Chapter 67: The Fragment of Madness

​[CONTENT WARNING: This Chapter contains highly disturbing content, including graphic depictions of violence and themes of cannibalism. Reader discretion is strongly advised.]

The hallucinations grew more voracious with every passing day, whispering cruel commands that she could no longer defy. It—the voice in her mind—convinced her that survival was hidden within the decaying flesh of the corpse.

Bit by bit, the pale ivory of his bones began to breach the surface, unearthed by a hunger that had transformed from a primal need into a monstrous obsession.

The morning light was her only sanctuary, a fleeting mercy as pale sunbeams filtered through the dusty windows. But the night… the night was a realm of unadulterated horror. In the suffocating dark, Peter’s phantom would materialize, his voice a jagged blade in the silence.

> “You devoured me,” he would hiss, his hollow eyes fixed upon her. “Look at my bones, Olivia. You ate my flesh until nothing remained. You are a monster.”

>

The symphony of those accusations, coupled with the relentless gloom, finally shattered the last fragile glass of her sanity.

After a month of tomb-like isolation, the heavy door groaned on its hinges. A servant stepped into the room, his hand immediately flying to his face to mask the overwhelming stench of putrefaction.

“Ugh, this is foul…” he gagged, his voice trembling.

His eyes adjusted to the dimness, falling first upon the remains of Peter—half-rotted by time, half-consumed by something far more sinister. Then, his gaze drifted to Olivia.

She stood trembling in the shadows, swaying on the brink of collapse, whispering to the cadaver as if it were a lover.

“Peter,” she murmured, her voice a ghostly rasp. “Just a small piece this time… just a fragment. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt anymore.”

The tray slipped from the servant’s nerveless fingers, clattering to the floor. His face drained of all color, replaced by a mask of pure, visceral terror.

“Monster! Abomination!” he shrieked, his voice breaking the stagnant air. “My God, she has eaten the dead!”

He fled, his screams echoing through the stone corridors like a funeral knell, summoning the rest of the household. Olivia, driven by a desperate, fading strength, began to crawl toward the light of the doorway.

Through the thick, cloying scent of decay, a new fragrance reached her—a scent she could recognize even in the depths of her madness. It was Elvira.

Elvira stood there, framed by the doorway, a silken handkerchief pressed to her nose. She did not recoil in horror; instead, a slow, predatory smile curled her lips. It was a look of pure, malicious triumph as she watched Olivia wither in the dirt.

“You filthy creature,” Elvira spat, her voice dripping with a poisonous blend of mock horror and disdain. “My own sister, a scavenger of the dead. You are a monster, Olivia. A godless beast.”

Then, leaning down until her breath chilled Olivia’s ear, she whispered with a serpentine malice:

“Tell me… did you enjoy the taste of him?”

The words cut deeper than the jagged glass shard trembling in Olivia’s hand. She stared at Elvira, her lips quivering, the cloying, iron taste of decay still coating her tongue like a layer of ash. The glass slipped from her numb fingers, shattering against the stone.

A scream, primal and jagged, tore from her throat—a sound so broken it seemed to fracture the very air. In a frenzy of self-loathing, her fingernails clawed at her own skin, carving bloody furrows into her cheeks as if trying to peel away the sin of her existence.

“I am a monster!” she wailed. “What have I done? Oh God, what have I done?”

The hallway filled with servants, their faces contorted into masks of revulsion. In their eyes, she was no longer a child, nor a victim of their cruelty; she was an aberration, a glitch in the natural order.

Their silence was a verdict; their stares, the hammer that forged her into the very nightmare she feared.

And Olivia wept, for the most terrible realization had dawned: she had become exactly what they named her.

In a desperate act of purification, she pressed her tongue to the grime of the floor, scrubbing it against the rough stone until blood mingled with the dirt, trying to erase the memory of that taste. But her mind held onto it, etched as deeply as her own name.

Through the crowd, a woman erupted—the Duchess, Elvira’s mother. Seeing the broken girl on the floor, she let out a strangled cry and collapsed beside her, pulling Olivia’s bloodied form into a frantic embrace.

“Oh, my poor child!” she sobbed, her tears falling hot against Olivia’s cold skin. “What have they done to you? What have they turned you into?”

But Olivia’s tears had turned to stone. The shock had rendered her heart a barren wasteland, a desert where nothing could grow. She looked at the Duchess with hollow, vacant eyes.

The Duchess turned her tear-streaked face toward Elvira. “Why, Elvira? Why did you let your father do this to your own sister? How could you stand by?”

Elvira offered no answer. Her expression remained a cold, unreadable mask. Instead, she turned and vanished into the shadows, returning moments later with the Duke. She pointed a trembling finger, her voice pitching into a manipulative whine.

“Papa, look! Mother still chooses that… thing over me!”

The Duke’s eyes fell upon the scene with pure loathing. With a roar of disgust, he seized the Duchess by her hair, jerking her away from Olivia and striking her across the face with a sickening crack.

“Have you not learned?” he hissed at his wife. “A month locked in your chambers was clearly not enough. You are Elvira’s mother—remember that! Never let me see you wagging your tail for this bastard stray again. Do you understand?”

Under his command, the servants dragged the sobbing Duchess away, leaving a trail of broken cries behind them. The Duke turned his cold, predatory gaze back to Olivia.

“I always suspected there was a demon hiding behind those eyes,” he said, his voice low and final. “Now, I am certain.”

Olivia curled into herself, a small, broken heap on the cold floor. The word began to echo in the hollow chambers of her mind, rhythmic and relentless:

Monster. Monster. Monster.

Olivia exhaled a long, heavy breath, her voice settling into an unnatural, rhythmic calm. She recounted the atrocities as if they belonged to a stranger, her eyes anchored to a distant point on the wall—fixed and unblinking.

The words fell from her lips without a tremor, as detached as a recitation of the weather or a passage from a forgotten ledger.

“…Mmm, did you enjoy the tale?” she mused softly. “That was merely to answer why I know the texture of flesh. But the story of Brody and Matthias… that is another matter entirely.”

Her hands lay motionless in her lap, her tone unwavering. It was not the voice of a victim, nor that of a child; it was the hollow echo of someone who had long ago bolted the doors on her own agony.

Across from her, Isabella sat frozen. She had tried to breathe through the narration, to listen with the stoic grace of an ally. But as Olivia spoke with that chilling, crystalline indifference, Isabella’s composure shattered.

The weight of the words pressed against her chest until tears spilled over, tracing frantic paths down her cheeks.

“Olivia…” she whispered, her voice fractured. “How… how did you endure such a thing alone?”

Olivia finally turned to her. Her pale eyes were empty vessels, unreadable and cold.

“I didn’t endure,” she replied silkily. “I simply continued to breathe. Besides, why do you weep now? You’ve always detested me. This didn’t happen to you.”

Something inside Isabella broke. She lunged forward, gathering Olivia into a desperate, tender embrace. Olivia stiffened in surprise but did not resist; neither did she cling back.

She allowed herself to be held, her body limp, her gaze still wandering in that far-off wasteland.

Isabella’s tears soaked into Olivia’s hair, her arms tightening as if she could shield the girl from a world that had already done its worst. But Olivia remained silent, telling herself once more that the story she had just uttered was a lie.

It had to be. For if it were true, she could not possibly be alive to tell it.

“Are you finished?” Olivia’s voice cut through the sobbing, devoid of warmth or sympathy.

Isabella stumbled over her words, trying to reclaim her dignity. She had long convinced herself that their bond was merely a fragile alliance—two shadows waiting for the House of Tharon to fall.

But now, faced with Olivia’s unblinking stare, she felt a tether much heavier and more terrifying. Olivia reached into her pocket, offering a silk handkerchief. Then, she traced a finger along Isabella’s damp cheek.

“You cry like a babe,” Olivia murmured, her touch delicate but her eyes sharp. “One day you will realize that tears are a currency that buys nothing. Sob until your breath fails you—it changes nothing. Unless you strike at the root of the rot, the tears will never end.”

“I… I just don’t understand how they could do that to a child,” Isabella choked out. “You were barely twelve…”

Olivia tilted her head, her expression vacant. “Ha. Yes. They did many things. And yes, I cried. I cried until madness pressed against the very edges of my mind. The hallucinations… they haunted me. But that is the past now.”

She leaned in, her breath ghosting against Isabella’s ear.

“Since I have shared this much… would you like to know why I could never be the wife Matthias desired? And why I fear Elvira to such a harrowing degree?”

Isabella’s tear-filled eyes widened with a fresh surge of dread. Olivia looked like a woman who had finally found a vessel for her burdens and intended to empty them all at once. Isabella’s hand trembled as she took Olivia’s hand with newfound tenderness.

“Are you certain of this?” Isabella whispered. “If it pains you… you need not speak of it.”

“No, it does not pain me. It is merely history,” Olivia replied, her voice dropping to a low, cold hum. “But I wish to silence you, so that you never question my reasons regarding Elvira again.”

Isabella swallowed hard, her heart hammering against her ribs.

“Very well. Tell me. Tell me why.”

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