FADED DAWN

Strike one

There are wounds that don’t bleed. Wounds that make you laugh louder, move faster, become a better servant. They live under the skin like a hum—always present, never heard.

The first wound was a whisper. It came on a warm Sunday wrapped in sun and song.

I had scrubbed the altar steps with precision, every line in the marble glinting under my palms. The white cloths were folded with military neatness, placed on pews like offerings. I was careful with the candles, how I touched the brass, how I set them upright. If heaven was watching, I wanted to be noticed.

He came with a swagger in his limp, a walk I once believed was holy. His voice always carried the authority of someone trusted too soon, too deeply. That day, it was softer.

“You always clean the altar like it’s your heart,” he said. A strange smile flickered on his face.

I smiled. I didn’t know how else to respond. The words felt like kindness.

It was not the first time he spoke to me, but it was the first time he saw me—really saw me—and I didn’t yet know that some eyes pierce only to possess. I thought his words were praise. In truth, they were scouting arrows, looking for cracks.

That day, the crack opened.

He lingered longer, asked me about my school, my books. Said I was “mature for my age.” I blushed, unsure what that meant, but I liked the way his attention wrapped around me like a shawl. I had been cold for so long.

My body, small and late to bloom, began to stand straighter.

He offered to walk me home.

I should’ve known. The spirit in me—ancient and quiet—shivered. But I had not yet learned to obey it. I silenced it with logic, told myself I was overthinking. He’s a man of God, I said. He just wants to help.

But predators pray in tongues too.

He didn’t touch me that day. He waited.

The weeks that followed were slow, sweet poison. Compliments became questions. Questions became confessions. He said I was different. That my spirit was “open,” that I made him feel peace. He said he dreamed of me.

No one had ever dreamt of me before.

By the time he asked to “pray together” in private, my shame had already learned to shape itself like consent.

His hands did not tremble when he touched me. Mine did not move to stop him.

He said it was “just so the devil knows he can’t win.” That we needed to seal my purity with something holy.

And when it was over, I lay still on the floor, fully clothed, but emptied in a way I cannot describe.

my spirit took leave immediately he crushed me beneath his weight.

was it shock

surprise

how was I to respond?

react

don't be shy he whispered hurriedly, that was what his brain said but his hands found a path he had mapped long ago

He didn’t take my body. He took my belief.

He thought he won.

He didn’t see the tremor that moved through my spine, the way the air pulsed. He didn’t hear the whisper that stirred behind my ribs—a voice that was not mine but had always been waiting.

I walked home that day and vomited behind the mango tree.

But I didn’t cry.

No. I didn't cry because something ancient in me had opened its eyes. It did not rage. It did not scream. It looked around quietly. Took note. The first thread of power curled inside my belly like smoke—gentle, undemanding, but absolute.

it made sure he was stripped of every essence, completely bare, the way a mother would defeather a chicken and inspect it carefully, pass it through the raw flames to ensure every single left over sprouting hair is gone

It was the beginning of the awakening.

He kept trying, weeks after. His shame twisted into anger. He said I led him on. That he had “sensed darkness” in me, and now he knew he was right. His prayers turned into curses.

He lost his gift that year. His tongue stuttered during a sermon, his words dried mid-verse. His limp became worse. He left the ministry shortly after. exiled? banished? but they ensured he was empty and that emptiness was very loud

I never said a word.

But I watched.

I watched how betrayal carves paths into you, not to destroy—but to dig deeper, make space for what must grow.

I began to walk differently. Not in arrogance, but with the certainty of someone who had met Death and been told “Not yet.” I could see clearer. The pain of others was louder. I became a well people drank from, unaware they were sipping from broken glass.

I did not become cruel.

I became still.

I started to understand that people like me—people with this oldness in their bones—do not get to be children. We are born with targets, and our innocence is bait.

And so I began collecting betrayals like beads—threading them, one by one.

The boy I once married in my mind? Casimir? He avoided me after the rumors spread. I saw him laugh when they said I had seduced a pastor. I saw his eyes move from my face to my chest, and that was the last time I looked at him as anything but a spectator.

The warmth was gone. I walked with my head high not because I believed I was beautiful, but because shame had become boring.

I was never anyone’s type, anyway. But I was everyone’s projection. And something about me made people want to touch just to see what would happen.

They didn’t know that every attempt unraveled them, not me.

I didn’t fight.

I became.