FRACTURED LIGHT

PROLOGUE

People said darkness came at night.

They were wrong.

Darkness came quietly.

It sat at dinner tables where nobody spoke.
It hid behind fake smiles and slammed doors.
It lived in bruised hearts and whispered things that sounded too much like truth.

Selah Vale was fifteen when she first heard the whispers.

Not in a dream.
Not in church.
Not in her head.

Behind her.

"You were never the chosen one."

The voice crawled through the darkness of her room like smoke.

Selah froze beneath her blanket, heart pounding against her ribs.

Across the hall, her mother was crying again.
Her father was pretending not to hear.
And downstairs, Caleb laughed like light still lived in the house.

Then the whisper came again.

Closer.

"You do not belong here."

Something moved in the corner of her room.

Not human.
Not shadow.
Something worse.

Its eyes opened slowly in the dark.

And smiled.