Fractured

Floating in the dark, there's a room. And in this room, something stirs. The sound of broken cogs and shattered glass clinking falls flat in this room. The thing moves in shakey but practiced moves now.

The first time happened before the image had even formed. Still bright and new to the world. Those who should've cherished and protected it, left it to fall and break. As the pieces settled, something small and smooth and gray moved in the dark. Blind, it put the pieces of metal and glass back together.

The second time it was taught of the hatred of others. Where others laughed and played and learned, it cried and hurt and broke. As before, when the pieces settled, something bigger, yet still small, blindly shuffled the pieces back together. It held bloody hands together and smiled at the semblance made.

The third was experiencing nature's cruel impartiality. After finding the hands that shaped and cradled for those formative months, it saw those hands grow thin and frail too soon. The room filled with pieces once more as the box was lowered in the dirt. The thing no longer smiled but moved with smoother motion to piece the mosaic again. There was no satisfaction in those hands.

Hardened in the heat of battle and the fractures that formed it, there was nothing that could penetrate the cage that was built. Until there was, and the light that shone from her filled the darkness. The warmth of that light warmed the frigid bars it'd set about. That's why it hurt all the worst.

The fourth was a lesson it failed to learn from the first, those closest can hurt the most. The light had turned cold and distant, leaving it alone and drifting once again. It moved sluggishly, but with practice. The image formed from the mosaic of broken odds and ends no longer resembled what it once had. The lines were twisted and sharp. It has learned, and will not soon forget this lesson.

Don't let them in.

Keep it locked away.

To survive, one must be cold and vicious while appearing to be acquiescent.

It used to think of monsters as these far away things of flame and shadows. Eyes in the dark that were born of devils and demons, but that's the lie. We make our own monsters, so don't regret creating this one.