This story is mature for references of trauma, addiction, physical and mental harm, eating disorders, self-negligence, depression, anxiety, and gore. 

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"...There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover's whisper, irresistible––magic to make the sanest [wo]man go mad." -Homer

She danced and danced.

Until her arms ached. Until her feet bled. Until her heart felt something other than adrenaline.

Red prints followed as she spun, toes pressing into cold, broken tiles, heel digging into the creases as she lifted up her right arm, fingers straining as if they could burn beneath the chandeliers which sparkled with cobwebs. Her other foot elevated, delicately, pinching the curve in her back, as the standing foot's heel left the ground. Soon, her legs shook and she fell and her skirt tore. But she turned the movement into a liquid motion and the steps returned. Ghostly rags followed her spins, visions of objects leaving spectral imprints on the back of her eyes.

The white paint on her skin was dry and caked, her bone-red lips long corrupted and stained. She caught reflections of herself in passing mirrors, so dusty most of it were foamy blurs. There were pieces of shattered glass, dangling from the icy curtains, and pale moonlight electrified them.

Moments, minutes, hours, days ago this might have felt sinister, but now it was all she knew. And it was her stage.

When she was young, this was her only comfort. These movements. This way of finding music in still air and plucking and magicking it into a grand symphony. Jaunty harpsichords and sobbing violins and it yanked at her limbs until they were screaming with the tune. As a child, this was the escape into a world that was unpredictable, and more importantly, alive.

It reminded her that she was alive.

And Celaeno was alive. Or at least, she hoped so. She wasn't sure. And so she kept dancing, contently and achingly trapped in this infinite song of shuffle and numb.

She wondered how long it would be until someone found her. Until someone remembered the little prodigy Celaeno Adams. Younger sister of teenage musical genius, Calliope Adams.

Perhaps they did, and they saw nothing important.

Or maybe she wasn't worth remembering. After all, all Celaeno had ever done was stand still, be quiet, and do as she was told. Do as she was shrieked and slapped in the face until the scars on her arms seemed like nothing in comparison.

Why wasn't she feeling something? Why had Celaeno never felt anything?

Was this a curse? Was this her fault––

"Why can't you be like your sister, Celaeno? Why can you never get anything right, and why do you always seem to disappoint us?"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Do better. I know you can do better. Don't let me down."

She pivoted and her ankle twisted. It might have snapped but there was something so eerily empty inside her she barely even noticed it.

"You're going to be something great, Little Harpy."

"Then why did you name me something evil?"

"We know her as someone dark. The 'dark one'. You're still young, Little Harpy, and you need to let your sister shine for now. But Celaeno was one of the Pleiades. And one day you're going to be a star."

"A star?"

"Brighter than a nebula."

She would be a star. But even stars lived in the frigid quiet.

"You have no friends. No social life. Those who have collaborated or interacted with you describe you as manipulative, cold, and easily agitated. Your grades are impeccable, but you've done nothing to show us any evidence of ambition, originality, and humanity. Your application, yes, was flawless, but throughout your interview you were practically robotic. Scripted...aren't you going to say anything?"

"No. Should I?"

"Do you want to know what I think?"

No.

"Of course."

"Find something else."

Hours of peeling her eyes open far before the sunrise. Playing until her fingers were purple and she felt sick. Meals left forgotten as she trained and studied until it was all she could only think about. Twisting something she might've once loved into something she hated and despised and yet she could never even think of living without it. Even now without it, her hands shook violently with loss.

She would be the best.

She would be the best.

"Do you know...who I am?"

"Of course I do. But I also know all of the other students at this school. And you don't have it, Calano."

"It's Celaeno."

"I see."

"..I'm not leaving. I...I can't. I can't."

"Look, I'm sorry, but this is life and this is a very difficult school, Cel––"

"All my life I've trained for this."

"I know there is no easy way to say this."

"Alright."

Her parents had called. Of course they did. And Celaeno curled up on the floor of her room as hands banged on the door, demanding to see her. She sang the notes to Salut D'Amour under her breath while lightning raged outside the window, and the hard calluses on her fingers ached with each note.

And the next evening, when all her sister had done was smirk, her rosy lips taking in dainty little bites of food as her skin practically glowed beneath her parents' showers of compliments and fondle––Celaeno's hands, which were so devoid of nutrition they were practically skeletal, were pressed harshly into her thighs. But that was it. She just sat there. Her skin was dull and cold. She blinked, slowly, lips slightly parted. A few strands of hair fell over her face, but she made no motion to move them.

She bent her knees and sprung forward, toes extended in opposite, pulling directions. She threw her head back and breathed with the moving air. Her hands might've grazed the stars, for a few moments, but still they had no feeling within them. For all she knew they might've been completely devoid of blood and the little bits of stardust that kept her moving.

Before dessert, the prodigies would play for the guests. Her sister went first, of course, and it was disgustingly extraordinary. Celaeno stood beside her parents, her own pearly white violin––Eros––dangling by her side. And when her sister had finished in a grand finale which had led to an even grander applause, it was Celaeno's time. 

Slowly, she made her way to the small, brightly-lit corner, and as she had walked, there had been whispers. These grew and grew until it was a thunderous rush in her ears. Before her foot could take the final step, a hand landed on her shoulder.

"No, Little Harpy. We need to talk." And right before her eyes the world had shrunken, narrowed to a pin-prick point of view. The violin dropped.

Bang.

The fingers on her shoulder tightened, and she knew if she followed she would never touch the beautiful instrument again.

And so it happened. She waited, at least. She was that cold, she always was.

All her life, she had followed. She had complied and bent over until she coughed up blood from the pressure on her back.

And as the minutes went on, even the world around her she couldn't even feel. All there was was the smooth curve of the instrument's neck, the thin strings that plucked life from her fingers, the way it would screech and yield beneath her hands.

She had never wept. Never yelled. Never laughed. When other students at her school had shoved her into an ally and tossed rocks at her skin, she hadn't even flinched.

Even when she took her grandmother's hunting rifle and shot her sister 37 times over the course of two days, she didn't cry.

Even when she stabbed her parents in the back with an entire set of very expensive kitchen knives, she felt no remorse.

And after two days of starving herself and mutilating the corpses, an agitation had befallen her. She needed to move. She couldn't sit still and if she ever did stop moving––for even a moment––she might stay that way for eternity. Muscles locked. Wounds bleeding. Memories tearing her apart.

Would she ever stop?

Years passed, and Celaeno kept dancing. She didn't eat. She didn't drink. She didn't sleep. The mind is strong, that way. Or maybe it was already broken.

Slowly, she turned into a corpse. She rotted, gradually. Skin melted off. Muscles turned to mist. Bones degraded. Her clothes cracked like paper.

She died, after a while. One moment there was still something living, and then another her bones simply collapsed inward, and all there was was dust where there might've been memory.

Like a star, except no explosion.