THE SOUND OF STONE GRINDING BONES
Mei Lian's hands did not tremble when she placed her first stone.
They trembled afterward.
The child across from her sat unnaturally straight, spine pulled taut by the rope that vanished into the earth behind her. With each shallow breath, the rope tightened and loosened, tightening and loosening, as though something below were testing the tension of a fishing line.
The Go board between them pulsed faintly.
Not metaphorically.
It expanded and contracted like a lung.
Liang Wen forced himself to stay upright despite the fire in his mangled ankle. He could not look away. Something inside him insisted that witnessing this mattered — that turning his back would be a kind of betrayal worse than death.
"Play," the voice murmured from the air.
The child coughed.
A wet, choking sound.
A black stone slid from her mouth onto the board, trailing a string of saliva and blood. It landed with a dull click.
First move.
Mei Lian closed her eyes briefly, as if committing a prayer she did not believe in.
Then she responded.
White stone to the upper right corner.
The board shuddered.
THE COST OF TERRITORY
The child did not move her hands.
They were still bound behind her back.
Instead, the rope jerked.
Her head snapped forward violently, teeth clacking together with a sound like breaking porcelain. Another stone forced its way up her throat. She gagged, face turning purple, before it spat out between her lips and dropped onto the grid.
Each placement was torture.
Each move an act of violation.
Liang Wen's stomach twisted.
"This is wrong," he whispered hoarsely.
Mei Lian did not look at him.
"Of course it is."
Her voice was flat.
Controlled.
Fragile.
The opening proceeded with frightening speed. Mei Lian played with precision born from decades of discipline, but the child's moves were equally flawless — cold, efficient, utterly without hesitation.
Whoever — whatever — guided her knew Go at a level beyond mastery.
Midgame arrived like a blade.
The board had grown warmer. Thin lines of blood seeped from the carved grid, pooling in the intersections like tiny red lakes.
Then Mei Lian made a mistake.
Not obvious.
Not catastrophic.
But real.
A single loose connection.
The child's head jerked violently to the side.
Her jaw stretched wider than human anatomy allowed.
A stone forced itself up from her stomach, distending the skin of her throat as it climbed. You could see it moving beneath the flesh, pushing past bone, forcing the esophagus outward until the skin split at the corner of her mouth.
It dropped onto the board.
Black.
Perfectly placed.
Mei Lian's eyes widened.
The trap was complete.
PUNISHMENT
The board convulsed.
Something beneath the skin surface began to move — not blood, not muscle, but shapes. Dozens of small, hard protrusions traveled through the flesh toward Mei Lian's side.
Her sleeve tightened.
She gasped.
Under her skin, white lumps pushed outward, crawling up her arm like insects trapped beneath paper.
Stones.
Inside her body.
"No—" she choked.
The lumps gathered at her wrist.
Her skin split.
One by one, white stones forced themselves out through the wound, slick with blood and tissue, dropping onto the board with soft, obscene plops.
Mei Lian bit down on her own sleeve to stifle a scream.
Liang Wen did not.
His shout tore from him raw and helpless.
"STOP!"
The voice answered calmly:
"Captured stones must be removed."
Mei Lian's arm went limp, blood pouring from the ragged holes. Her breathing came in shallow, shuddering bursts.
But she did not faint.
She leaned forward.
Studied the board.
And played again.
THE TURNING POINT
Pain sharpened her focus.
Wen could see it — the shift behind her eyes. The horror receded, replaced by something colder. Something lethal.
She began sacrificing territory deliberately.
Corner after corner abandoned.
Groups left to die.
The child's head twitched erratically, as if confused.
Because Mei Lian was no longer trying to win by points.
She was hunting for a kill.
A total encirclement.
A strategy so ruthless it bordered on suicidal.
Wen realized what she intended — and terror flooded him anew.
If she failed, she would lose everything.
If she succeeded…
The child would not merely lose.
She would be destroyed.
"Mei Lian," he whispered, voice breaking. "She's just a—"
"Do not finish that sentence."
Her tone was ice.
"If you believe she is still human, you will hesitate. If you hesitate, I die."
Another move.
Another.
The board's pulsing grew frantic, like a heart in cardiac arrest.
The black stones were being strangled.
THE CHILD'S AWAKENING
For the first time, the child made a sound that was not mechanical.
A whimper.
Her sewn eyelids fluttered.
A thin thread snapped.
One eye forced itself open.
The eyeball inside was not whole.
It was composed of dozens of tiny black stones packed together, shifting and grinding against one another like a nest of beetles.
They rotated.
Focused on Mei Lian.
The child's voice emerged, layered with another deeper tone beneath it.
"Please."
Mei Lian froze.
Just for a fraction of a second.
But the board noticed.
A white stone cracked down the middle.
Blood leaked from the fissure.
The deeper voice spoke again through the child's mouth:
"Mercy is illegal."
Mei Lian's jaw tightened.
Tears slid silently down her face.
"I know."
She placed the killing move.
ERASURE
The effect was instantaneous.
Every black stone on the board vibrated violently.
A high-pitched whine filled the air, rising until it became unbearable. Wen clamped his hands over his ears, but the sound was inside his skull.
The child began to scream.
Not in pain.
In dissolution.
Cracks spread across her skin, glowing from within with a dull white light. Her body split along those lines like porcelain under heat.
Inside her was not flesh.
It was packed solid with stones.
Thousands of them.
They spilled out as her form collapsed, cascading onto the ground in a clattering avalanche that sounded horribly like laughter.
The rope snapped back into the earth.
Silence.
Where the child had been, there was now only a mound of black stones slowly sinking into the soil.
Mei Lian remained seated.
Hands in her lap.
Blood dripping steadily from her ruined arm.
She stared at the empty space.
"I didn't save her," she whispered.
Wen limped forward despite the agony in his leg.
"You couldn't."
Her shoulders shook once.
Then stilled.
The voice returned.
"Mei Lian. Victory."
AFTERMATHS
The boards sank back into the ground, flesh dissolving into dirt as if it had never existed.
But the smell remained.
Copper.
Rot.
Something older.
Wen tore a strip from his robe and wrapped her arm as tightly as he could. She did not react, eyes distant, pupils dilated.
"Stay with me," he said urgently.
She looked at him slowly.
"Do you know what the worst part is?"
He didn't answer.
"I wanted to win."
Her lips trembled.
"I wanted her to disappear because that meant I would live."
She leaned forward until her forehead rested against his shoulder.
For a moment, she allowed herself to collapse.
Wen hesitated only briefly before putting his arms around her.
Her body was cold.
Shaking.
Human.
Above them, something vast shifted behind the clouds — an immense silhouette blotting out the stars for a heartbeat before vanishing.
Watching.
Measuring.
Selecting.
THE NEXT STAGE
The path up the mountain opened.
Where before there had been only dense forest, now a stone stairway climbed toward the summit, illuminated by lanterns that burned with sickly green fire.
At the top, barely visible through the mist, loomed a massive structure.
Not a palace.
Not a temple.
Something older.
Its rooflines curved like claws. Its walls appeared to be built from enormous rectangular slabs — too smooth to be natural stone, too irregular to be human construction.
Wen helped Mei Lian stand.
"Can you walk?"
She nodded once.
"We don't have a choice."
Behind them, the forest had closed.
The path down no longer existed.
Only upward remained.
As they climbed, Wen noticed something carved into each step.
Names.
Thousands of them.
Some ancient.
Some recent.
Many scratched so deeply the grooves had filled with dark residue.
Blood.
Halfway up, Mei Lian stopped.
"Liang Wen."
"Yes?"
"If only one of us survives…"
He tightened his grip on her hand.
"Don't."
"You must listen."
Her eyes met his, fierce despite the tears.
"Promise you will not throw your life away trying to save me."
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Because he knew already—
He would.
At the top of the stairs stood a pair of massive doors.
They opened inward without being touched.
A gust of air rushed out.
It smelled like old graves.
And something else.
Something sweet.
Like decaying flowers.
Inside was darkness.
And the faint sound of stones clicking together.
Not placed by hands.
Grinding.
Endlessly.
As if an enormous game were being played just beyond sight.
The voice spoke one final time that night:
"Welcome to the Inner Board."
The doors slammed shut behind them.
And far below Mount Heiwu, in villages that would never know why, dogs began to howl and would not stop until dawn.