Ciel's Sister Celeste

Chapter 1: The Ritual

Celeste awoke with a start, groaning as her entire body was wracked with pain. Familiar straw poked into her skin, and she looked around wildly, only seeing the usual dark grey bars that marked her current home. Celeste sighed and slowly sat up, wincing as she felt a few of the whip marks on her back tear open again. Unlike her body, Celeste's mind was racing, unable to process what she had dreamed. It had been warm, and bright. She wanted it back. Why was she here? She did not know. Could not even remember a time before this, but the dream...

"Hey! Mealtime brats!!" A gruff voice called, dragging Celeste from the thoughts her dreams had provoked.

A man with blonde hair walked past each cage, throwing a piece of moldy bread into each one, and watching with a sneer as other children tore into it, having not eaten since the week before. When he reached her cage, however, his sneer turned into a broad grin, one that set her on edge. Instead of throwing a piece of bread into her cage like he had with the others, the man unlocked it and roughly dragged Celeste to her feet. She gasped with pain and weakly tried to escape from his grip, but he only tightened his grip more, forming more bruises on severely bruised skin. Celeste continued to struggle, but it was wasted effort. Her body was too weak from being beaten the day before, exhaustion dragging at her limbs, making every movement slow and weak. She whimpered pitifully as she was dragged up a flight of stairs and carelessly thrown onto a table. What had she done this time? She could not remember doing anything wrong. She continued to whimper as he tied her hands and feet together, burning her skin as he did so. Once he finished, he walked away, and Celeste had a moment to take in her new surroundings. She was in a large room, surrounded by candles and several people in black cloaks. Her whimpers grew louder as she felt dread sink in her stomach.

Just as she started to shift, the blonde man approached again, this time in a black cloak like those around them. She only knew it was him because of his eyes, piercing and cruel.

"It's about time you were used." He whispered with glee, slowing his pace to make each footfall deliberate and loud as he began to chant.
The chant slowly grew louder as more people joined. Celeste could not understand the words, but she certainly understood the knife in the man's hands as he approached. She began to panic, struggling to move, get off the table, anything to get away from the man and his knife. She even tried shouting, something she had not tried in ages, not since the first punishment she could remember. Celeste even tried to kick the man once he reached the table, despite knowing it was pointless. The man only snarled, pausing his chant to force her still, and continuing for another few seconds before the room went deathly quiet, and he swiftly plunged the knife into her stomach, forcefully twisting it up as he did so.

Pain spread throughout her entire body. Celeste wanted to scream, to cry, to make some sort of noise, but all that came out has a gurgle and a cough as blood clogged her throat and forced its way out of her mouth. Her vision started to go blurry, then everything slowly went dark, and all she heard were screams as sensation faded and she succumbed to the blissful embrace of unconsciousness.

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The demon blinked, startled, as he realized he had been summoned from his home by a group of humans, something that was supposed to be impossible. He started to examine his surrounding, surprise turning to anger as he realized what had happened. In order to summon a demon, it typically required a sacrifice, and these people had used a child. A child had been starved, tortured and stabbed, all so they could summon a demon and control it. Unfortunately for them, they had not broken the child's spirit, and instead of the other type of demon they were probably after, they had summoned one of his kind. Unluckily for them, the specific demon they had summoned had been him, and the demon refused to participate in this kind of ritual. Part of the reason he was supposed to be impossible to summon. Rituals had to be willing on both ends after all.