Page 128 of Fractured Devotion
I don’t know who the ghost is.
But I know what they want.
Control.
And they’re willing to burn anyone who stands in their way.
Chapter 40 – Celeste - Mirrors That Remember
I’m back in Diagnostics. Alone this time. The door is locked, the lights dimmed to their lowest setting, and the screens flickering low like the room is holding its breath. The last time I was in here, I cracked open a file that ripped something loose in me. I haven’t been the same since.
I should be terrified. But I’m not.
I should be somewhere else, sleeping, recovering, stabilizing. But I’m here. Digging. The need to know has settled behind my ribs like a second heartbeat.
Echo’s backlogs are like a minefield of half-formed ideas and broken protocols. I bypass the interface overlays and dig directly into the root structure. It’s like peeling open a corpse to study where the rot began.
And that’s when I see it.
A buried directory taggedPROJECT CELESTIA. There’s no author signature, no timestamps, and no explanation. Just a path to a single executable. A compressed video file.
The second I open it, the screen fills with static. And for a moment, it looks like nothing.
Then—
A girl. Maybe seven, with thin arms and dark braids. She’s wearing a hospital gown two sizes too big, and she’s sitting in a white room. There’s a closet in the corner, and a man’s voice is humming off-camera. Humming something soft. A lullaby.
My mouth goes dry.
The girl is me.
She glances up at the camera, blinks twice, and then—
A door slams.
The humming stops.
And she screams.
It’s not loud and not theatrical. Just raw, instinctual terror.
She rushes to the closet and throws herself inside. The camera doesn’t follow. It just keeps rolling.
I step back from the console like it’s burned me. My hand finds my mouth. I don’t remember this.
But in fact, I do.
Not as a memory, but as a sensation. A cold floor, splinters in my knees, gardenia and iron…
I shut the file. My hands are trembling.
I thought Harper’s death broke something in me. But this…
This fractures the foundation.
Someone was filming me, studying me. Long before I had a name for what was happening.
And only one person has ever hinted at knowing more than they should.
