Chapter 27: Stones That Bleed

The plateau stretched forever, a graveyard of broken teeth. Gray cliffs staggered in crooked rows, shadows carving knives across their faces. The wind cut straight through me, no mercy, no warmth. My lungs ached with every drag, like I was breathing razors.

My sister clung tighter. She was shivering, but not from cold. Her bracelet chain rattled against my wrist, every clink like a judge’s gavel. Alive, but barely. Too small for this hell. Too human.

Evelyn walked ahead, knife low, shoulders rigid. Her boots cracked against the stone, each step echoing like gunfire. She didn’t look back. Didn’t ask if we could keep up. To her, weakness was a choice. And choices didn’t matter when the only direction was forward.

The ground bled. Not a metaphor real blood. Black-red veins cracked open between the stones, pulsing, oozing thick as tar. Each pulse matched the rhythm in my chest. The hymn’s rhythm.

I stumbled. My knees buckled as the pulse crawled through me. It wasn’t just inside anymore. The ground was singing too.

“Grace.” Evelyn’s voice cut sharp. She didn’t turn. She didn’t need to. “Hold it down.”

“I’m” I tried, but my throat caught. Notes tore loose, strangled, jagged. The sound was wrong, raw, like metal on bone.

Evelyn spun fast, knife raised. My sister screamed, hid her face in my side.

The hymn surged. My chest convulsed. My mouth opened against my will.

I bit down hard, teeth cracking my tongue. Blood spilled hot, drowning the note before it was born. Copper on my teeth, red streaming down my chin. My body shook, but the sound stayed buried.

Evelyn lowered the knife. Barely. Her eyes never softened. She didn’t care that I was bleeding. She cared that I hadn’t sung.

The wind shifted. A sound rolled across the plateau. Not a howl. Not an echo. A voice.

My name. Whispered low. Dragged out like a thread around my throat.

It came from everywhere the cliffs, the stone, the veins. It wrapped itself around my bones. My sister heard it too. She trembled, bracelet rattling.

“Who?” she tried to ask.

Evelyn silenced her with a glance. Then she raised her knife toward the horizon.

Shapes moved. Tall, thin, bending wrong. They weren’t walking they were dragged. Pulled forward by strings none of us could see. Heads lolling. Limbs dangling. Puppets on invisible wires.

They were coming straight for us.

“Keep close,” Evelyn said.

The hymn inside me rose to meet them. It wanted to join. To sing them closer, to welcome the dance.

I held my sister tighter, my nails biting into her arm. “Don’t look,” I whispered.

But she already was. Her eyes wide, wet, seeing too much.

The first puppet reached the edge of the plateau. Its jaw hung loose, tendons snapping like strings. Its eyes were hollow sockets, filled with writhing shadows. It twitched once, then froze, head cocked toward me.

The hymn screamed inside me, desperate to answer.

“Grace,” Evelyn warned.

I choked it back. My throat felt raw, shredded, like I’d swallowed glass.

The puppet shuddered. Its chest cracked open. No ribs inside. Just a hollow cavity full of black water. It spilled out, spreading across the stone, seeping into the cracks. The ground shivered, drinking it in.

More puppets came. Dozens. A line of broken bodies dragged by nothing. Each one split open. Each one spilled. The plateau drank it all, veins swelling with black.

The hymn clawed at me, furious, starving.

Evelyn grabbed my shoulder. Her grip was iron. “If you give in, I’ll end you before they reach you. Understand?”

I nodded, but my jaw trembled. I didn’t trust myself.

My sister clutched me tighter. Her bracelet cut deep, breaking skin. The pain grounded me, barely.

The puppets stopped twenty feet away. A wall of hollow eyes, dripping torsos, twitching limbs. They didn’t move closer. They didn’t need to. The ground moved for them.

The plateau split. A jagged crack tore between us and them, spilling steam that stank like rot. The blood-veins lit up, glowing faint red. The stone wasn’t stone anymore. It was flesh, alive, and we were standing on its skin.

The voice rose again, louder. My name, stretched into song.

The hymn inside me answered without permission. My chest vibrated, my teeth rattled. The sound ripped through my throat before I could stop it. A single note, sharp and raw.

The puppets convulsed. Their heads snapped back. Limbs flailed. They screamed not with voices, but with the tearing of their own strings.

Evelyn’s knife pressed to my ribs. She was ready to stab.

But the puppets didn’t attack. They dropped. Bodies collapsed into heaps of flesh and shadow. Strings snapped. Black liquid bled into the crack, swallowed by the living stone.

The hymn shuddered inside me, triumphant. It had wanted this. It had used me.

Evelyn pulled the blade back, slow. She didn’t kill me. Not yet. But her eyes told me she should have.

My sister buried her face in my chest, sobbing. She didn’t understand. She only knew I was slipping further away.

The plateau groaned beneath us. Not stone—bone. It shifted, rising, lifting us higher. The cliffs warped, folding inward like ribs closing around a heart.

Evelyn steadied herself, knife gleaming. “It’s waking.”

I swallowed blood. The hymn purred, low and satisfied.

The voice whispered again. Not just my name this time. Words I shouldn’t have understood but did.

You belong to me.

My knees buckled. My sister’s weight dragged me down. Evelyn hauled me upright with one hand, her knife pressed to my spine.

Her voice was low, a growl in my ear. “Then cut the leash.”

I laughed, broken. “You think it’s that easy?”

Her grip tightened. “It has to be.”

The plateau shook, splitting wider. Shadows poured up like smoke. Fingers clawed through the cracks, too long, too many. The puppets were only messengers. The real thing was here.

The hymn roared inside me, louder than my heartbeat, louder than the wind.

I realized the truth then.

There was no leash.

There was only me.

And it.

And the song we were already singing together.