She does not sleep.
Not in the way mortals understand it. There is no dreaming in the Crimson Fairy's mind. Only the humming. The rustling. The endless shifting of memory through her veins like blood made from paper cuts and candlewax.
She sits in the stillness of the mansion's heart, in the library that is not always there, on a chair built from the bones of bargains.
The silence is her cradle.
The silence is her curse.
But tonight, it is different.
Tonight, she bleeds.
Not from skin. But from thought.
From self.
The fairy—who once had a name—presses her fingers to her temple. The rustling in her skull grows louder. Not from books. Not from lost voices.
From herself.
"You showed her too much," says a voice from behind her left eye.
"You gave her memory."
Another voice, softer, from the crook of her spine:
"You remember her father's words. You should not."
She tries to stand, but her legs don't belong to her. They are threads sewn from years she cannot reclaim. One foot is a boy's broken promise. The other, a lullaby forgotten by a mother who never returned.
She lurches forward and the mirrors in the upper atrium flicker with her movement.
Each reflection shows a different face.
All of them hers.
None of them real.
She staggers to the far wall of the library. Her wings, once sharp and regal, now trail behind her like torn silk. The glow in them is dimming—each flicker an echo of a forgotten wish.
She reaches the binding pillar, where the oldest books sleep. These tomes were never written by hand. They were grown—from the offerings of those who asked for too much.
Her fingers brush the spine of the one she fears the most.
It bears her name.
Not "Crimson Fairy."
Her true name. The one spoken only once, long ago, beneath moonless sky and earth rich with blood.
She does not open the book.
She cannot.
Inside are the seven days before she became what she is. Inside are the choices. The questions. The moment she said yes.
She stares at it. She waits.
She listens.
More coming soon. The next section will take us deeper into her fractured memories—when she was still human, still hurting, still loved.
Stay with me.
She remembers the day she found the mansion, a place swallowed by shadow and silence. Her name was once Mirelle—a girl with a heart heavy enough to crush the stars.
The village whispered of a curse. They said she was broken, that sorrow clung to her like a second skin. But she had no wish to heal—only to understand the ache that clawed beneath her ribs.
One night, desperate and bleeding from the weight of loss, she stumbled through the library's shattered windows. Books were scattered like fallen leaves. Dust motes danced in the thin light, but something deeper pulled her in.
She found a faded red tome, bound with thorns and wrapped in a bloodstained ribbon. The words inside were alive—they whispered secrets in a language only broken souls could hear.
That night, she spoke the three questions.
The Crimson Fairy was born from the echo of her pain.
The voices in her mind argued.
"You chose this," one whispered cruelly, like a shard of ice.
"But it was not meant to be. You should have died," another lamented, soft as ash.
She screamed, and the library shuddered.
The walls bled pages. The air thickened.
She was no longer Mirelle. No longer a girl.
She was the keeper of wishes—the threadmaster—the fairy who took without mercy.
Yet inside, a child wept.
The library shifted again. Shadows lengthened. A mirror caught her eye, reflecting a girl with empty hands, reaching for something she could never grasp.
"I am not a monster," she whispered.
"But I am not free."
Her voice cracked like old parchment.
The threads of her past frayed, twisting with every memory she could no longer hold.
She was trapped between what she was and what she must become.
She walks through the endless halls of her mind, where echoes of lost wishes swirl like smoke. The faces of those who came before flicker—some pleading, some angry, some resigned. Each is a thread in the tangled web of her existence.
They speak without words, their voices stitched into the seams of her being. They ask for release, for remembrance, for mercy. But she can offer none. Not now. Not ever.
Her own thoughts betray her, unraveling like brittle parchment.
"Why must I endure this?"
"Because you said yes."
"Because you wanted to live."
"Because you are both savior and prisoner."
In this realm, pain is a currency, and she is bankrupt.
The crimson glow flickers weakly, reflecting her wavering strength. The weight of centuries presses down, a relentless tide of grief and regret. She reaches for memories that have become poison—laughter stolen, love forgotten, sacrifice unpaid.
There was once a name she cherished, a voice that called her from the darkness. But that name is lost beneath the layers of offerings and debts, replaced by a crown of thorns she wears invisibly.
Each wish granted is another wound. Each sacrifice feeds the hunger inside her chest.
She is the hunger.
She is the hollow.
In rare moments, she glimpses fragments of who she was—a girl with dreams, with hope, with a heart still beating beneath the cursed skin. But those moments vanish like smoke, snuffed out by the endless demands of the bargain.
Her mind is a labyrinth, twisting through corridors of shadow and light, where memories clash with fragments of forgotten truths.
Sometimes, she wonders if the fairy is a prison or a curse. If the hunger is a punishment or a blessing.
And in the deepest dark, where no light reaches, she hears a faint, sorrowful song—a lullaby that might be her own.
The fairy's thoughts twist like thorned vines, choking every spark of peace. Her mind drifts through a mist where faces blur and fade—those who made wishes, those who paid the price, those who became threads in her endless tapestry.
She recalls a boy who once begged her for mercy, offering his laughter as currency. She took it, but the laughter turned brittle and hollow, echoing back to her like a broken promise. Sometimes she still hears it, a ghost in the corridors of her mind.
There was a mother who sacrificed her memories of love to save a child. The fairy keeps those memories locked away, precious and fragile, a bittersweet echo she can never release.
And then there is herself—a thousand selves—fragmented and bleeding, fighting for a shard of light in a realm of shadows.
Her wings, once vibrant as blood, now hang heavy with the weight of endless sacrifice. Each feather is a story, a soul, a pain. They rustle softly like dying embers.
She whispers to the empty halls, "I am not what I wished to be."
The mansion listens.
The walls breathe.
The books shiver.
And somewhere, deep within the library's heart, the first thread stirs—waiting for the moment to unravel and remake her.
The Crimson Fairy's voice falters as she sings a lullaby—one she barely remembers learning, but it echoes through the mansion's bones. It is a song of sorrow, of broken promises, of wishes made in darkness.
The Crimson Lullaby
Hush now, child, do not weep,
The night will guard your restless sleep.
But know the price that wishes keep—
The heart you give, you must reap.
Wings of fire, wings of decay,
From the ashes, you are born.
Every whisper, every scorn,
Feeds the hunger, worn and lost.
In the shadowed, silent halls,
Memory twists and darkness calls.
The crimson fairy wails and hums,
Behind the paper, behind the walls.
Ask your questions, speak your plea,
But once given, you're never free.
The price of dreams is misery,
In the heart's lost treasury.
The lullaby fades like smoke, leaving the Crimson Fairy alone with her thorns, her memories, and the eternal hunger that never ceases.