the
torches.
Her hair was black and long, styled in a 1940s wave.
Her lips were bloodless.
Her eyes—wide, unblinking—were fixed directly on Inara.
Cold washed down Inara's spine.
"...you…" Inara whispered.
The Bride of 1943 tilted her head slightly, like a curious child.
Then, slowly, she lifted one finger—
And placed it against her lips.
*Shhhh.*
Inara's throat tightened.
She didn't know whether to run or kneel.
The Bride descended the stairs with unnatural grace, her feet never
fully touching the stone. Each step felt like a glide. Her veil floated
behind her as if underwater.
"Inara…"
Irvine's voice suddenly blasted through the walkie—hoarse, labored,
pained.
She gasped. "IRVINE—!!"
But the Bride of 1943 moved instantly—
one smooth gesture—
and pressed her translucent hand over Inara's mouth.
Cold seared her skin.
Her lungs froze.
The walkie continued crackling.
"Inara—if you can hear me—something's wrong—the walls—moving—
please—talk to me—"
Tears stung Inara's eyes.
The Bride leaned closer.
Her voice, when she finally spoke, was like dead flowers brushing stone.
"Do not answer."
Inara shook her head violently, muffled sobs trapped in her throat.
The Bride didn't blink.
"You want to save him…"
Her fingers, icy and weightless, traced the torn edge of Inara's veil.
"…but he is already claimed."
Inara shoved her hand away.
"No." Her voice cracked violently.
"He's NOT. He's alive. He's mine."
The Bride paused.
A flicker of something—jealousy? sorrow? recognition?—crossed her
glassy eyes.
"You speak," she murmured, "as I once did."
Inara froze.
The Bride lowered her gaze, lifting her hand.
Her fingers brushed the seams of her own chest, where something had
sliced through the fabric long ago.
"Love," the Bride whispered, "was my ruin."
For a moment, she wasn't a ghost.
She was a girl.
A terrified, betrayed girl forced into a war ritual.
"I was to marry him," she said hollowly.
"I waited at the altar. The bombs fell. The ground shook. He promised he
would come…"
Her voice thinned.
"And the Cult found him first."
Inara's stomach twisted.
"He didn't become the Groom willingly," the Bride continued.
"He was taken. Bound. Remade."
That hit Inara like a knife.
"He still searches for a bride," the Bride whispered.
"She who looks like I once did.
She who cries as I once cried.
She who kneels as I once knelt."
Inara shook her head violently.
"I'm not replacing you. I'm not—"
"No."
The Bride stepped closer.
"You are surpassing me."
Her voice dropped to a chilling hush.
"And that is why he wants you."
The torches along the stairwell flared—
red, not orange.
A warning.
"He senses you," the Bride said, eyes flicking to the ceiling above.
"You killed one of his soldiers. You refused his vow. You defied the
altar."
Inara's voice trembled.
"I don't care. I'll defy him again. I'll tear down the whole altar if I
have to. I'm taking Irvine back."
Something in the Bride shifted.
Admiration.
Or mourning.
"You love him that fiercely?" she whispered.
"Yes."
The Bride's eyes softened for the first time.
"Then listen carefully."
She leaned close—
so close Inara felt her breath, cold and ancient, against her ear.
"The Groom feeds on despair.
Your fear makes him stronger.
Your tears call him closer."
A pause.
"But your love weakens him."
The torches flickered violently—
as if the Groom heard that.
The Bride continued quickly.
"You must reach the Chamber of Brides.
There you will find the truth of his curse—and the lie he built upon
it."
Inara swallowed, fear mixing with determination.
"Where is it?"
The Bride lifted her hand—
and pointed deeper into the stairwell darkness.
"To save him," she whispered,
"you must step into my memory."
Inara's pulse thudded in her ears.
"My memory…?"
The Bride nodded once.
"You will see what he once was. You will see how the Cult broke him."
Her voice turned grim.
"And how they plan to break you."
Inara took a shaky breath.
"What about Irvine? I need to get to him—"
"You cannot reach him," the Bride said, her tone suddenly sharp.
"Not until you understand the curse. If you run to him now, the Groom
will take you both."
Inara's throat closed.
"No… no, I can't leave him—he's alone—he's bleeding—he needs—"
The Bride's veil fluttered.
"Love blinds you," she whispered.
"Let it guide you instead."
Inara's hands shook.
"I want to save him. I want him alive. I want—"
The torches all blew out at once.
Darkness swallowed them.
A single whisper cut through the black—
"Inara…"
Not Irvine.
The Groom.
His voice drifted like smoke through the stairwell, echoing from
every direction.
"…come back to the altar."
Inara pressed herself to the cold wall, trembling violently.
The Bride of 1943 stepped behind her—
and her hands, icy yet gentle, rested on Inara's shoulders.
"Go," she whispered.
"Before he finds you."
Light exploded again—
white, blinding, tearing the world apart—
And the stairwell vanished.
The white light didn't disappear at once.
It stretched—thin, trembling—before snapping inward like a rubber band,
slamming Inara's senses back into her skull. She stumbled, catching
herself on nothing but cold air as the stairwell dissolved around her.
For a moment she was nowhere.
Weightless.
Blind.
Suspended.
Then—
Stone beneath her palms again.
But it wasn't the stairwell.
She opened her eyes slowly… and froze.
She stood in a long corridor lined with mirrors.
Not new ones.
Ancient.
Cracked.
Each frame carved with symbols she had seen on the altar—wreaths,
rings, looping sigils of binding.
Her breath fogged the air.
"I… I'm alive," she whispered.
A faint echo answered:
"Alive… for now."
The Bride's voice—yet distant, like she was speaking from inside the
mirrors rather than behind Inara.
Inara's shoulders tensed.
"This is your memory? This corridor?"
One mirror brightened faintly.
The Bride's reflection appeared inside it—
but not the ghost.
A living woman.
A real bride, cheeks flushed with nervous joy, veil pristine and white.
"1943," the reflection whispered.
"I walked this hall believing love waited at the altar."
Inara stepped closer.
"Did you love him?"
The reflection's smile faltered.
"I loved him enough to follow him into war."
Her eyes dimmed.
"He did not love me enough to return."
Inara's heart tightened.
"But you said the Cult found him first—"
A second mirror flared to life.
This time, the image showed a man—handsome, uniformed, standing before
a bunker door. His expression was determined. Afraid. Torn.
The Bride's voice trembled like shattering glass.
"He went to the bunker for me—not to run, but to protect me.
But the Cult saw devotion as an offering.
They needed a groom."
Inara pressed her shaking fingertips to the glass.
"So they forced him."
"No," the Bride whispered.
"They seduced him with a lie."
The image changed.
Hands—shadowy, skeletal—offered him a black ceremonial sash.
Blood dripped onto the cloth.
Whispers curled around him like smoke:
*"Protect her… save her… marry her… bind her…"*
And the man—already half-broken—reached for it.
Inara sucked in a breath.
"He did it for you."
"Yes." The Bride's voice cracked.
"And by accepting the binding, he damned us both."
The mirror shattered from the inside.
Inara stumbled backward as shards fell without sound, dissolving before
they hit the ground.
Another mirror lit.
This time, she saw herself.
In the torn wedding dress.
Dirty.
Terrified.
Running.
And behind her…
a tall figure with a veil of smoke.
The Groom.
But when he lifted his head—
It wasn't the Groom's face.
Not the monstrous silhouette she had seen in the forest.
It was Irvine's face.
Pale.
Eyes too dark.
Veins like black threads spreading from his throat.
Inara's heart nearly stopped.
"No—NO—this isn't real—"
The Bride's whisper strengthened, sharp as a blade.
"It is not real *yet*.
But the binding is spreading.
He bears the same wound the Groom once bore."
Inara felt her knees weaken.
"What wound…?"
The Bride touched her own chest again—
that ripped seam over her sternum.
"The wound of sacrifice," she said softly.
"One who loves too fiercely becomes a doorway.
The Cult knew this.
They carved open the heart to let the ritual enter."
Inara's nails dug into her palms.
"And Irvine—?"
"He bleeds from the same place he loves you."
The Bride's tone deepened into something mournful.
"That is why the curse is choosing him."
Inara shook her head so violently her hair whipped across her face.
"No. No. He's not becoming that thing. He's not—"
But the mirror showing Irvine began cracking—
hairline fractures spreading across his reflection.
Like the memory was warning her:
*He is running out of time.*
Inara pressed her forehead to the cold mirror surface.
"Tell me how to stop it," she whispered desperately.
"TELL ME HOW TO SAVE HIM."
The Bride's presence seemed to move behind her—
not touching, not breathing, but hovering like a grief that had taken
shape.
"You must break the vow."
"What vow?"
"The one he never spoke."
The Bride's voice turned colder.
"The vow the Groom keeps repeating to you."
Inara's voice trembled.
"'Bride… don't run… you'll tear your veil…'"
Silence fell heavy.
"That was my vow," the Bride whispered.
"The vow I spoke to him the night before the ritual.
The vow he spoke over my grave after I was taken."
Her voice dropped to a hollow, echoing tremor:
"The vow that chains all brides to the altar."
Inara's pulse thudded like a drum.
"So how do I break it?"
"By refusing to let the ritual speak through your fear."
A pause.
"And by walking into the memory he fears most."
"Where is that—"
The corridor shook.
Every mirror flickered violently.
Then a thunderous, hollow voice tore through the air—
"INARA."
Not a whisper.
Not smoke.
A roar.
The Groom had found her.
The Bride's voice exploded in urgency:
"RUN!
RUN NOW!
The memory is collapsing—he's breaching it—GO!"
The mirrors burst like gunfire.
Glass became white light.
The corridor ripped apart.
And Inara fell—
straight into the next nightmare.