Chapter 1
PART 1:
“Arthur, don’t touch it!”
Fiona screamed the words before anyone else in the room understood why.
The black scissors were already in her hand.
Rain hammered against the tall windows of the mansion bedroom.
The chandelier above them glowed cold blue against the walls, making the room feel less like a child’s sickroom and more like a place where secrets came to die.
Arthur, seven years old, sat curled on the bed in pale blue pajamas.
His tiny hands clutched another white pillow to his chest.
His face was wet with tears, but no sound came out.
Fiona pinned the pillow on the mattress with her left hand and drove the scissors into the seam with her right.
“Stop!” the man in the black suit shouted behind her.
Fiona did not stop.
She ripped the blade across the fabric.
The pillow burst open.
White stuffing spilled out.
Then something dark moved inside it.
A cluster of black insects and worm-like things tumbled onto the clean sheets, twisting and crawling in every direction.
Arthur shrieked.
The man in the suit froze three steps from the bed.
The old doctor near the window went completely still.
Fiona threw her arm between Arthur and the torn pillow.
“Don’t touch it,” she said again, lower this time, her voice shaking. “Don’t touch anything.”
The man stared at the ruined pillow.
Then at Fiona.
His mouth opened in disbelief.
“What did you do?”
Fiona’s breath came fast, but she did not move away from the boy.
She placed the scissors down on the sheet, then carefully pulled the torn fabric wider with two gloved fingers.
The inside of the pillow was not just stuffing.
A dark plastic mesh had been sewn deep inside it.
Something black and sticky clung to the fibers.
Tiny metal points glinted under the chandelier.
Fiona pointed at it without touching.
“This was inside his pillow.”
Arthur trembled behind her.
The old doctor rushed to the bed.
He gently turned Arthur’s head, lifting the hair at the back of his neck.
There, under the hairline, were small red dots.
Not scratches.
Not a rash.
Punctures.
The doctor’s face turned gray.
“Those marks are punctures.”
The man in the black suit took half a step back.
May you like
For the first time that night, his anger looked like fear.
👉 But before Fiona could prove who put it there, the room had to be sealed like a crime scene…
