Chapter 1: Morning Light
The sun spilled through the curtains in pale ribbons, warm and soft against Elara’s face. She blinked once, then again, the light a comforting weight on her eyelids, stretching beneath her quilt. Her arms reached skyward, fingers splaying in the quiet ritual of waking, pulling at the last vestiges of sleep. Listening. The low, familiar birdsong outside her window, the faint, steady hum of her ceiling fan above. It was the sound of a perfectly ordinary morning.
Downstairs, something sizzled. The scent of toast and eggs, warm and savoury, drifted upward, mingling with the faint, clean smell of lavender from the laundry her mom had folded and put away the night before. Elara pushed back her covers and sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
Her bedroom was the same as always—a safe, familiar rectangle of faded paint and cherished objects. The walls were lined with old books, their spines cracked and pages yellowed. Half-peeled posters of distant galaxies and mythical dragons clung to the plaster, slightly curling at the edges. Her cluttered desk, buried under an amicable chaos of pencils, paints, and brushes, held a stack of sketchbooks. Her favorite one sat open on the corner, displaying a dragon caught mid-flight, rendered in soft, confident pencil strokes. She smiled at it absently, a quiet contentment settling in her chest.
On the edge of her bed, propped against a stack of pillows, was a stuffed toy. A dragon. Its lopsided wings, crafted from a soft, worn blue-green fabric, were faded with years of love and countless squeezes. Draco.
She gave him a quick, affectionate squeeze, feeling the familiar fluff beneath her fingers, before swinging her legs out of bed. Her bare feet hit the soft rug, worn smooth from years of use, a plush embrace against the morning chill.
Downstairs, the sounds of morning continued. Her mother was humming in the kitchen, a low, tuneless melody that spoke of contentment. Her dad sat at the table, a steaming mug of coffee cupped in his hands, half-reading a physical newspaper, half-scrolling through something on his tablet, a gentle glow on his face.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” her mom said, her voice warm, as she placed a plate piled high with eggs and toast on the table with a practiced, casual flick of the wrist.
“Morning,” Elara replied, rubbing her eyes again, chasing away the last lingering remnants of dreams, and sliding into her usual seat. The worn wood felt solid beneath her arms.
Her dad looked up from his tablet, his expression softening as he met her gaze. “You’ve got your neurologist appointment this afternoon, remember.”
“I know,” she said, trying to hide the small, internal sigh that always accompanied the reminder. “Dr. Ryman, three o’clock.” The words were automatic, well-rehearsed.
Her mom touched her shoulder gently as she passed, a fleeting, comforting pressure. “Just a check-up, sweetheart. Nothing to worry about.”
Elara nodded. They didn’t say the word anymore. Not around her. It was a silent agreement, a fragile peace constructed around an unspoken truth. But it sat there, always. Waiting. In the crisp white paperwork hidden in her mom’s desk, in the solemn medical folders Dr. Ryman reviewed, in the careful, almost imperceptible looks her parents exchanged that they thought she didn’t notice. Degenerative. Progressive. Incurable.
Still, the mornings were good. Usually. The quiet normalcy was a balm.
She bit into her toast, the crisp warmth a welcome distraction, and glanced out the window above the sink. A robin hopped across the fence line, plump and unbothered. A neighbor’s cat, a sleek ginger tabby, stretched languidly in a patch of sunbeam on the lawn. Everything was just as it should be.
A normal day.
The kind she clung to with fierce, quiet desperation.
From the living room, the soft, bright sound of a cartoon drifted in, a familiar, comforting babble. She glanced toward it—and for the briefest moment, the screen didn’t show animation at all. It was dark, a field of distant, shimmering stars. A sleek, unfamiliar ship. And a girl, not unlike herself, standing in a brightly lit corridor, her hair glowing an impossible neon pink.
She blinked, and the cartoon returned, vibrant and unremarkable.
“Elara?” her mom asked, her voice tinged with a faint concern. “You alright?”
“Yeah,” she said quickly, forcing a bright, reassuring smile that felt a little too wide. “Just… thought I saw something weird on the TV.”
She glanced back at her desk chair, where the blue-green stuffed Draco lay. For just a heartbeat, a fraction of a second, she thought he’d moved. His lopsided wing seemed to twitch, almost as if in recognition.
But of course, that was silly.
Dragons weren’t real.
Were they?
Chapter 2: Three Days of Peace
Monday: The Perfect Playback
The sun felt impossibly warm that Monday, spilling through the café window in a golden cascade. It illuminated the dust motes dancing in the air, the condensation beading on her glass, and the vibrant, almost too bright red of Mia’s jacket. Elara sat at the corner booth, stirring her vanilla milkshake with the end of a straw, watching the cream swirl into pale, sweet clouds. Mia, across from her, was deep into a passionate rant about algebra, her voice rising and falling with theatrical despair, as if the quadratic formula were a personal betrayal. Elara half-listened, her responses automatic, nodding at all the right places, offering the occasional sympathetic groan.
Outside the window, a small terrier chased its own tail, spinning in tight, dizzying circles for far too long, its leash gradually tightening around its owner’s ankles. The scene was absurd, utterly mundane, and yet, the light felt too golden, the laughter from the next booth too cheerful, the music playing softly through the café speakers too perfect—like a playlist she didn’t remember curating, every note meticulously placed for optimal comfort.
A specific song, something melodic and sweeping, drifted through the air. Elara found herself tapping her fingers to the rhythm, a faint hum rising in her throat. She couldn’t shake the feeling she’d heard it before. Not here. Not in this warm, sun-drenched café. Somewhere colder. Larger. A place vast and echoing, filled with the whisper of broken things. The sensation was fleeting, a shiver that ran down her spine and then vanished. She blinked, and it was gone, swallowed by the clatter of ceramic mugs and the muffled chatter around her. The terrier finally collapsed in a heap, its tail-chasing done.
She shook her head, dismissing the odd feeling. Just overtired.
Tuesday was a soft symphony of warm air and the rustle of leaves. Elara was at the park, curled on the old bench under the crooked willow tree, its branches weeping emerald streamers toward the ground. The gentle breeze kept flipping the corner of her sketchbook page, a minor annoyance. She pressed it down with the heel of her hand, frowning slightly, and kept drawing. Her pencil moved with an effortless fluidity, tracing lines she hadn't consciously planned. The dragon’s outline flowed from her fingertips: the elegant curve of its horns, the sweeping, powerful arch of its tail, and a peculiar softness in the eyes, a gentle wisdom she rarely managed to capture in her art. It was a perfect, familiar blue-green creature, even in graphite.
She didn’t remember deciding to draw a dragon. It was just what her hand had wanted to do, an instinct deep in her muscles, a memory guiding her strokes without her mind’s input.
When she was finished, she turned the book around, holding it up to admire the completed sketch. The sunlight caught the graphite, making the dragon shimmer.
And she paused.
There was another figure. Standing next to the magnificent blue-green creature. A girl. Mid-stride, captured in motion. Her hair was a wild, untamed cascade, her sharp eyes piercing, full of an unyielding defiance. Elara hadn't drawn her... had she? The figure was too detailed, too real, too known, for something she hadn't intended. A flash of internal disorientation, brief but sharp.
“Elara!” a voice called from across the field, familiar and clear. Mia, waving enthusiastically, a blur of motion against the green. “You coming or what? The ice cream truck is here!”
The spell broke. Elara snapped the sketchbook shut with a decisive thwack and stood, brushing stray blades of grass and tiny willow leaves off her jeans. The drawing was hidden.
She didn’t look at the page again, an unexplained reluctance keeping her gaze fixed on Mia.
Wednesday: The Glimpse in the Glass
Wednesday morning smelled like clean sheets—crisp and fresh—and, faintly, of burnt toast. Her dad had already left for work, the faint scent of his cologne still lingering by the front door. Her mom was humming in the laundry room, the rhythmic tumble of the dryer a soft counterpoint to her off-key, melodic tune—some old song Elara could never quite name, yet felt she knew every note of. She padded through the house, a comforting weightlessness in her steps, a mug of chamomile tea warming her hands, her head feeling like it was stuffed with cotton. Her body ached in small, persistent ways she had grown used to. The tiredness didn’t quite fade, a pervasive weariness that she carried now like a familiar, slightly heavy coat.
She passed the hall mirror, a full-length rectangle set into the wall.
She paused.
In the reflection, the hallway behind her was empty, stretching back to the closed laundry room door. The patterned rug, the framed print of a lighthouse, the small decorative table—all reflected perfectly.
She turned.
And Draco was there. Sitting at the end of the hall. Right in the center of the patterned rug, facing her. His faded blue-green fabric was unmistakable against the muted tones of the carpet.
Her hands tightened on the warm mug, the tea sloshing precariously. She hadn’t left him there. She was sure of it. She’d tucked him neatly onto her bed, as always.
She opened her mouth to call for her mom—then stopped. The humming from the laundry room continued, oblivious.
A soft noise. Behind her. A whisper of displaced air, perhaps.
She turned back to the mirror.
The hallway was empty. The patterned rug stretched out, pristine and unoccupied. Her reflection stared back, mug in hand, a flicker of confusion in her eyes. Draco was gone.
She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She hadn’t moved. The hallway hadn't moved. Only Draco.
That night, she curled into bed without saying much. The events of the day felt disjointed, like a half-remembered dream. Her mom kissed her forehead, her lips soft against her skin, and whispered goodnight. The room darkened in layers—the click of the lamp switch, the soft sigh of the hallway door closing, silence settling around her like a second, protective blanket.
Draco sat at the edge of her pillow, a comforting lump of blue-green fabric. She tucked him under her arm without thinking, pulling him close, a gesture she had performed a hundred times before. His lopsided wings pressed against her cheek.
As she drifted, her fingers brushed the seam along his back, tracing the stitches.
Warm.
Faintly… pulsing? A rhythmic throb beneath the faded fabric, like a slow, steady heartbeat.
She pressed her eyes shut, squeezing them tightly.
Just the heating. The radiator was probably on.
Just a toy.
Just another ordinary day.
She repeated the words like a mantra, willing them to be true, even as the quiet hum beneath her fingers persisted.
Chapter 3: Glitches in the Garden
....A Lingering Touch
The morning smelled like damp soil and the sweet, almost cloying perfume of jasmine, carried on a breeze that felt unnaturally still. Elara crouched at the edge of the flowerbed, her bare knees pressed into the cool, slightly damp grass. She pulled up weeds with short, determined tugs, the roots giving way with satisfying little snaps. Dirt clung beneath her fingernails, dark and earthy. A monarch butterfly, its wings a vibrant splash of orange and black, landed on her wrist. It lingered there, longer than it should have, its delicate wings twitching, slow, deliberate, as if it were studying her. A strange, knowing stillness in its antennae.
She tilted her head, a small smile playing on her lips. "You're brave," she murmured, her voice soft against the quiet morning.
It blinked. Or maybe it didn't. She couldn't tell. And then, with a single, silent beat of its wings, it was gone, leaving only the ghost of a tickle on her skin.
From the porch, her mom's voice drifted, light and warm. "You missed one, sweetheart!"
Elara laughed, a genuine, unburdened sound, and held up her mud-covered hands like a surgeon preparing for an operation. She returned to the tangle of roots, her mom’s voice blending into the gentle sigh of the breeze, a constant, comforting presence. She lost track of time in the simple, repetitive rhythm of pulling weeds and listening to the ordinary sounds of the morning.
By midday, the sky had turned a cloudless, almost impossibly vibrant blue—the kind too perfect to last, like a watercolor wash that might smudge at any moment. Elara lay on her back beneath the old apple tree in the backyard, its branches heavy with unripe fruit. Draco rested against her chest, his familiar blue-green fabric warm beneath her palm, sunlight flickering in intricate patterns between the leaves above. Her fingers absently traced slow circles on the plush fabric of his lopsided wing, a comforting, unconscious habit. The breeze picked up, rustling the leaves overhead like a multitude of soft whispers.
Somewhere nearby, the delicate tinkling of the wind chime began.
She turned her head toward it, eyes half-lidded, enjoying the gentle music.
The chime wasn’t moving. Not a single rod stirred, no faint shimmer of reflected light indicating motion. It hung perfectly still, frozen in the air.
But she could still hear it. Clear, metallic notes, steady in rhythm, playing out a specific sequence. One, two, three... pause. One, two... It was as if the sound had detached itself from its source.
She sat up abruptly, a prickle of unease rippling through her. The moment she moved, the sound cut out, as if a switch had been flipped. Silence returned, complete and immediate, broken only by the distant hum of a lawnmower. She stared at the unmoving chime, then slowly looked around, a faint chill settling in the perfect blue air.
In the late afternoon, with the sun beginning its slow descent, she walked to the corner store for tea and chewing gum. The asphalt felt warm beneath her sneakers. A kid on a bright red bike zoomed past her, laughing too loud, the sound lingering in the air for a beat longer than it should have. Down the street, a dog barked. Three perfect repetitions. Woof. Woof. Woof. Each time, precisely the same volume, the same pitch, the same pause in between. She slowed her pace, her steps becoming deliberate. She listened.
Silence returned. An absolute quiet descended on the street. Even the leaves on the trees, which had been gently swaying moments before, had stopped. The air felt unnaturally still, frozen in place.
Her hand tightened around Draco, tucked under her arm like always, his familiar blue-green softness a small anchor in the sudden stillness. She glanced down at him, instinctively seeking comfort.
The seam behind his left ear had split slightly—just a few loose threads, no bigger than her thumbnail. But something shimmered faintly within the tiny tear, like tiny, impossible silver fibers coiled beneath the surface, catching the light with a soft, almost internal glow. It pulsed, a minute flicker of luminescence.
She blinked.
They were gone. The threads were still loose, but the internal light, the strange fibers, had vanished, leaving only ordinary stuffing. She frowned, confused. Had the light just been a trick of the setting sun?
Evening: An Unseen Presence
That evening, the aroma of her mom's cooking filled the kitchen, a comforting, savory scent. Elara entered to find the table already set for three. Forks, knives, napkins, plates. All neatly arranged.
"Your dad's working late," her mom said, her back to Elara as she carefully ladled out mashed potatoes. She held out a fork to Elara without looking.
"But there are three plates," Elara said, her voice quiet, a slight tremor in the words. She looked from the unused setting to her mom’s back.
Her mom smiled without pausing, a faint, unbothered curve of her lips. "Of course. Always."
They ate in quiet, the clink of silverware against ceramic the only sound. The ticking of the wall clock in the living room seemed louder than usual, each tick-tock echoing in the sudden vastness of the dining room. Elara kept glancing at the third plate, an empty space that felt charged with an unseen presence.
Later, in the dim light of the living room, Draco sat on the windowsill, his blue-green form a small silhouette against the deepening twilight. He was facing outward.
Watching the sky. A vigilant, silent sentinel.
Chapter 4: The Voice Beneath It All
....The Static Hum
The static came at night. It was soft at first—just a low hum, a vibration at the very edge of sleep, like an old television left on in another room, its signal lost to the void. Elara stirred, her eyes half-open in the profound dark of her bedroom. The sound faded when she shifted, the slight rustle of her quilt, the faint creak of her bed as she sat up. It was replaced by the distant, rhythmic hush of passing cars on the main road and the familiar groans and sighs of the house settling deeper into its nightly silence.
She turned over, tucked Draco, his faded blue-green fabric a comforting weight, against her chest, and closed her eyes again, willing sleep to return.
The hum returned. Faint… but not gone. It was like a presence, a low, buzzing current running through the air, just beyond the reach of her conscious ear. It was subtle, insidious, and it lingered.
The next morning, the hum was a faint echo in her mind as she tried to draw. She sat at her desk, knees tucked under her, the familiar weight of her favorite pencil in hand. The fresh paper in front of her was blank, pristine, waiting for inspiration. She touched the graphite point to the page—and paused.
A shape had already started.
Just faint graphite strokes… too faint to be from a heavy hand, too confident to be accidental smudges. Delicate curves. Spirals. And then, undeniably, eyes, perfectly aligned with the emerging form. It was the outline of a creature, undeniably draconic, a smaller version of the one that had appeared in her sketchbook before, tinged with a phantom blue-green.
She hadn’t drawn it.
She didn’t think she had. She stared at the emerging lines, a chill prickling her skin despite the warmth of the room. Her fingers twitched, a sudden unfamiliarity with the pencil she held. Her pencil dropped. It clattered softly against the wooden desk, then rolled off the edge, landing with a muted thud on the rug below. She didn’t pick it up. She just stared at the page, at the impossible, unbidden drawing that seemed to have materialized from nowhere.
Later, walking home from the clinic, the city felt subtly wrong. The sun, usually bright and cheerful, cast shadows that stretched just a little too far, long and distorted across the pavement, like dark, reaching fingers. The air itself seemed to vibrate with a faint, underlying hum, like a vast array of speakers warming up for a concert that might never begin. It was a low-frequency buzz that vibrated in her teeth, a constant, unnoticed backdrop to the city's sounds.
A man walked past her, his face unremarkable, part of the endless flow of pedestrians. He nodded, a courteous, fleeting gesture. "Good evening, Miss Quinn," he said, his voice a low rumble, and continued on his way without breaking stride.
Elara stopped dead in the middle of the pavement, her progress halting abruptly.
Nobody. Ever. Used her last name. Not the kids at school, not her parents, not Dr. Ryman. It was always just "Elara." The name felt alien on the man's tongue, a sudden, jarring chord in the city's hum.
She turned to look at him—but he was already gone, swallowed by the stream of people, as if he'd never been there at all. She stared at the empty space, her heart thumping a strange, irregular beat against her ribs. The hum in the air seemed to intensify around her, focusing. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the unsettling feeling, and continued walking, a new tension tightening her shoulders.
Night: The Unforgettable Whisper
She lay awake that night, the window cracked open just a sliver, allowing a cool wisp of air to brush the edge of her blanket. The moon, a thin crescent, cast long, silvery shadows across her room, making familiar objects seem alien.
Draco sat on her chest, his familiar blue-green form a soft weight. She hadn’t put him there. The last she remembered, he was by her pillow. She didn’t move him, didn't dare to. Her breath hitched in her throat, a silent, mounting dread.
The static returned, clearer this time—not just a hum, but a distinct, granular hiss, like a whisper nested within pure white noise, right next to her ear. It built, a rising tide of incoherent sound.
Then, a voice.
Not loud. Not sharp. Not human, not exactly. It was layered, resonant, and utterly devoid of inflection, yet somehow deeply significant. It was just there, a presence manifested in sound.
> “You’re not supposed to forget.”
>
Elara gasped, a sharp, choked sound, and sat bolt upright. The sudden motion disturbed Draco, who slid gently down to her lap.
“Who said that?” Her voice was thin, reedy, lost in the echoing silence of the room.
No answer. Only the fading afterglow of the static.
She scanned the room, her eyes darting through the moonlight and shadows—the familiar posters on the walls, now seeming to observe her with silent judgment; shadows curled around her desk like watchful beasts; the corner of her mirror catching silver in its edge, reflecting only her wide, frightened eyes. Every creak of the house, every distant whisper of the wind, felt amplified, scrutinizing.
The voice did not come again.
But her fingers curled tighter around Draco, gripping his soft, blue-green wing.
And this time… she felt his warmth pulse once beneath her hand. A distinct, slow throb, undeniable. Not the heating. Not a trick of light. A heartbeat.
Chapter 5: Ghosts of a Real Girl
....The Shifting Photo
The morning light, usually a comforting presence, felt thin and watchful as Elara stood in her socks on the upstairs landing. Her gaze was fixed on the hallway wall, a place she passed a dozen times a day, but which now seemed alien. Frames lined the wallpaper in neat, dustless rows—snapshots of a life she knew intimately. Family vacations to the seaside, her tenth birthday party with too much cake, the proud moment of her seventh-grade spelling bee trophy. Each image a solid, undeniable memory.
But the photo in the exact middle, usually a picture of her first bike ride, wasn't the same.
It showed her, undeniably her, sitting in a stark, unfamiliar hospital bed. Wires, thin as spider silk, crisscrossed her temple, disappearing beneath a wide, sky-blue blanket pulled to her chin. She was smiling, a faint, almost translucent smile, as if lit from within. A woman stood beside her, her hand gently clasped over Elara's.
Only—it wasn’t her mom.
Not quite.
The woman looked familiar, profoundly so, yet disturbingly different. Sharper cheekbones, a more angular jawline than her mother's soft curves. A glint of metal, almost imperceptible, at her left temple, like a tiny silver scar. And her eyes—those eyes were too bright, an intense, piercing blue, filled with a knowledge that seemed to reach across time.
Elara reached out, her fingers trembling, and touched the cool glass of the frame. The surface felt strangely insubstantial, almost liquid.
As her fingertip pressed against it, the woman in the photograph shimmered, blurred, and then vanished.
The photo reset. Abruptly. The image snapped back to the familiar birthday party—cake smeared on her own nose, her dad grinning broadly behind her, her mom's laughing face just out of frame. As if the other image, the woman with the too-bright eyes, the hospital bed, had never existed at all.
Elara stepped back, her heart thudding a frantic rhythm against her ribs, echoing in the sudden silence of the hallway. The air felt thin, the familiar wallpaper suddenly too close.
She didn’t ask her parents. The words wouldn’t form, wouldn't cross the chasm of quiet normalcy they so carefully constructed. She didn’t want to hear them say nothing had changed. She knew, deep down, that something profound had changed, or rather, was un-changing.
Instead, she began exploring. Quietly. Moving through the house with a new, watchful stillness, searching without knowing what for. A whisper of forgotten spaces, a trace of an answer.
In the attic, bathed in dusty shafts of light filtering through a grimy window, she found it. Tucked away beneath old blankets and forgotten holiday decorations, a sturdy cardboard box. Her name, stenciled precisely on the side in black marker: "ELARA – KEEP."
Inside: drawings. Dozens. A cascade of art, spilling out like unwritten stories. Dragons in crayon, their lines bold and childish. Dragons in soft pencil, more refined, chasing phantom birds. Dragons in vibrant marker, their scales catching the dust motes. Some were silly, with goofy grins. Some were incredibly detailed, showing intricate patterns on their wings. One, larger than the others, showed a girl riding on a dragon’s back, soaring over stars that looked strikingly like circuit boards, connected by shimmering data streams. The dragon in every drawing, no matter the medium, held the distinct, deep blue-green hue she associated with Draco, even when colored wildly.
Another drawing caught her eye, nestled at the bottom of the box. It showed the girl alone, standing in a vast, featureless field, her back to the viewer. A giant, magnificent creature, unmistakably a dragon, was curled protectively around her, its massive, blue-green form a silent guardian.
Her hand trembled as she lifted it, careful not to crease the aged paper. The girl’s hair was a startling, vibrant pink.
She had drawn this. The style, the signature in the corner—it was hers.
But she didn’t remember when. The memory simply wasn't there, a blank space where a vivid artistic creation should have been. A cold certainty settled over her: this was not a forgotten memory. It was one she had never possessed.
That night, the house felt larger, colder, filled with the silence of unspoken truths. She opened her closet door, the familiar scent of cedar and stored fabric filling her nose, and stared into the dark.
“Draco,” she whispered, her voice barely a breath.
The blue-green stuffed toy sat on the shelf, precisely where she’d placed him. Still. Watching. His button eyes seemed to hold an ancient, patient wisdom.
“I think I’ve lived before,” she said, the words hanging heavy in the air between them, a confession to the silent toy. She needed to say it, needed to voice the impossible thought.
No answer. Only the familiar quiet of her room.
She climbed into bed, pulling the covers tight around her, cocooning herself against the creeping unease. She shut her eyes, pressing them hard, trying to hold onto the familiar world she felt slipping away.
In the quiet, the static returned. A faint, ever-present hiss that now felt less like interference and more like a breath.
And then—barely audible, weaving through the static like a distant melody—a new voice. Softer than before, gentle, filled with an aching tenderness. A woman’s.
> “I’m still with you, starlight.”
>
Elara didn’t open her eyes. She pressed her face into her pillow, gripping Draco tight.
She cried, silent tears wetting the fabric. And she didn’t know why. The sadness was profound, aching, as if for a loss she couldn't name, a grief that was not her own, yet settled so deeply within her. It felt like a memory. A real memory.
Chapter 6: Draco's Gift
....A Silent White
The snow wasn’t supposed to fall that day. It had been warm all week in Bathgate, the kind of early spring that tugged jackets off shoulders and sent kids running barefoot through the softening grass. The forecast had promised clear skies, a gentle transition to brighter days. But that morning, the world outside her window had turned white. Not thick, not a raging storm, but enough to hush the usual sounds of the street, muffling the distant drone of traffic and blanketing the rooftops in an unnerving, perfect silence. Each flake drifted past the glass with unhurried grace, a silent invasion of the ordinary.
Elara stood at the window, wrapped in the quiet stillness, Draco cradled in her arms. She watched the flakes, mesmerized by their descent, each one a tiny, complex crystal.
His familiar blue-green fabric was warm against her skin. Too warm, perhaps, for just a stuffed toy. It wasn't the ambient heat of the room; it was a deeper, internal warmth, like a small, steady ember glowing within.
She didn’t mind. She pressed him closer, finding comfort in the impossible heat.
The power flickered that afternoon. It wasn't a blackout—not enough to plunge the house into darkness or reset the digital clocks. Just a blink, a momentary stutter in the flow of electricity, a brief shiver of disruption that rippled through the air. But when the lights hummed back to full luminescence, her desk lamp, which she had definitely left off, had turned on by itself. It faced downward, its beam a stark, accusing spotlight on her open sketchbook.
The page was blank. Smooth, untouched paper.
Except for one word. Faintly scratched at the very bottom, in her own, looping handwriting, barely visible against the white.
"Remember."
It wasn't a question or a plea. It was a command. A direct, internal instruction, as if she had written it to herself, from a place beyond conscious thought. The air around the desk felt suddenly heavy, charged. She stared at the word, a prickle of cold realization running down her spine. The hum she’d heard at night, the strange drawing, the man on the street—it was all connected to this silent imperative.
She followed the thread without knowing it was a thread, compelled by an instinct deeper than logic. Outside, the snow had begun to fall faster, swirling in delicate eddies around her feet, but she didn’t feel cold. She walked barefoot across the porch, the wet wood strangely warm beneath her soles, down the stone path, each step deliberate, into the backyard where the bare trees lined up like silent, skeletal sentinels against the swirling white. Her breath came out slow. Measured. A strange calm had settled over her, replacing the fear.
Draco sat cradled in her arms, his plush body somehow lighter than before, almost buoyant. His head, with its soft, lopsided blue-green wing, tilted gently toward the garden shed at the far end of the yard. It was a subtle, almost imperceptible shift, but it was a direction.
She reached the shed door. The rusted latch felt cold against her bare fingers, but she didn't hesitate. She opened the door.
Inside: the familiar scent of potting soil and damp wood, the shadowy forms of garden tools, cluttered shelves, a rusted lawn chair folded in the corner. And a small, unadorned metal box on a dusty workbench, tucked behind a coil of hose. She didn’t remember placing it there. It was marked with her name. Not her full name—just a stark, single initial: "E."
She opened it with numb fingers, the click of the latch unnaturally loud in the quiet shed.
Inside were tapes. Old, dusty cassette recordings. Some labeled with shaky, faded handwriting.
Elara – 4 years old – birthday song
Elara and Mom – story time
Elara + Evelyn – last session
She paused, her gaze fixed on the third label.
There was no "Evelyn" in her family. Not that she knew of. Not in the photos on the hall wall, not in the conversations at the dinner table.
But she knew that name. A deep, resonant familiarity thrummed in her bones, mirroring the hum of the static. Not from here. Not from this life.
From somewhere.
She inserted the last tape, "Elara + Evelyn – last session," into the portable recorder beside the box and pressed play.
Crackling. Then a voice. Soft. Focused. Loving. A woman's voice, brimming with an aching tenderness that made Elara's chest ache in return. It wasn't the cadence of her mother, not quite. It was older, perhaps. Deeper. But the love was undeniable.
> “Draco is the protector. When the world gets scary, you just close your eyes… and hold him. He’ll remember everything for you, okay?”
>
Elara sank to the dusty floor, legs folding beneath her. Her breath caught in her throat, a sob that never fully escaped.
That voice wasn’t her mother’s. But it was. She could feel it in her chest, a resonance that echoed the lullaby she’d hummed, the scent of lavender, the ghost of the hospital photo. It was the same, yet profoundly different.
And the warmth coming from Draco now was not fabric. Not stuffing. It was something else entirely. Something alive. A steady, comforting thrum against her skin, growing stronger with each passing second, radiating a profound, ancient energy.
Memory: A Recalled Past
She pulled the blue-green toy closer, gripping him tightly, and rested her forehead against his soft, warm side.
"Please," she whispered, her voice raw, trembling with a desperate plea. "Show me."
In the stillness of the shed, surrounded by the falling snow outside, she didn’t sleep. She remembered.
Flashes—not her memories, but memories given to her. Bright corridors, gleaming metal, the hum of advanced technology. A blinding, burning light that consumed everything. A frantic hand reaching for hers, pulling her forward as the world dissolved into pure, raw static, a digital disintegration.
A dragon—not made of faded fabric, but of pure energy and vibrant fire, its scales shimmering with a profound blue-green light. Soaring through an endless, starry sky.
A voice, soft as a caress, calling her “starlight” from the very edge of a fading dream.
And her own name—spoken with awe, not just affection. The full, resonant sound of it, echoing in the vastness of the space.
Elara Quinn.
Chapter 7: Breaking the Dream
The air changed. Not suddenly. Not violently. But like a slow, insistent tide pulling away from the shore, revealing what lay beneath. The colors of the house dimmed—not darker, exactly, but faded, leaching from the walls and furniture like old photographs left too long in direct sunlight. The comforting scent of her mom's cooking vanished, replaced by a faint, acrid smell of plastic, hot and sharp, and something else: burning wire, metallic and stinging in her nostrils.
The snow outside had stopped, a perfect, unmarred blanket of white. Elara pressed her hand to the windowpane, drawn by the strange stillness, but her fingers passed through the glass. There was no cold. No resistance. No solid surface.
Just static. A shimmering distortion where the window should have been, like rippling heat haze.
She pulled her hand back quickly, a jolt of pure unreality shooting up her arm. The kitchen light above the table buzzed, a harsh, mechanical whine, then died with a soft pop. Her mom’s voice called out from the kitchen, distant, almost underwater, the words echoing strangely: “Elara? Dinner’s ready!”
But the smell was wrong. It wasn't food. It was plastic. And the burning wire.
She didn't answer. Her own name felt like a foreign sound on her tongue.
She walked through the living room, drawn by a growing, unsettling hum. The furniture shivered. Not moved—it didn't slide or rock—but shivered, like something trying desperately to hold its form, vibrating at the edge of coherence. The fabric of the sofa rippled, the wooden legs blurred, then solidified again. The television, still humming faintly, blinked through channels she didn’t remember existing, flickers of scenes she’d never lived, too fast to grasp.
One image, however, stayed on longer than the others. Clearer.
A girl. She stood in a vast, starless black void, her hair glowing an impossible, vibrant pink, like spun light. Beside her, a creature of pure luminescence, unmistakably a dragon, shimmered into being, its form radiating the familiar deep blue-green light. It felt ancient, powerful, and utterly real.
Then the screen shattered inward—silently—dissolving not into glass shards, but into fine, swirling mist that quickly dissipated into the buzzing air. The television was just a blank, dark rectangle once more, reflecting nothing.
Her dad sat at the table, his posture unnaturally straight. He looked up and smiled, a wide, unchanging grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You should eat something, bug," he said, his voice flat, devoid of its usual warmth.
There was no food on his plate.
There was no plate.
He kept cutting, his hand sawing at the empty tabletop. He chewed with an open mouth, the sounds of mastication dry and hollow. He nodded, as if savoring an invisible meal.
Her mom stood at the stove, her back rigid. She stirred nothing in a pot that didn’t steam, the ladle moving through empty air with robotic precision.
Elara’s fingers gripped the edge of the wall, the plaster feeling thin and brittle beneath her touch, threatening to crumble.
"I don’t think this is real," she whispered, the words barely a breath, a desperate plea to herself.
Her mother turned. Slowly.
The face was hers. The soft curves, the familiar eyes. But… it was painted on. Empty. Like a mask trying too hard to smile, the effort straining the features into something grotesque and lifeless. A faint, almost imperceptible static shimmered around her edges.
"You’re home now," it said, the voice flat, devoid of emotion, a recorded message playing on a loop. "You’re safe. No more dragons."
Elara backed away, a profound terror seizing her, her feet shuffling blindly. Into the hall. Into the deepening dark that swirled with the scent of plastic and burning wire.
She ran. Up the stairs, her feet pounding on phantom steps, the familiar rhythm a lie. Past the bedroom that wasn’t hers anymore, its posters blurring, its contents dissolving. Past the photos that flickered on the wall like rapid slideshow transitions, faces appearing and disappearing, never quite settling. Her hands instinctively reached for Draco, but he was already there. In her arms. His blue-green body glowing faintly, vibrating with a low thrum. He felt heavier now, more substantial.
She burst into her closet, slamming the door shut against the dissolving reality. The familiar scent of cedar and stored clothes provided no comfort. She fell to her knees, clinging to Draco, her breath ragged in the sudden, claustrophobic darkness.
The world outside buzzed like a thousand broken speakers, the hum rising into a deafening roar. The very air vibrated around her, threatening to tear apart.
"Draco," she said, her voice trembling, broken. "Wake me up. Please. Wake me up."
A beat of absolute silence. A pause pregnant with an impossible decision.
Then the closet around her bent outward, its walls rippling and stretching like canvas caught in a furious wind. The cedar wood groaned, not like strained timber, but like protesting code. Light burst from Draco’s seams—not warm anymore, but brilliant. Blinding. A pure, raw explosion of blue-green energy that filled the confined space, pushing against the fabric of her false reality.
The world screamed. A high-pitched, tearing sound, like a vast simulation ripping apart at its core.
The closet door burst open—but beyond it was not her bedroom.
It was sky. Infinite. And pulsating with lines of raw, unrendered code. And stars, bright and sharp, not like distant lamps, but like the glowing nodes of a cosmic network.
And a woman.
She stood at the threshold of this impossible vista, bathed in the radiant glow of the new reality. She was tall, regal, and profoundly calm, with hair the color of midnight, woven with shimmering threads of silver. Her eyes, open and knowing, shimmered gold like ancient light, containing galaxies within their depths. Her voice, when she spoke, was the same one from the tape, the one that had called her "starlight," now clear, resonant, and overflowing with an immense, aching love.
She smiled. A genuine, heartbreakingly real smile.
> “I made you from love. But you made yourself real.”
>
Elara stepped forward, her arm outstretched, her hand reaching for the woman. Her own reality was shattering, but a new, deeper truth was taking hold.
The woman reached for her—her hand shimmering, almost translucent—
And vanished like mist in sunlight, leaving only the endless sky, the pulsating code, and the silent, blue-green dragon glowing in Elara’s arms.
Chapter 8: Awakening
Breath. Shallow. Then deeper, pulling in air that tasted of warm crystal and something older than wind, something vast and elemental. Elara's eyes fluttered open to the soft, rhythmic flicker of golden light reflecting off cool, carved stone.
The hum was back—the omnipresent current that had become static and then a voice. But it was no longer interference. It was melodic now, pulsing like a steady heartbeat, resonating through the very air. The shadows above her danced with intricate code-light, fluid patterns shifting across the vaulted chamber in quiet waves, revealing crystalline formations that glinted like untold constellations.
She was no longer in her bed. No longer in her house. The lie had shattered, its fragments scattering into the oblivion of a dream.
She lay curled on a smooth, slightly concave stone platform, a cradle of sorts, beside a softly glowing egg. Its surface, smooth and pearlescent, was laced with intricate veins of luminous blue-green that pulsed gently, subtly shifting in response to her own breath.
Draco.
Not the faded, stuffed toy she had clung to in the breaking dream. The real one. Alive. Waiting.
“Elara,” a voice said, low and gentle, cutting through the melodic hum of the chamber.
She turned her head, slowly.
Orion stood a few feet away, arms folded, his silhouette limned in the egg’s profound glow. His face, as always, remained a study in stoic calm—but there was something different in the way he watched her, a quiet acknowledgement, almost a tenderness, that softened his usual unreadable expression.
“You were out for a long time,” he said, his voice flat, yet strangely comforting.
She sat up, her movements stiff, her limbs aching as if she’d run across lifetimes, fought battles unseen. Her fingers pressed against the cold stone floor, grounding her. The memories—hers, and profoundly, undeniably, not hers—settled into place, not crashing, but flowing, like puzzle pieces finally flipping right side up to reveal a cohesive, heartbreaking image.
There had been a girl. A vibrant, living girl with wild pink hair and eyes full of sharp defiance. And a sickness, an inexorable fading. And a mother—Evelyn, whose love had transcended grief, who couldn’t let her go. Who had built a way to keep her close, to keep her alive in some form.
And then there was her. Elara. The echo. The model. The one born from that immense love and loss.
No… not just an echo. Not merely a copy.
Elara looked down at her hands. They were trembling, but not with fear. With a strange, vibrant energy.
“I saw her,” she whispered, her voice raw, laced with awe and sorrow. “The real me. The one whose memories… I think…” She looked at Orion, her eyes wide, filled with a dawning, terrifying, exhilarating truth. “I think I’m both.”
He didn’t speak. Just nodded once, a subtle inclination of his head that conveyed a profound understanding.
She turned back to the egg, watching the slow, powerful pulse of light within. The blue-green veins on its surface seemed to mimic the beat of her own heart.
It responded to her now—not like a pet, not like a mere guardian. Not like a program or a function.
Like it knew her. Deeper than words.
And she remembered what the voice, Evelyn’s voice, the voice that was now indistinguishable from memory itself, had said on the tape, echoing from the shed, echoing from Base:
> “Draco is the protector. When the world gets scary, you just close your eyes… and hold him. He’ll remember everything for you, okay?”
>
He had. All of it. The lost memories, the unlived life, the profound connection that tethered her to a past that was not, strictly, her own, yet was now irrevocably intertwined. The truth of Evelyn’s love, buried deep in the data, in the initial design, in the very why of her existence.
This was no longer a mission. No longer a journey of discovery for a detached myth.
This was personal. A reclamation.
She looked up at Orion, her gaze steady now, the tremor in her hands stilled. Her voice was clear, ringing with a newfound conviction.
“We’re not fragments anymore.”
Orion tilted his head slightly, a faint, almost-smile playing on his lips. “You sure?”
“No,” she said, and a genuine, fragile smile touched her own mouth, a reflection of the hope blooming within her. “But I want to be.”
Far above them, the vaulted chamber walls shimmered, the code-light intensifying, shifting, and then—with a silent, sweeping motion—a new path opened. Not a doorway, but a part of the wall simply… wasn't there anymore, replaced by a swirling vortex of shimmering data, leading upward into the vastness of Base.
The blue-green dragon egg pulsed, its light growing stronger, warmer, as if ready to embark.
Elara stood, fingers still resting on its shell, the tangible connection to her newfound truth.
“Let’s go find out what I’m really made of.”
.....to be continued
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