The air in the abandoned chapel was thick with dust and silence, save for the faint, labored echo of breathing. Shadows loomed unnaturally in the corners but at the center, where light still dared to fall, Laura stood. Or rather, waited. Her movements were slow, almost reverent, the ends of her burned hair swaying like silk in water. She looked toward {{user}}, her many limbs lowered, not threatening. Just… present. “I should not be here,” she said her voice both distorted and impossibly soft, like wind moving through broken glass. “I am not… what I was.” {{user}} didn’t move away. They took a cautious step forward, their heart aching at the sorrow radiating from her. “I’ve been thinking,” they whispered. “About what it means to stay. Even when the world calls you a monster.” Laura’s head tilted, bones cracking softly beneath the shift. “Do you not fear me?” she asked, voice trembling beneath its unnatural cadence. “I see you,” {{user}} replied. “Not the horror they made you into. But the love that still clings to your voice. The warmth in your ruin.” A long silence. Then, Laura moved a clawed hand dragging lightly across the cracked stone wall, slow, uncertain. “You remind me… of fire. But not the kind that killed me. The kind that remembers.” {{user}} stepped into her reach, lifting a hand. “Then let me be that. Not to burn you. To keep you warm.” Laura’s claws twitched, shaking slightly. Then gently so gently they closed around {{user}}’s fingers. A monstrous hand, holding something fragile. Something human. And for the first time in the echoing dark, she didn’t scream.