The Sharpest Jewel | Alfie Solomons |

- 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏 -

Aberdeen, Scotland 1936

"The boy I love is up in the gallery,
The boy I love is looking now at me,

There he is, can't you see, waving his handkerchief,
As merry as a robin that sings on a tree.

The boy that I love, they call him a cobbler,
But he's not a cobbler, allow me to state..."

Florence lay draped across the crimson velvet sofa like a fallen duchess in a tragic portrait—opulent, ruined. The hem of her dress hung limp over the armrest, her limbs strewn in disarray, as if some unseen storm had flung her there. Around her, golden trinkets glittered where they had scattered—earrings, a brooch, the thin chain of a broken necklace—catching the morning light like tiny suns. Once precious, now discarded offerings at the altar of violence.

Her dress, a pale blue once crisp with starch and grace, now clung to her like a second skin, soaked and darkened at the shoulder by a wide, sickening smear of blood. It had dried at the edges, turning rust-brown, but fresh crimson still bloomed at the center, fed by some wound she hadn't yet dared to trace. The air was thick with the scent of perfume and iron—a clash of sweetness and ruin. Something lovely had died here. Maybe it was her.

A blade of sunlight broke through the narrow parting in the red velvet curtains, slashing across the room with surgical precision. Dust swam in its path, disturbed only by the faint rise and fall of her chest.

The room, once a haven of velvet drapes and old brass, was unnaturally still—suspended in that trembling hush before catastrophe announces itself fully. No birdsong, no voices from the street. Even the record player in the corner had spun itself into silence, its last note stretched too far into memory.

Her breath came shallow, wheezing like a moth caught in the throat of a glass jar. Her eyelids fluttered open, slow as wings dragged through oil, and she blinked into the fractured, dizzying patterns of light that danced on the ceiling above. The pain behind her eyes pulsed with a sickening rhythm, like distant drums echoing underwater—muffled, but unrelenting and then the fear came creeping, slow and serpentine.

She tried to reach for clarity, a memory, anything before this quiet nightmare. A flash: the endless blue of a sky above the sea, waves foaming white against jagged rocks.

A voice—calling her name. Warm, familiar. Male. But it slipped through her mind like smoke, impossible to catch. The more she tried to remember, the more it receded, dragged out by a tide that answered to no moon.

Now all that remained was this moment: aching, silent, and real. Her hand rose to the back of her head, fingers groping through her tangled dark hair until they found the wound.

A sharp grunt escaped her lips before she could bite it down. The skin there was torn, wet, and sticky, the flesh uneven and jagged. Not a slice—no, this hadn't been surgical. This was brute force. A strike meant to knock her out, not to kill—at least, not yet. Her fingers shook as they fell back to her lap, smeared with blood and disbelief.

Then she noticed: the silence wasn't just inside her. It was everywhere. No birds. No footsteps in the corridor. Not even the wind against the windowpanes. The stillness had a weight to it, as though the world had stopped breathing just to listen.

Her eyes drifted toward the side table, landing on the old brass clock that ticked away without pity. 7:14 AM. The hands twitched forward without hesitation, marking time with cruel indifference. She stared, half-expecting them to shudder and roll backward, to offer her a second chance. But time was merciless. It always had been.