The sea banshee carried Everly through the jagged rocks, finally reaching a pile of rubble beside the lighthouse. There, she found a hidden cave and slipped inside as if she had done it a thousand times before.
The cave was deep. The walls bore clear claw marks, gouged and scratchedâthe size and depth suggesting they were the work of the banshee herself. Crawling down the dark passage for about half a minute, Everly suddenly emerged into a semi-collapsed underground stone chamber.
The walls and ceiling of the chamber were covered in some unknown bioluminescent plant, glowing a soft, eerie blue. Its light pulsed faintly with every breath, serving as the roomâs only illumination. In this dim glow, Everly saw the banshee carrying her across the debris and depositing her in the center of the chamber.
Here lay a stone platform raised about half a meter from the ground. The platform was only slightly damaged. In the faint light of the glowing plants, Everly could just make out the remnants of carved relief patterns on its surface.
A small stone table sat crookedly atop the platform. At first, Everly thought it was dark redâbut as the banshee hissed low in frustration and pinned her against the cold, hard stone surface, she realized the table was stained with blood.
A strong stench of iron-rich blood mixed with damp, decaying odors hit her face. Her cheek pressed against the stone, feeling a sticky chill. Meanwhile, above her, the banshee leaned down, opening a gaping, blood-filled mouth toward herâ
Ah⊠so that dark red on the table⊠itâs bloodâŠ
The thought flickered briefly through Everlyâs mind. Facing death, she felt an unexpected calm.
Try it, she thought. Go all out, even if it kills me. Better than doing nothing, letting myself be slaughtered like a lambâŠ
From thought to decision, it took only a split second. As the bansheeâs sharp, saliva-coated fangs lunged close, poised to pierce the delicate skin of her neck and shred her body, Everly spoke.
Everly lifted her eyes to the sea banshee right in front of her. With her underdeveloped, still trembling voice, she spoke the familiar yet strange syllable, muddled but resolute:
âMaâŠma!â
Like a paused video suddenly frozen mid-frame, the bansheeâs lunging attack abruptly halted.
âAh⊠uhâŠâ Everly heard a strange murmur escape from her throat.
It seemed to be workingâŠ
According to the popular science Everly had read in her previous life, there are thousands of languages in the worldâbut there is one word that has a similar pronunciation in almost every language: the word humans use to call their motherââmama.â Scholars believe this arises naturally in human infants: the âaâ sound emerges from birth, combined with the âmâ sound formed when the mouth closes during breastfeeding, representing the core emotional bond shared by all mammals between mother and child.
The sea banshee clearly understood the meaning behind the word âmama.â She tilted her head slightly, a trace of confusion appearing in her crimson eyes.
Her claws still pressed against Everly, the rows of sharp, jagged teeth capable of killing the baby in an instant. It wasnât safe yet, and Everly didnât dare relax. Seeing the banshee hesitate, she pressed her advantage, calling out again and again:
âMama⊠mama, mamamamamama!â
The more she called, the more confident and louder she became.
The sea banshee, as if awakened by the continuous call, began to respond to a hidden maternal instinct. The red in her eyes faded slightly. She leaned closer to Everly, scrutinizing the tiny baby in front of her. Her grotesque features reflected a mix of doubt and struggle, the pale, swollen face making her expression even more eerie and menacing.
â%#@âŠâ Everly heard her quickly utter something in a rough, guttural voice.
The sound was short, almost like a callâa word of recognition.
Although Everly couldnât understand the language the banshee used, she could roughly guess that the creature was calling her. Summoning all her courage, she continued to cry out âmama,â while spreading her tiny arms, making a gesture as if asking for a hug.
The banshee froze.
âAh⊠uh⊠ko, kokoâŠâ
Her throat seemed as if something hard was stuck inside, emitting strange, staccato âko koâ sounds. At the same time, her body began trembling uncontrollably.
Plop. A drop of icy liquid landed on Everlyâs cheek. In the darkness, she at first thought it was water dripping from the cave ceiling. But when a second and third droplet fell, she realized something was wrong.
It wasnât cave waterâit was tears streaming from the bansheeâs eyes.
The sea banshee was crying!
Thick pools of water had accumulated on her grotesque, protruding eyeballs, then rolled down her jaw, dropping one by one onto Everly below. The tears were cold, lifeless, just like the banshee herselfâbut Everly felt, through them, a heat far more intense than molten lava.
It was a feeling called motherly love.
â%#@!â
The banshee repeated her earlier call, this time with certainty and the joy of having something lost returned. She released the claw pressing Everly, then carefully assumed a perfectly maternal hold, cradling the baby in her arms. Lowering her head, she lightly patted the baby with her claw tips, her eyes overflowing with tenderness and affection.
Her long black hair draped like a curtain over her shoulders, falling across Everly. After passing through the sewer and over the rocky reef, the locks were tangled with leaves, paper scraps, gravel, and damp sea water, sticky and filthy. This curtain of tangled hair, combined with the bansheeâs low hum, became the last memory Everly carried before drifting into sleep.
Everly had a dream.
Even babies have dreams. In it, she encountered a blue-faced, fanged monster that chased her relentlessly. She stumbled, scrambled, and tried every possible way to escape, but nothing worked. In the end, the monster caught her, tearing her apart alive, and before she could even die, she was lifted onto a fire and roasted.
Waking from the chaotic nightmare, Everly realized it wasnât an illusionâher body felt burning hot, her throat parched, her limbs weak, and her head dizzy.
She had a fever.
As a premature infant, her constitution had always been fragile. With Shellyâs careless, inconsistent care, the fact that she had grown up healthy so far was thanks entirely to her inner adult mindâher self-discipline and awareness. Before falling asleep, she had been terrified by the sea banshee, then endured crawling through sewers, traversing rocky reefs, and crossing the ocean. Her small body could not withstand such intense stimulation; it was no surprise that she had fallen ill.
But the timing of this illness was extremely unlucky.
Everly was now in a hidden stone chamber in the middle of the sea. There was no food, no drink, no thick clothes to keep warm, no modern medicineâonly a dangerous banshee she could not communicate with, and an air that was cold, damp, and oppressive. For a tiny infant, this was hardly a survivable environment.
She moved her head slightly in the bansheeâs arms, tilting to observe her surroundings.
The banshee seemed to treat Everly entirely as her own child. Even while Everly slept, the creature never let go of her, holding the baby close without pause.
She held Everly in her arms, curling her serpentine tail, sitting against a corner of the stone chamber, humming a soft, continuous lullaby. The tune was the same one Everly had heard the banshee hum on the ocean surfaceâgentle and soothing, like a breeze rustling through a forest, or warm sunlight kissing flower petals.
The chamber floor sloped downward, letting seawater seep in from below, forming a dark, stagnant pool. The banshee sat at the edge of the pool, the tip of her long tail submerged in the water. Keeping time with the lullaby, she lazily stirred the water back and forth, the motion almost leisurely.
The scene looked heartwarming⊠if one ignored the scattered piles of white bones surrounding them.
Everly averted her eyes in discomfort. Even having witnessed the decomposed corpses in the Mayflower Apartment, confronting such a massive collection of human remains all at once filled her with unease. It was the instinctive fear of death common to all humans.
This area was likely the bansheeâs feeding ground. Centered on the pool, Everly looked around: the ground was littered with countless human bones. Judging by the size of the skulls, most were infants or young children. The bones ranged from ancient, rotted fragments fused with the earth to newer, intact skeletons lying atop the piles. Based on what she had seen at the Pukati Historical Museum, it wasnât hard to guess that these remains belonged to children who had gone missing in Pukati over the past several centuries.
The banshee really did steal childrenâand she really did eat them. The bones were scattered and broken, with many showing bite marks. No naturally deceased skeleton would shatter like this.
Everly still couldnât understand why the sea banshee, a mother herself, would treat other children so cruelly. Was it because she had lost her own child, and she couldnât bear to see others enjoying the love of theirs?
Lost in thought, a sudden cold draft blew through an unseen crack in the stones, making feverish Everly shiver. She felt chilled all over and hunched her tiny body. Time was not on her side, she knew, so she forced herself to push aside distractions, widening her eyes to carefully search between the skeletons by the faint glow of the moss.
Finally, next to a relatively âfreshâ set of bones, she spotted her targetâa torn light-brown woolen coat.
After being left in such harsh conditions, the coat had faded somewhat. The light-brown fabric was stained with dark red patches, silently testifying to the cruel fate its original owner had endured. But aside from that, the coat looked thick and roomyâmore than enough to wrap Everly entirely, protecting her from the biting cold.
âAh⊠ahhhâŠâ
Everly reached toward the coat, her hoarse little voice letting out urgent, pleading sounds.
The bansheeâs humming stopped. She leaned in, curiously and carefully observing the baby in her arms. Perhaps because of the differences in species, or because of her lack of childcare experience, the banshee didnât understand Everlyâs intention. Seeing the baby cry continuously, she assumed Everly was hungry.
â%#@âŠâ she murmured, lowering her head with affection. She pressed her cold, damp cheek gently against Everlyâs forehead. Then, lifting her claw, she held one end of the soaked coat and brought it toward the babyâs mouth.
Everly stared in terror at the object being thrust near her lips.
Even without her memories from her past life, she would have recoiled from the idea of drinking motherâs milkâbut in this case, the bansheeâs form itself was horrifying: swollen all over, covered in scars, like a corpse left soaking in water until it became giant and bloated. The exposed skin at the tip was pale and blue-white, seeping a foul, yellowish pus⊠This was absolutely not something she could put in her mouth!