Chapter 1 - Skeletons at the Feast
I stepped into my home expecting quiet, only to find my eight-month-pregnant wife, Hannah, crouched beneath the dining room table, terror plastered across her face. My mother was kneeling before her, forcing sharp fish bones toward her mouth, declaring that Hannah had to learn what happens when someone brings shame to our lineage. Six relatives stood by, cold witnesses to cruelty. When Hannah began to cough up blood, I snapped, pulling her away from the table, capturing photographic evidence of the weaponized dinner setting, and rushing her to the emergency room. At the hospital, doctors revealed an older, untreated injury—a violent push into a dresser corner delivered by my mother weeks prior, kept secret under the threat that our family would brand Hannah insane and tear our marriage apart. But the darkest revelation came when Hannah whispered the truth of that night: Mason, my own brother, hadn't just watched. He had confiscated her phone, blocked the rear exit, and trapped her like an animal. The war had begun in our own home, and the people who shared my blood had drawn first.
