Page 1 of Fractured Devotion
Prologue – Celeste - The Origin Wound
I remember the dark first.
It isn’t a peaceful kind of dark. It’s the kind that hums behind your eyes, presses down on your chest, and makes the corners of your mind turn in on themselves. The kind that breathes.
I’m not supposed to be awake, but the screaming downstairs doesn’t let me sleep. I press my face into the shoulder of Mr. Buttons, my rabbit. His fur smells like attic dust and lavender detergent, a scent that used to mean safety. Tonight, it’s just another lie.
The closet is small, but I’m smaller. Wedged between coats that smell like old perfume and something rotted—maybe from the boxes Mom never unpacked—I try not to move. Try not to breathe. But my chest heaves like a pump leaking air. The door has slats, and I can see shadows flickering past them like ghosts made of flame.
Mom screamed five minutes ago. Then came a thud that made the walls shake. Then silence.
Silence is worse.
The cassette recorder on the shelf above me crackles like something exhaling smoke. I forgot it was even there. It belonged to Mom. It used to play lullabies—tender, calm things I’d drift off to when the world wasn’t jagged. Tonight, it skips and sputters.
A lullaby begins, but it’s wrong. It’s slower, like someone dragging fingers across a piano while it burns. The melody twists through the air like a serpent, coiling around my neck.
“One for sorrow, two for shame…”
I whisper the rhyme back to myself, my lips trembling. I don’t know where I first heard it. Maybe a book. Maybe my head.
“Three for blood, four for flame…”
A floorboard groans.
Not from the closet, from outside.
The silence is broken by footsteps now. It’s not running and not frantic, but measured, calm, and coiled with unseen purpose. Each one lands like a countdown. I clutch Mr. Buttons tighter and stuff myself deeper into the corner. My back scrapes the wall.
The steps stop in front of the door.
I stop breathing.
The door creaks. It opens only halfway. But it’s enough to see.
He’s tall and dressed in black. Not like a man in a suit. Not like Dad. It’s like a shadow wearing clothes. His face is a mask—cracked porcelain and shaped like a doll’s, but the smile is wrong. It’s too high. And the eyes are black holes.
He kneels.
My rabbit falls from my hand.
“Celestia,” he whispers.
He says it like a prayer. Like he’s not looking at me. Like he’s remembering me. The voice is soft. Too soft. It slides into my skin and hooks there.
He doesn’t reach for me. He doesn’t move. He just watches.
Then he stands and walks away.
Just like that.
Gone.
I don’t move for a long time. Maybe forever.
Eventually, the lullaby dies with a final, staticky wheeze.
My legs are jelly, and my hands shake. But the door’s still open, and I crawl out like something half-born. I leave the room and creep down the stairs, each step a breath held too long.
