Novel & Cerita Fragments Of The Past

With my fingers, I slowly gathered every shard of the broken opal into a velvet pouch, not even leaving the tiniest speck of powder behind. Once they were all collected, I clutched the pouch tightly against my chest. "Andiamo, Mamma. We're never coming back to this place again."

But every time he thought of those indecent photos, and every time he looked at his home that was missing its mistress, the pain in his chest became too much to bear. He was afraid he would break if he stepped inside. But after a week, intense and endless longing filled his every thought. He had no choice but to seek comfort in the remnants of past happiness. When they stepped into the chamber and saw the mutilated tapestries inside, Liam's face went deathly pale. He frantically grabbed the tapestries and turned them over one by one. In a panicked voice, he muttered, "No… No, this can't be. It's impossible! Where's Mom?"

The relics had never lied to me. People had. History had. Even the archive itself, if in the wrong hands, could be sanitized into something more palatable, something less resistant. But the fragments? The fragments remembered everything. Days had passed since I’d seen him, the shadow-scarred aberration with a history of war etched into his skin and a catalog of too many silences to be coincidental. He still hadn’t told me his name. I still hadn’t told him mine. But he’d remained. In the stacks. In the quiet. In the gaps in my attention when I was trying to focus on something else.

Now, all at once, it hit me that everything I had given over the years had been nothing more than a one-sided effort. I was just about to book a flight when I realized I had forgotten my ID and passport, so I had no choice but to return home. The moment I opened the door, I was greeted by a mess all over the floor. Leftover snacks were scattered everywhere, along with half-finished dishes left behind. Right by the bedroom door lay something impossible to miss—a box of levonorgestrel pills and a piece of wine-red lingerie. Willow had never liked being physically intimate with me. Even Naomi's existence had come from a drunken incident.

Gideon stood next to her, trying not to laugh, like I was a joke to him. I grabbed his wrist. I wasn't trying to hurt him. I remembered what he was like when he first came to the city. I couldn't bring myself to do anything to him. He screamed anyway and jerked back. Charlotte rushed in and shoved me hard, sending me straight into a full-length mirror. It shattered, and I went face-first into the glass. Blood ran down my face as my palms and bare calves split open almost instantly. That was the day my life fell apart.

It was **Fragments**. I sat up and looked around. We were in a world made of "Partial Files." I saw half of a skyscraper from the 1990s. I saw a dog that was only a head and a tail. I saw a sunset that was frozen in a single, jagged frame. This was the "Graveyard of Ideas"—the place where the Syndicate and the Developers threw the things that didn't work. And standing in the middle of the graveyard was a man I never thought I’d see again.

"Listen to me,I know this is mentally draining for you, just know, You're not just some object that can be bought and sold. You're human with thoughts and feelings, and you deserve so much more than that." His words hit me hard,and my eyes got teary. "You're the only person who's ever treated me like that," I whispered. " You remember?" He shifts on his seat. " Don't all, Just some Fragments here and there" Levi leaned forward, his eyes showing how concerned he is, "Fragments? What kind of fragments?" he paused,"Anything that might give us a clue about what happened to you?" I shook my head, still struggling to process the jumbled memories that flashes through my mind. "Just bits and pieces,

Because even here— It didn’t belong. “You shouldn’t be here,” I said. “Neither should you.” That hit harder than I expected. “I didn’t choose this.” “Neither did we.” The plural made my stomach twist. “We?” I repeated. The thing shifted. Its form flickering more violently now. As if the connection itself was straining under its presence. “Fragments,” it said. “Broken pieces.” Of the source. Of the system. Of whatever this was. “And you’re trying to come through,” I realized.

We treaded cautiously, mindful of the sacredness that still lingered despite the desecration that had befallen this once-sacred abode. Amidst the wreckage, fragments of forgotten lives revealed themselves to us, like shards of a shattered mosaic. A broken pottery shard adorned with faded patterns spoke of the humble offerings made by pious devotees, their devotion immortalized in the fragments that remained. A tattered piece of fabric, once vibrant and rich with color, hinted at the tapestries that once adorned the temple walls, now faded and threadbare.

Five years ago, at our engagement party, I broke my fiancee's assistant Richard Greer's nose with a punch because I saw his hand slip under my fiancee Pearl Moran's skirt, groping her right out in the open. Yet when security arrived, Pearl stepped in front of Richard and frowned at me. "Alex, he was just messing around. Did you really have to hit him that hard?" To get back at me for Richard, she pulled strings to throw me in prison. My first day behind bars, I ended up in a cell Richard prepped for me. My ribs were broken in a beating. I was fed spoiled leftovers and forced to sleep on the cold concrete floor. The moment I got out, I boarded a flight to Eldermere without looking back.