WARNING: M RATED

  Chapter - 01

  The city was a carcass. Buildings, once proud and electric, had caved in like wet paper. The air had texture—dust, decay, and the stink of old blood. The war, the pgue, the silence after… no one knew which came first anymore. Time was just memory’s residue.

  Rafa and Isa hadn’t spoken in days. Their water ran out three nights ago, and the food—if you could still call it that—was some feral thing they cooked over a barrel fire and tried not to taste.

  They found the cathedral by accident. It wasn’t on any map. Covered in vines like veins, windows shattered, bck soot licking the marble walls. Inside, the pews had been pushed into a circle. Candles, long burned out, left puddles of wax like frozen milk. Something had happened here. Ritual, maybe. Or madness.

  They stayed anyway. There was nowhere else to go.

  That night, Isa pressed herself into a corner and muttered prayers she hadn’t believed in since childhood. Rafa watched her, eyes sunken but still wide. Hunger did things to people—made them remember strange warmths.

  That’s when the singing started.

  It was faint at first, a low moan threaded through the wind. Rafa thought it was the stone creaking. Isa knew better. She stood, her bones cracking from stillness, and stepped barefoot into the nave.

  At the altar, the floor had been broken. A hole, jagged and deep, led into bckness. From it came the voice—melodic, wrong, wet.

  “Children of ash… you’ve arrived te. But not too te.”

  They should have run. But there was nowhere to run to.

  He didn’t walk out of the hole. He crawled. Pale, hairless, coated in oil or sweat or something else. His eyes glowed like a dying fire. And his mouth… always open, always whispering.

  He called himself The Mouth of God, but told them to call him Mouth.

  He fed them. Berries soaked in strange syrup. Meat that tasted like memory—like home, like warmth, like things long gone.

  “You must be hungry,” he purred, watching Rafa with a smile that didn’t end. “But hunger is not only of the belly, boy.”

  Isa stepped between them, instinct sharp. Mouth only ughed. “Protective. I like that. But he’s not yours to save, girl. He’s mine to awaken.”

  That night, Mouth whispered things through the walls. Dreams crept into Rafa’s sleep—dreams of bodies pressed together in pulsing light, of tongues moving where they shouldn’t, of Isa’s face close, too close, lips parting not in words, but in want.

  He woke in sweat. Isa was already awake, watching him from across the room. Her expression unreadable. Shame, fear… or something darker.

  Isa waited until Rafa was asleep before going to the altar again.

  The candles had been relit—though neither she nor her brother had touched them. Their wax bled slowly, staining the stone like pus. The Mouth rose from the dark like breath in cold air, his body glistening. Not a man, not anymore. Something becoming.

  "You know why I feed you," he said, voice like blood dripping on gss.

  Isa didn’t speak. She stood in silence, arms crossed over herself, jaw locked. Her ribs pressed visibly under her shirt. Her eyes were sunken and cruel. But her legs didn’t move. That was enough for him.

  "You carry shame in you like an egg," he said, stepping closer. "Crack it. Spill it. Show him the truth before he rots with you."

  She flinched. Her hand went to the rosary she still kept tied around her wrist—a relic from before, now just beads in the shape of guilt.

  “I’ve kept him alive,” she hissed. “That’s the truth.”

  “You’ve kept him hungry,” Mouth replied. “And hunger is a holy thing. It eats the rules. It eats the walls you built to keep the filth in.”

  He leaned closer, breath rancid but sweet.

  “Let him see you. Let him know you. Let the rot happen.”

  That night, Rafa pretended to sleep. He watched his sister curl up in the far corner, back to him, but not moving. Still. Too still.

  A flicker of candlelight lit the curves of her body through the thin shirt she wore. It stuck to her skin from sweat—deliberate or accidental, he didn’t know. He hated that he noticed.

  He turned over and gritted his teeth.

  But the image stayed.

  The Mouth’s words echoed in his brain like a rhythm: You’re hungry. You’re starving. She’s here.

  He touched himself under the bnket. Slowly. Shamefully. Each stroke was soaked in fear and fever. He didn’t want to think of Isa. But her breath, steady and close—too close—filled the space between.

  Then he heard it.

  “...Rafa.”

  His blood froze.

  She was standing now. Watching him. No scream, no anger—just wide eyes and something unreadable behind them.

  He curled into himself, yanking the bnket up, choking on apologies he couldn’t form. She didn’t speak. Just walked past him. Straight to the altar.

  Back to him.

  The darkness under the cathedral wasn’t empty—it was alive.

  It moved with Isa's breath. Echoed her heartbeat back at her like a drumbeat from inside her skull. The deeper she walked, the more it felt like walking back into a womb, or a coffin. Maybe both. The air was heavy—sour, damp, sacred in the worst kind of way.

  And there he was.

  The Mouth.

  He sat half-sprawled on cushions, ribs visible like cage bars around a still-beating heart. His arms were long and open, like he was waiting for her. Not like a lover. Like a trap.

  “You’re te, Isa,” he said softly, his voice crawling over her skin. “Your body’s been here for days. But your shame—that stubborn little parasite—she's still clinging to your spine.”

  Isa didn’t reply. Her mouth was dry. Her thighs, soaked.

  She hated him.

  She hated herself more.

  She stepped forward slowly, bare feet sticking to the stone. He watched her—never blinking.

  “You saw him,” The Mouth said. “Little Rafa. Fisting his cock in the dark. Pretending he was thinking of someone else.”

  She bit her lip until it bled.

  “And you didn’t stop him,” he added, smiling now. “You watched.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” she whispered.

  “Didn’t mean to get wet, either?” He cocked his head. “Didn’t mean to ache for the smell of your own bloodline?”

  Her knees almost gave out.

  Years ago. Rafa had a fever. Bad one. She’d stripped him down to cool him off. Wiped his chest with a wet cloth. His skin burned under her fingers, but he looked at her then—just for a second—with something unfamiliar. Not sickness. Something heavier.

  She stayed beside him that night. Pretended to sleep when he shifted under the covers. Heard the subtle friction. Knew exactly what he was doing. Didn’t stop him. Her hand had slipped between her legs like a reflex, like a betrayal.

  Back in the dark, Isa’s face was flushed.

  “Say it,” The Mouth whispered. “Say what you felt.”

  “I wanted him to stop,” she breathed. “But I wanted him to know I was there.”

  Mouth ughed, low and tender. “You’re almost ready.”

  His hands moved—delicate fingers stroking the air around her, never quite touching, but the space between them throbbed. He circled behind her, breathing against her ear.

  “He dreams of you, you know. In fshes. You, above him. Your hair in his mouth. The taste of guilt on his tongue. He thinks it’s wrong. But wrongness is just the first door.”

  Isa didn’t move. Couldn’t.

  He tugged her shirt up slowly, exposing her spine. “Let me make you clean,” he said.

  His tongue touched the nape of her neck—wet, hot, slow.

  Isa gasped. Her thighs pressed together involuntarily.

  Her body remembered everything she’d tried to bury.

  After the bombings. They were the only ones left. She’d watched Rafa shower through a crack in the door. Just watched. Pretending it was protection. But she stared too long at the curve of his back, the muscles twitching when he dried himself. She went to bed that night shaking—came without touching herself, crying silently into her pillow.

  Back in the chamber, Isa turned slowly.

  “You want me to fuck him,” she said. Not a question.

  The Mouth smiled. “I want you to free him. Unwrap him like a present. Let him crawl back inside the pce he first came from.”

  Her lip trembled. Her nipples were hard, her breath shallow.

  “You’ll show me how?”

  “I’ll show both of you.”

  He knelt in front of her. Pressed his face against her stomach.

  And whispered:“Tomorrow night, he joins us. Let him watch you. Let him ache.”

  The room was lit by candlelight—hundreds of them. Floor to ceiling. Flickering like breath. The stone walls shimmered with the reflection of fme and sweat.

  Rafa stood in the archway, shirt clinging to him, chest heaving. He wasn’t supposed to be there. Not yet. But something had pulled him in his sleep—a whisper, maybe. A pulse.

  He hadn’t even put shoes on.

  In the center of the room was a mirror, cracked and ancient, propped up on a rusted pipe. And just in front of it—

  Isa.

  Draped in a sheer, tattered robe, her skin glowed under the candles like wet cy. She didn’t see him. She wasn’t looking at the mirror. Her eyes were closed, lips parted, one hand over her chest.

  The other?

  Between her legs.

  Rafa’s stomach twisted.

  It was wrong. It was so wrong. But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even blink.

  He’d found her bra in the undry. Held it like it might disappear. Smelled it. Came in his pants. Told himself it was just curiosity. Never told anyone. Buried it under his mattress like a relic.

  Now, years ter, he was watching the real thing.

  And she was glowing.

  Isa’s hips moved slowly, in small, practiced circles. Her fingers dipped, retreated, dipped again. Every now and then, she’d whisper something too soft to hear. A prayer? A spell?

  The Mouth stood in the corner like a statue. Silent. Smiling.

  “She’s doing this for you,” he said softly, without turning. “This is your scripture, Rafa. Your gospel.”

  Rafa couldn’t speak. His throat was dry.

  “She knows you dream about her. She’s seen your sheets.”

  Rafa clenched his fists.

  “Every time you’ve spilled yourself thinking about her mouth—she felt it,” The Mouth said. “That ache behind your ribs? That’s her living inside you. You were born in the same furrow. And one day… you’ll die inside there too.”

  Isa moaned.

  Not loud. Not performative. Like pain.

  Like confession.

  She opened her eyes, staring straight into the mirror now. Her fingers slowed.

  And she spoke:

  “Rafa.”

  His breath caught. The Mouth looked at him now, eyes wide.

  “She knows,” he whispered.

  He'd woken up to her curled beside him. She’d had a nightmare. Her thigh was thrown over his hip. He was hard. He didn’t move. Didn’t want to wake her. But he came anyway, quietly, dry-mouthed, feeling like he’d just damned himself to hell.

  In the candlelight, Isa turned slowly.

  Her robe fell off her shoulders.

  She was naked now. Fully.

  And she walked toward the mirror—toward him. Her full, heavy breasts bounced with each step, nipples hard and pointing directly at him. The neatly trimmed patch of hair at the junction of her thighs drew his gaze like a magnet.

  “You’re not just watching anymore,” she said. “You’re choosing.”

  He shook his head. Backed away.

  But his cock was already hard. Already leaking. The shame made it worse.

  “Don’t run,” she said, pressing her hand to the gss. “Not from me. Not from this.”

  Rafa’s body trembled. His knees buckled.

  And The Mouth whispered behind him:“Welcome to the family.”