Ira woke up choking on air that wasn’t hers.
It felt thick, metallic, and too still like the moment before a scream. She coughed, her palms scraping against the ground. It was soft. Too soft. The texture of flesh, warm and faintly pulsating beneath her fingertips. She jerked her hand back in disgust.
The sky above her wasn’t blue. It was *bleeding.*
A deep crimson hue stretched endlessly, as if someone had peeled back the skin of the world and left it raw. Black clouds crawled slowly across it like ink spills with purpose.
Ira sat up slowly, heart slamming against her ribs. She was surrounded by a forest but not the kind she’d ever seen. These trees were tall and thin, their trunks twisted like broken limbs. The bark looked scorched. And though the wind didn’t blow, the trees moved twitching, sighing, creaking. Watching.
**This isn’t real.**
That was her first thought.
Her second: *But it feels more real than anything back home.*
Her last memory was her apartment. Half-lit. Quiet. Scrolling through her phone, ignoring twenty missed calls. Her brother had texted *“Call me, it’s urgent.”* Her therapist had left a voice note. Her ex had sent an apology she didn’t want to read. Ira had stared at the screen until the words blurred.
Then darkness.
And now, this.
The silence around her wasn't empty. It pulsed. Like the ground. Like a heartbeat.
“Hello?” she called out.
Her voice sounded wrong. Smaller. As if it didn’t belong in this place. The forest groaned in response. A slow, low sound, like something ancient waking up.
She turned around and froze.
There was a girl standing ten feet away. Pale skin, dark tangled hair, eyes like spilled ink. And the face… the face was **hers.**
“Ira,” the girl said.
Her voice was hollow. Flat. Like a voicemail left in a nightmare.
“Who are you?” Ira whispered.
The girl tilted her head. “I’m you. The version that never lied to herself.”
“No. No, this is a dream. I need to wake up.”
The other Ira stepped closer. “You already woke up. This *is* the truth.”
Ira backed away. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to *see.*” She raised a trembling finger and pointed at Ira’s chest.
Ira looked down. Beneath the skin just above her heart, a faint light glowed. Soft and golden. Pulsing like a heartbeat trying to escape.
“What is that?”
“It’s everything you buried,” the doppelgänger whispered. “The words you didn’t say. The people you left unread. The apologies you never gave. The grief you swallowed whole.”
The forest started whispering.
Not wind.
**Voices.**
Hundreds. Layered over one another. Screaming. Crying. Pleading.
Faces began to rise from the ground, pressed beneath the soft skin-earth. Twisted. Grotesque. Familiar.
Ira fell to her knees.
“No. No, this isn’t real. I’m not , I didn’t mean to hurt them.”
“But you did,” the other her said, crouching beside her. “You isolated. You pushed. You let guilt grow roots in silence.”
The face of her brother emerged from the soil, mouth moving, eyes wide.
“I called you, Ira… I needed you.”
Her therapist’s voice followed: “You stopped coming. I was worried.”
Then her mother. Her father. Her best friend. Her ex. A chorus of the people she’d closed the door on because it was easier to lock herself in than let them in.
Tears streamed down her face. Her breath was shallow, chest tightening.
“Please… I want to go back. I want to fix it.”
“You had your chance,” the mirror-Ira said softly. “You chose silence.”
The trees began to twist and crack. The sky bled darker. The forest was *closing in.*
Then a light came in
A door. Floating mid-air. Glowing gold. A way out.
Without thinking, Ira ran.
Each step echoed like thunder on the breathing ground. The voices screamed louder. The trees reached for her.
But she didn’t stop.
The door pulsed with warmth. She reached for the handle, heart pounding.
Just as her fingers touched it
**The ground opened beneath her.**
A gaping mouth. A pit of blackness.
She fell. Screaming. Clawing. Falling through memories.
**
She was ten. Sitting in the closet during a fight between her parents, hugging her knees. Crying silently so no one would hear.
She was sixteen. Pretending to laugh with friends, even though her chest ached and her mind was breaking.
She was twenty-four. Telling her brother she was "just tired" when she hadn’t slept for days.
She was twenty-eight. Staring at a text from someone she loved, and choosing *not* to reply.
And finally
She was lying in bed, three nights ago, staring at the ceiling and whispering, “I’m fine,” even though she hadn’t felt fine in years.
She hit the ground hard. Gasping.
But this place was different.
It was cold. Stark white. A hospital hallway?
No.
*Her apartment.*
But not as she left it.
The walls were cracked. Her reflection in the mirror was gone. The phone lay on the table, screen shattered.
She looked down. Her arms were covered in writing faint golden letters, glowing like firefly trails.
She read them.
*“I miss you.”*
*“I’m sorry I disappeared.”*
*“I should’ve answered.”*
*“I love you.”*
The words she never said.
She dropped to the floor and wept.
Her other self appeared beside her, not cruel this time, not haunting. Just quiet.
“You’re not dead yet,” she said gently. “But if you want to come back, you have to *feel.* All of it. Not bury it. Not run.”
“I’m scared,” Ira whispered.
“Then you’re human.”
The world shook. The crimson sky cracked above. Her apartment ceiling peeled open like paper, revealing stars real ones.
“Do you want to go back?” her double asked.
“Yes.”
“Then take it all with you.”
Ira reached out and touched the glowing script on her arm.
Pain bloomed in her chest. Searing. Pure. Human.
Then-
**Blackness.**
And then
**Beep.**
**Beep.**
**Beep.**
She woke up in a hospital bed.
IV in her arm. Her brother asleep beside her, holding her hand tightly. Her phone on the table, still full of unread messages, but now, with one notification blinking.
**New Voice Note from: You**
She picked it up, pressed play.
Her own voice, clear and trembling:
“Hi. I… I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened to me. But I’m ready to try again. I want to talk. I don’t want to disappear anymore.”
Tears filled her brother’s eyes when she looked at him.
She squeezed his hand.
She wasn’t healed.
But she was *here.*
**Epilogue**
That night, she dreamed again.
But this time, the sky was blue.
And the trees stood still.
And beneath her feet, the earth was solid.
Breathing, but not haunting.
Living.
'Beneath the Crimson Sky'
*A story of silence, sorrow, and second chances.*
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