When Elira opened her eyes, she wasn’t in her bed.
She wasn’t in her room.
She wasn’t even in her world.
She was floating—softly, slowly—like a leaf drifting through a sky made entirely of color. There were no stars, no sun, just streaks of light that moved like music, shimmering gold and violet through the endless blue.
She blinked.
She was breathing, but not with lungs. She was existing, but not inside a body she recognized. Her fingers had become threads of light. Her hair drifted behind her like seaweed in still water.
She looked down. There was no ground.
Only... reflections.
Not hers—others'.
Beneath her shimmered millions of glasslike orbs, each hovering like a bubble. Within each, a different moment flickered: a girl planting a flower, a boy hugging his father goodbye, an old woman painting a canvas with shaking hands.
Elira reached toward one.
The moment welcomed her touch like memory, and she felt it: the sun on the girl’s skin, the soil under her nails, the quiet hope in her heart.
“This is the Between,” said a voice.
She turned.
A figure stood behind her—tall, dressed in robes woven from rainfall, with no face and yet... the warmth of someone she once loved.
“The Between?” she asked.
The figure nodded. “The space between lives. Between dreams. Between waking and remembering.”
“I’m dead?”
“No,” the figure said softly. “You’re remembering.”
Elira frowned. “Remembering what?”
“That you are not who you thought. That this isn’t your first beginning.”
The figure stretched out a hand. A new orb appeared—dim, cracked.
Elira leaned in.
Inside it, she saw herself. But not this glowing self—her earth self. The one who cried quietly in the bathroom at school. The one who watched the rain and wondered why she always felt like she was looking through the world, not at it.
“That version of you is forgetting,” said the figure. “But you… you were born with the memory of stars. You’ve visited this place before.”
Elira felt a tug in her chest. “I don’t want her to forget.”
“She’s still you. But she’s asleep.”
“So how do I wake her?”
The figure tilted its head. “You don’t. You become her guide.”
Suddenly, the space around her trembled—like a bell struck far away.
A door opened in the air.
Beyond it was Earth.
But different.
It was quiet. Peaceful. Birds flying backward, rivers that whispered poems as they flowed. Trees with glowing veins, and children who spoke in colors instead of words.
“This is a world of healed hearts,” the figure said. “It exists in the spaces between seconds. Few humans ever see it.”
“Why am I seeing it now?”
“Because you asked, in your sleep, to feel more than pain. To see what lies beyond the noise.”
“And what do I do here?”
The figure stepped back. “You listen. And you remember. Then, when you return, you will not be empty.”
Elira walked.
She walked through forests where memories bloomed like flowers.
She walked through cities made of silence, where every building was shaped by a forgotten wish.
She met a boy who could fold sadness into paper birds.
She met a woman who whispered songs that made trees blossom in winter.
And in a mirror-pool at the edge of a hill, she saw her true self—not the glowing form, not the sad girl—but all of them at once, woven like threads in a tapestry of being.
And she understood.
Elira stood before the door again.
“Do I have to leave?” she whispered.
“No,” said the figure. “But if you stay, you will fade. This place is only a stop, not a home.”
“I want to go back. But I want to carry this with me.”
“You can.”
“How?”
The figure placed a seed in her palm. “Bury this in your old heart. It will grow every time you choose love over fear. Every time you create, rather than destroy. Every time you speak truth.”
“And the people who never see this world?”
The figure smiled gently. “That’s why we send you back. To remind them it exists.”
Elira opened her eyes.
She was back in her bed.
But something was different.
The rain outside sounded like a symphony. Her hands glowed faintly, just for a moment. And in her palm, she held a single seed—warm, pulsing softly with light.
She got up, opened the window, and breathed in the world—not the noise, not the pain—but the possibility.
And from that day on, she spoke differently.
She wrote stories that made strangers cry.
She smiled at people no one noticed.
She planted kindness like flowers in cracks.
And in her dreams, she visited the Between again and again—leaving the door a little more open each time.
She became a bridge between worlds—not because she was chosen, but because she remembered how to feel.
And slowly, others began to feel too.
Her words lit sparks in dimmed hearts. Strangers paused to breathe. Children began to dream aloud. Artists painted with tears they’d hidden for years. Elira never told anyone about the Between, but they saw it in her eyes—the glow of a place where pain dissolved, and beauty waited.
One night, a child asked her, “Where do your stories come from?”
She smiled, touching the seed now blooming in her chest.
“From the world between raindrops,” she whispered.
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