Father’s eyes would light up and sparkle every time he spoke of his wife and the way she could play the piano─ Japan's finest at the time, Kotone Inoue. She had done several tours, and though their time together was often brief, Kotone had always made time for Scott. She would tell him stories about her walks in the forest while she strummed on the piano for him. It was a dream, almost something out of a love song and after nearly two years of dating, Scott had proposed to her. They had built a life together, the two of them, but Kotone always had felt a deep emptiness and longed for a child. They finally made the firm decision to adopt and Celeste was warmly welcomed.
She had thought nothing of the fact that she couldn’t remember her past as a child, her therapist had explained that many adults couldn’t remember before the age of five or six. But something about all of it had always gotten beneath her skin. Not only could she not remember her childhood, when she tried her head would ache for hours─ a deep, dull ache that would sit behind her eye and put her out of commission for the remainder of the day. She hoped that one day, the mystery could be put to rest, but for now accepted that the universe simply wasn’t ready for her to.
Scott had finished his time in Tokyo for business and brought the two of them back to New York with him. Kotone played in small gigs around the city, but after a time, she began to develop horrible pains in her wrists and joints. She would get tired from just walking across a room. After her father had insisted, Kotone went to the doctor. She was devastated when she learned that it was rheumatoid arthritis. It may have brought her down, but Mama was an amazingly resilient woman. She switched to a life at home with Celeste, and dedicated herself to teaching the piano instead of performing on stage.
Eventually they moved from New York to Dallas when Daddy’s consulting business boomed there. The weather in Texas was a great change for Mama’s aches and pains. The heat was hard on her, especially in the summer, but it was much better than the cold, biting Winters of New York. With one trade off seemed to come another, however, and they soon found out the worst possible scenario─ the fatigue had been more than arthritis. It was cancer. Many times in my youth, I had questioned why so many things often seemed to go wrong. It was as if the world were punishing us for being alive. Especially anything that was unfortunate enough to be near Celeste. Her parents had always told her that was a silly notion─ bad things happened often, it was just the world’s way of balancing itself out. Celeste had never bought it, even as a child.
Though the treatments had gone well, and Father was sure that Mama would get better, she was bedridden for many months at a time. It was the combined effect of arthritis and chemo. Mama had even started using a walker, and Celeste and her father were filled with hope. She remembered watching from the bedside as her mother, barely thirty-five at the time, quickly transformed into an old woman.
Celeste would mourn from the hallway, listening to the fine pianist play as if she were a three year old touching the keys for the first time. For five agonizing years Mama slowly got better. She could never play like she once did, but still managed to teach Celeste. In turn, Celeste would teach the students as her mother tapped her foot in time. After the first three years, there were no more traces of cancer. Kotone stopped going to the doctor, and her strength seemed to return. They were all so elated, a happy family again─ and in the end, it was probably Kotone’s undoing. Celeste remembered it so vividly─ they were planning a quiet evening. Her father had called to tell her that he was on his way back from picking up the cake. She didn’t have many friends then, her parents had become her world. They would sit and watch the biographies of kings, or tyrants─ see the wonders of Nova, or the scantily clad flappers of the 1920’s.
It was a world within itself, and they the discoverers. Her mother had chosen a very special one that night: the Gods of Norse Mythology. It was one of her favorite subjects, and one she had spent several hours poring over any books that she could get her hands on. It had been the longest day in history at school. She was so desperate to get home that she had even forgotten her bag at school and had to circle back impatiently. She was sure that by the time she got home, half of the cake would have been missing. Dad could never could wait when there were sweets involved. She rounded the last bend and pumped her little legs as hard as she could. Celeste flew across their yard and flung open the front door, eager to hug her mom and whisper, ‘I love you’. Instead, she stared at the cold, lifeless body clinging to its precious piano and smiling─ the eyes glassy, yet still holding their deep amber glow. Even in death, mama was a vision of beauty.
Celeste and her father had later learned that the cancer had spread throughout the lymph nodes in her chest. She had to have known, the doctor said that she must have been in excruciating pain. In only two years, the cancer had spread that far. What if Celeste had never been adopted? Would Mama still have her life? As she got older Celeste thought of herself as cursed, like a poison that slowly sucked the life out of others. Dad had always corrected her, but she wasn’t so sure that he was right. Every person that had gotten close to her would lose something dear.
It made her weary to love anyone. The only person it hadn’t affected was John. Anytime she brought it up, he would laugh and tell her that she was being paranoid. Maybe he was right, over the past year nothing had happened. She was thankful for the change of pace and even started making friends at work. Things were finally looking up. To be fair, her sense of dread never really went away, it just─ quieted down. Her best friend Anna, the only true friend she had growing up, lost her eye in a freak accident nearly two years ago. Anna was barely twenty-two at the time and engaged. She never spoke to Celeste again after that. No matter how many times she had tried getting in contact with her, Celeste was always greeted by an answering machine.
At the time, she had tried swinging by Anna’s apartment only to find a deserted space. A year had gone by before she finally found out what had happened. Frustrated and desperate to know the truth, she had waited outside of Anna's parent's house. She finally spotted Gabe, Anna’s brother, and waved to him. He was hesitant, but finally walked over to her car.
What Celeste learned then, still haunted her today. Gabe explained that Anna had seen Celeste leap from a car and sit on the back of a semi-truck full of rebar. Anna then insisted that she saw Celeste rip the rebar from the truck, and then thrust it into the driver’s side windshield. No one else had seen that but her. According to witnesses, a piece had come loose and flew into the car. He could barely meet her eyes as he said it. She could tell he didn’t want to say anything that would make his sister sound even…crazier. Smiling softly, she had reached out and squeezed his arm. “Please, let me know how Anna is from time to time,” she asked. His reaction broke her heart. It was a weary smile─ he must have been relieved that she didn’t call him a liar or make fun of his sister.
She was crushed that even Gabe thought that she would do something like that. Celeste and Anna had been friends since they were little girls. It was a sobering moment, something she would never forget. Gabe explained that Anna had been missing because she was placed in a mental health clinic. She had been released about a month before Celeste had stopped by. To make matters worse, Anna’s fiancé, David, had left her. Anna now lived at home with her family, and stayed locked inside, working from home. Poor Anna─ Celeste couldn't help but somehow feel responsible. The hardest part of the conversation had been asking Gabe if she could just see Anna. The look he had given her said it all. He shook his head, and managed a quick, “I don't think that's a good idea” before apologizing and heading inside. It had stung at the time, but in retrospect, he was probably right.
Her attention shot back to the present as a gust of wind jarred the French doors. The dinning of various wind chimes outside stretched on, their sounds muddling together like a dissonant choir. Celeste watched intently, waiting for some unseen force to leap from behind the drapes. The blinking, subdued light beneath the curtains had always unnerve
d her.
She paused at the hall's entrance, glancing uneasily to her warm and inviting room. The crackling fire and duvet were calling her name. She took an unsteady step toward the hall, then stopped, looking down at her mother's piano. The lure felt akin to a moon collected by Jupiter's pull.
Going against her own judgment Celeste sat down and began to play. She began timidly at first, then with more gusto as her feelings grew. Swaying to the music, she hummed along softly. Time was lost, as if it were only her and the glorious music at her fingertips. Visions of mother danced through her mind as the tears flowed. The years that passed had done little to ease Celeste's sense of loss. Each time she played, she felt a little closer to Mama. It was as if the piano was an extension of the late Kotone─ so vibrant, so lovely. Her smile could light the darkest of rooms. Celeste strummed the last chord, and the silence pressed in upon her. A tingle ran along the length of her neck and spine. She fought the strong urge to flee. She couldn't shake the feeling that a presence was lying in wait.
Seconds after she thought this, a blur of movement streaked to her right, and she fell to the ground. Celeste gawked up at the glass doors, and then instantly became ashamed. Cupping her mouth with her hand, she burst into fits of laughter. She felt like the biggest idiot in the world. You seriously watch too many horror flicks, she thought. A few last chuckles came out as she stood, brushing herself off. She gazed at her own image behind the sheers, her face scrunching at the corners and hair a tangled mess. She reached up and straightened her hair back in place. You’re losing it, she chided herself.
Celeste turned to leave and stopped dead in her tracks. From the corner of her eye, she could see that something was wrong. Her reflection had remained perfectly still, and it was staring at her. Everything inside her screamed to run. There was danger here, real danger. Not just some imagined sense of it. It was─ black. It felt black. This experience, like many before it, was something that was exceptionally hard to explain to others. For example, how scared, and I-already-defecated-in-my-pants scared were two very different things. She was currently feeling the latter. It was as if the earth had opened a portal to blackness itself, and it had devoured every bit of color in its path. She desperately wanted to run, and yet some odd fascination kept her at bay. She had always felt drawn to the supernatural, as if she were a part of it. When Celeste was a small girl, she remembered talking with creatures that others couldn't see. Some had been very small while others were the size of buildings. She once spotted stationary creatures that would stand near homes and emit a low drone. Curious, Celeste had stood near one and watched it each day it. It would appear to her at the same time each evening and bellow. They were tall and humanoid with large, black eyes and mantis-like maws. Their feathered chest would bow like a frog’s belly, and they would stay like this for days. Sometimes she would even spot a few that never left. She did not like being near them, something about the energy around the creatures made her want to sit and do nothing─ just fade from existence.
Celeste had once sat still for nearly eight hours without realizing it. The only thing that had given it away, was the sun dipping below the horizon. She promised herself to never get near one again. Each of these beings had a unique scent, appearance, and disposition. She noted that some stayed in packs and were hive-minded, while others flew or even walked alone.
Once when she was nine, Celeste had nearly fallen out of her chair giggling at one that had decided it would make a home of her father’s head. For two solid weeks, the thin, foxlike creature perched there─ quiet and content. No matter how much she scolded, it twitched its ears and wiggled its nose at her. Inevitably, it would face its backside to the young Celeste and go to sleep. At the end of the two weeks, It had left Its nest and Daddy’s financial worries had disappeared with it.
He had taken a risk by opening a consulting firm with all of their savings. Mama had backed him and they’d barely scraped by. The joyous news finally came, and her Father’s business was booming. That very week, they packed their things and moved to Texas. She always suspected that it had something to do with the fox. It had left as mysteriously as it had come─ leaving Celeste to wonder where the little guy had disappeared to. She had searched the entire house, but it never turned up again.
There were so many creatures she came across in fact, that she began to lose count. Celeste had tried her best as a child and even kept a diary of everything that she saw. But every time she turned around, there was another─ and another. Now that she thought about it, what had she done with that journal? It must have gotten lost on one of the moves, or stuffed into a box. She should look for it again, maybe it held some sort of answers.
Though their move was very sudden, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Children had hounded her mercilessly and she had little to no friends in New York. Granted, their teasing was nothing like what she endured in Japan, but still it stung none-the-less. Celeste never told her parents, it was one more worry her father didn’t need. She had spent much of her time in Central Park composing music. She drew inspiration from the little bit of green, it was like a mini retreat in the bustle of the city.
From time to time she would run across people with wings sprouting from their back, or horns. Some had tails, or a combination of all three. The creatures ranged in color from pure white to the deepest black and each sported a different texture. They were the most wondrous things Celeste had ever seen. She hastily pointed this out to her Mama, tugging on the woman's dress and giggling. Kotone had given her the strangest look and from that moment on, Celeste learned quickly to keep such things to herself. Dr. Heisman, her therapist, had told her to chalk it up to a child's imagination. And she had─ until now.
Firm in her resolve, Celeste’s mind returned to the present and she turned to face her reflection. Her eyes searched the glass, surprised to find that her image was replaced by another. The girl on the balcony covered her mouth and she shook from laughter. Her short, dark hair bobbed up and down glistening in the light. She was young in appearance, no more than seven years old and her flesh was a ghostly white. They stared across at one another, the young girl perched atop the outside railing. She giggled again, but this one sounded different─ almost menacing.
With one long blink of an eye, the girl had leaped from the balcony. She floated gracefully behind the banister and down to the ground below. She waved at Celeste, smiling the whole way down. Her feet were glued to the floor. Was this thing evil, neutral─ there was no way it was good. She knew that much. She swallowed thickly, and then drudged forward, inch by agonizing inch. Finally, her hand grasped the French doors. She was aware in an instant, how alone she really was. And she knew, that the entity did too. Celeste opened the doors, steadied herself, and peered over the ledge.
The girl stood in the backyard, smiling her wicked grin. She wore traditional mourning garb, a black mofuku kimono. It was only worn in Japan when a loved one had passed. The white family crest was plainly visible above her breasts, shining like miniature beacons in the soft light.
“Anata─ dare?" Celeste slipped into her native tongue without realizing it. She shook her head, pressing her eyes closed as she tried to form the words in English. Her voice crackled like the fire─ how she longed for its comforting flame.
"W-who are you?" Celeste choked out. The girl merely grinned, her face shifting and contorting. She morphed into what Celeste could only call a demon, its eyes and mouth becoming nothing more than hollow black pits. She had seen many things in her lifetime, some frightening, or mischievous, but nothing like this.
The creature’s short bob of hair grew down to its now gargoyle-like feet. Razor-sharp talons extended from its long, slender appendages. A series of eager clicks and pops reverberated from its maw, infiltrating her mind. Celeste wanted it out─ its phantom limbs groped its way across, slithering slow and methodically, searching for what she knew. Molten ooze spewed from its back, the black snaking around its legs and then down to the ground.
From the pools of ink formed two reptilian wings that congealed, and then solidified upon the thing's back.
A beastly sound bayed from the creature, so loud it knocked Celeste to her knees. She joined in the scream as the wails invaded her mind over and over─ raping her into unconsciousness.
* * *
3 Intruder
Celeste laid still, her chest barely rising as her eyes darted beneath the lids. She slowly pried open her eyes, trying to make sense of the jumbled thoughts racing through her mind. Girl, demon─ what was it? She winced as pain shot throughout her skull. Celeste struggled as she pushed her way up and stared at the unfamiliar surroundings. It didn't take long to realize where she was. A hospital. A heartbeat later she jolted upright as a knowing feeling washed over her. She leaped off the bed, gripping her mouth tight as she fled to the bathroom. She dry heaved for several moments. Sweat was cascading down her forehead and into her brow. She hadn’t felt this sick in quite some time.
Shaking it off, she walked over to the sink and drank from the faucet. I must be coming down with something, she thought. Celeste’s throat felt like the surface of the Mojave Desert. No matter how much water she guzzled, she couldn’t quench the thirst. Finally, after what felt like downing an entire gallon, her body felt satiated. She returned to bed, sat down, and stared at the wall in front of her. How did I─ her mind instantly flashed to John. He must have brought me here. Her thoughts were cut short as Celeste recognized the sound of John’s voice followed by a stranger’s.
Hell's Gate: Awakening - Book One Page 3