Inara didn't land.
She slammed.
Hard.
Stone bit into her palms, dust exploded around her, and air tore out of
her lungs as reality snapped back—cold, damp, and vibrating like the ground
itself was afraid.
She gasped, coughing on thick, metallic-tasting air.
"—ra! Inara! Answer me—dammit—Inara!"
Irvine.
His voice burst through the walkie like a lifeline thrown into a storm.
She grabbed the device with trembling fingers.
"Irvine—I'm here—"
Her voice cracked. "I—I saw her. The Bride. She showed me where this
came from—what started it—"
"No," Irvine said, suddenly sharp.
"You can tell me later. Right now you need to MOVE."
"Why?"
"Because something just broke through the walls down here."
A thunderous impact echoed from beneath her—
a deep, sickening *whomp* that rattled the stones under her knees.
Dust cascaded from the ceiling.
The walls moaned.
Another impact followed—closer.
More violent.
As if something huge was ramming the bunker from inside its memories.
Inara's blood ran cold.
"He's breaching," she whispered.
Irvine's breath hitched.
"The Groom?"
"Yes."
Static swallowed the walkie for a moment—screeching, bending,
distorting—before Irvine's voice clawed through again:
"Inara, listen. The light that pulled you… it wasn't the Cult. It wasn't the
Bride. It was *him*."
"What?"
"When the corridor collapsed, I saw… something. A tear. A split."
He exhaled shakily. "The Groom reached into your memory the moment mine
snapped."
Inara pressed herself against the nearest wall.
"But why me?"
"Because you're the bride," Irvine said, voice shaking with a truth he hated.
"And because I'm in his place."
Her stomach dropped.
Before she could answer—
the ground bucked beneath her like something enormous had struck it from
below.
"IRVINE—!"
"RUN!" he barked.
"Move NOW! Don't stay still, he can track where the memories converge!"
Inara staggered forward, her boots slipping on uneven stone.
The hallway stretched ahead—long, arched, dripping with condensation.
War-era pipes lined the ceiling, some bent, some torn open as if clawed
apart. Every few meters, rusted lamps flickered weakly, bathing the air in a
sick, pulsing glow.
Something dripped.
Not water.
Something thicker.
She didn't want to look up—but she did.
A red smear streaked across the pipe.
Fresh.
Warm.
The air tasted like iron.
Her skin crawled.
Footsteps—slow, dragging—echoed behind her.
Not human.
Not patterned.
Not hurried.
Deliberate.
One step.
Pause.
Another step.
Pause.
As if savoring the chase.
She swallowed hard and pressed the walkie to her lips.
"Irvine—he's here."
A sharp inhale from him.
"How close?"
She glanced back.
A silhouette stood at the far end of the corridor.
No face.
No features.
Just a tall outline—shoulders straight, head tilted, veil drifting in an
invisible wind.
"Close enough," she whispered.
The silhouette lifted its hand and—
The lamps exploded one by one.
POP.
POP.
POP.
Darkness chased her.
"Oh God—" She spun and ran.
Feet pounding on cold stone.
Breath tearing through her chest.
Walls blurring past her.
Behind her, something scraped along the ground—
like metal dragged through bone.
Irvine's voice punched through the static.
"Inara, TURN RIGHT! There's a junction ahead—GO!"
She obeyed without thinking.
The corridor opened into a wider room—an old ration storage.
Crates stacked. Dust thick.
A single lantern flickering on a hook.
She slammed the metal door shut and threw the latch across.
Her chest heaved.
Her ears rang.
Silence pressed against her skull—
—then the door bulged inward violently.
Inara staggered back with a scream.
"Inara!" Irvine shouted.
"What happened?!"
She pressed her body against the crates, clutching the walkie.
"He found me."
The door dented again.
A perfect inward bulge—right at face level.
Not a punch.
A knock.
Slow.
Gentle.
Courteous.
Like a groom knocking politely before entering the bridal chamber.
Inara's breath trembled.
Then a whisper seeped through the cracks, cold and intimate:
"Bride… let me in."
She bit her lip to stop her sob.
Irvine's voice cracked through, fierce and trembling:
"Inara. DO. NOT. OPEN. THAT. DOOR."
"I'm not—" she whispered.
But the Groom didn't need permission.
The lantern flickered.
Dimmed.
Then flared with a white-hot brightness that hurt her eyes.
The room warped.
The door bent inward as if melting.
And behind it—
—she saw a shape.
A tall figure.
A veil of smoke.
Hands long and elegant, not monstrous.
But the face—
She froze.
It wasn't faceless.
It was Irvine.
Her Irvine.
But wrong—
eyes too black, jaw too still, posture too perfect, wearing the uniform and
gold-trimmed coat of the wartime groom.
"No," she whispered.
"No, no, no—"
The walkie slipped from her fingers.
Irvine shouted her name from far away, but she couldn't hear him over the
pounding of her heart.
Because the Groom—
or the memory using Irvine's face—
spoke in Irvine's voice:
"Open the door, Inara.
You promised we'd marry."
Her blood turned to ice.
"No," she said weakly.
"You're not him."
The figure tilted its head in a way Irvine never would.
"Bride… don't run."
Hot tears blurred her vision.
"You will tear your veil," it finished softly.
"Inara! INARA!" Irvine screamed from the walkie.
The Groom's shape pressed against the bending metal.
"When it opens," the Bride's whisper echoed from nowhere,
"do not look at the face.
Look at the *shadow*."
"What shadow?" Inara whispered desperately.
The wall behind the Groom glowed faintly—just enough to cast a shadow
across the crates.
Not Irvine's.
Not human.
A twisted antlered silhouette, limbs too long, torso split down the center
like a ceremonial offering.
The shadow of the real Groom.
"Inara," Irvine cried out again, his voice raw with terror she'd never heard
from him before.
"YOU HAVE TO RUN!"
The latch snapped.
Metal screamed.
The lantern burst.
Darkness swallowed everything.
And the door finally broke open.
Inara didn't land gently.
She crashed—hard enough that the stone floor punched the breath out of
her lungs and left a ringing white heat in her skull. The memory-world
dissolved like burned film, and reality hit her in cold, metallic slabs.
Dust rose around her in a choking cloud.
Her fingers clawed at the floor, searching for anything solid.
A voice shattered the ringing in her head:
"Inara! INARA—answer me—please—"
Irvine.
That voice alone snapped her heart back into rhythm.
She dragged the walkie from the ground, her hand shaking.
"I—I'm here," she rasped.
"Irvine, I'm here."
Something scraped behind her.
Not in the memory.
In the corridor.
Real.
Close.
She didn't dare look yet.
"I saw the Bride," she whispered.
"She—she showed me the ritual. The vow. The first wedding. Everything."
A pause.
Not silence—
the kind of pause someone makes when their fear comes true.
"Inara," Irvine said, low, tight, trembling.
"You need to move."
"Why?"
A BOOM ripped through the floor beneath her.
Dust waterfall. Stones vibrating.
Another BOOM, closer—like something massive ramming the bunker walls
from the inside.
He exhaled sharply.
"The Groom is breaching. Not the Cult—*him*. The real entity."
Her throat dried instantly.
"How is that possible? I wasn't even—"
"Inara, he followed you through the memory!" Irvine's voice cracked.
"When the corridor collapsed, he reached through my shadow. And when YOU
fell… he grabbed the thread between us."
Thread.
Between them.
She felt it now—something tugging at her chest, faint but undeniable,
like invisible fingers hooked behind her sternum.
The Groom wasn't just hunting her.
He was tethered to her.
Another hit—
so violent her knees buckled.
A jagged crack tore across the ceiling.
"Irvine—he's almost through."
His breathing hitched—first time she'd ever heard fear control him.
"Inara, listen to me carefully. That tether means he sees your path.
Where you stop, he stops. Where you panic, he focuses. You HAVE to move."
She bolted.
The corridor stretched endlessly—arched like a ribcage, lamps flickering
with sick yellow pulses. Pipes rattled overhead as if something crawled
inside them.
A drop hit her cheek.
Warm.
Not water.
Blood seeped from an overhead crack, trailing down like the bunker itself
was bleeding.
Her stomach turned.
She pressed the walkie to her lips.
"Irvine, this place—this isn't just memory. It's rebuilding itself."
"That's what breaching does," he said hoarsely.
"He's trying to make a way back to flesh."
She almost vomited.
Behind her, footsteps began.
Not fast.
Not slow.
Deliberate.
A heavy drag between steps—as if something tall was adjusting to a body
it didn't fully own.
Inara quickened her pace.
"Inara," Irvine whispered, his voice suddenly sharp, "what do you see?"
She forced herself to look back—
And froze.
The lights behind her were going out.
One.
By.
One.
POP.
POP.
POP.
Chasing her.
But worse than the darkness was the silhouette now trapped between the
last two flickering lamps.
Tall.
Straight-shouldered.
Veil drifting behind him.
The Groom.
Looking at her.
Inara ran.
Her boots slapped the stone.
Her breath tore her throat raw.
The corridor warped with every blink.
Behind her, the Groom followed without haste—
because he didn't need to hurry.
He already knew where she would run.
Irvine's voice ripped through the walkie—
"RIGHT! TURN RIGHT—GO!"
She obeyed without hesitation.
A storage chamber appeared, lined with stacked ration crates.
A lantern flickered weakly near the ceiling.
She slammed the door shut—
threw the latch—
and braced her back against it.
Her chest heaved.
Silence.
Then—
A soft knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Polite.
Gentle.
Courteous.
She nearly screamed.
"Irvine," she whispered, "he's right outside."
The door dented inward—only slightly.
Not a hit.
A push.
Testing the frame.
"You won't outrun him if you stay there," Irvine said, his voice tearing
at the edges.
"He's in breach mode. He'll use illusions—shadows—voice mimicry.
Inara, listen. Do not look at him directly when he enters."
"When—?" she choked.
"When, not if," Irvine repeated, voice breaking.
"That door won't hold."
The metal warped inward—
a perfect cheek-sized indentation, as if someone pressed their face
against it from the other side.
A whisper seeped through the seams:
"Bride… open the door."
Her entire body shuddered.
Irvine's voice exploded through the walkie.
"DO. NOT. ANSWER. HIM."
But the Groom did not wait for permission.
The lantern flared blinding white—
the temperature in the room dropped instantly—
and the metal began to *soften*.
A silhouette formed behind the bending door.
At first, she thought it was faceless—
until the features sharpened.
Her heart stopped.
It was Irvine's face.
Perfect.
Still.
Beautiful.
Wrong.
A mimic wearing the man she loved like a mask.
"No—no—" her voice broke.
"You're not him."
The mimic smiled using Irvine's lips—
slow, unnatural.
"Bride," it whispered in Irvine's exact voice,
"don't run."
Her vision blurred with hot tears.
"I'm not yours," she choked.
The silhouette leaned closer—
their breaths almost meeting through the bending steel.
"You mustn't tear your veil," it murmured sweetly.
Her stomach flipped.
Those exact words.
The Groom had said that in the memory.
To the original Bride.
Right before she was dragged to the altar.
"Inara!" Irvine roared into the walkie.
"That's NOT ME! Listen—LISTEN TO ME—RUN!"
But the lantern burst—
darkness swallowed the room—
and the door peeled open like wet paper.
The shape stepped inside.
Holding Irvine's face.
But casting a shadow that was nothing like him—
twisted antlers, split torso, jagged limbs.
The real form.
Leaking through the mimic.
The Bride's whisper echoed in Inara's ear:
"Do not watch the face.
The face is a lie.
Watch the SHADOW."
The Groom lifted one long hand.
"Inara," Irvine whispered, breath breaking, "please—please—run."
Her body finally obeyed.
She dove left—crashing through stacked crates—splinters slicing her arms.
The mimic lunged, its movement too smooth to be human.
It grazed her shoulder—
and cold fire spread under her skin.
A mark.
A claim.
His claim.
Inara screamed.
Irvine's voice cracked violently.
"WHAT DID HE DO TO YOU?!"
The Groom advanced, veil dragging like smoke across the floor.
Inara scrambled toward the far exit—
lungs burning—
muscles shaking—
As the mimic whispered behind her:
"Bride…
I am patient.
Midnight is soon."
She didn't look back.
Couldn't.
She burst into the next corridor, slamming the door behind her, heart
slamming against her ribs so hard it hurt.
"Inara—Inara, TALK TO ME—"
"Irvine—he touched me—"
A dead silence.
Then Irvine spoke, voice low, shaking, terrified for her in a way she had
never heard:
"Inara… that means he can find you anywhere now."
Her blood froze.
"He marked you."
The lanterns flickered violently down the hall.
The walls groaned.
And somewhere behind the metal door—
the Groom laughed softly.