CHAPTER ONE:THE DAY I DIED

Dawn stretched its pale fingers across our village, lighting the mud-brick homes and narrow paths I had walked since childhood. My mother laughed as she chased my youngest brother with a piece of cloth, threatening to wipe his dusty face. My father’s voice carried from outside, deep and steady, reminding us that the world was still safe.

We were wrong,Soo wrong!!!

The sound that tore the morning open was not thunder.

It was not wind.

It was a scream—raw, sudden, and full of knowing.

My father was inside in an instant. His hands trembled as he gripped my shoulders, his eyes searching my face as if trying to memorise it. “They’ve come,” he said. Not who. Just they. As if the name itself was too heavy to speak.

My mother did not cry. She moved with frantic purpose, pulling at loose boards beneath the floor, revealing the narrow hollow we had prayed we would never use. My brothers surrounded me like walls made of flesh and love.

“No matter what happens,” my mother whispered, pressing her forehead to mine, “you stay hidden. You hear me, Sabrina? You stay alive.”

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to fight.

Instead, I nodded.

They lowered me into the darkness as if laying me into a grave. The floor closed above me, sealing away the light—and them.

Then the Aurelian Vanguard descended.

Their arrival was announced by the pounding of boots and the clash of metal against wood. Doors were forced open. Homes were invaded. Orders were shouted in cold, commanding voices that carried no doubt, no mercy.

Through the narrow cracks, I watched my world end.

I saw my father stand in the centre of our home, unarmed, unbowed, his shoulders squared as though courage alone might shield us. I saw one of my brothers step forward despite my mother’s desperate grip on his arm. I saw her reach for them both, her face twisted with fear and love and fury.

They did not beg for themselves.

They begged for me.

“Please,” my mother cried, her voice breaking apart. “There’s nothing here. We are nothing.”

But the Vanguard did not come to listen.

I pressed my hands over my mouth as the sounds rose—voices shouting, furniture crashing, the sharp finality of lives being taken one by one. Each sound struck my chest like a hammer. Each breath felt stolen.

I watched my family fall.

Not all at once.

Slowly.

Cruelly.

My brothers tried to protect her. My father tried to protect them all. My mother never stopped reaching—never stopped standing—never stopped loving, even as the world punished her for it.

And I did nothing.

I lay in the dirt, shaking, swallowing my screams, because living was the last command they had given me.

Fire followed the Vanguard when they left. Smoke crept into my hiding place, burning my eyes, my lungs, my memories. The village that had raised me dissolved into ash and silence.

When the sounds finally stopped, the quiet was unbearable.

I waited long after it was safe—long after my heart had splintered beyond repair. When I emerged, the sun was already lowering itself from the sky, as if ashamed to look at what remained.

There were no voices calling my name.

No arms waiting to hold me.

Only ruin.

That was the moment I understood:

my body still breathed, but the girl named Sabrina had been buried beneath that floor.

That was the day my heart was emptied.

That was the day my soul went silent.

That was the day I died.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***