The space beyond the door was too silent to be real.
Lyra blinked, breath catching in her throat. One moment she was stepping through rain and despair, the next, she was standing barefoot on warm wood, beneath a sky that shimmered like silk soaked in moonlight. The door vanished behind her, leaving only echoes.
Before her, an empty amphitheater stretched wide, carved from alabaster and violet crystal, framed with instruments embedded in marble—pianos, harps, violas—silent but pulsing faintly, as if breathing.
Everything was glowing. The stage. The rails. The rows of phantom seats that seemed both full and empty. Starlight swirled like fog above her, slow and patient, waiting.
Her voice trembled. "What is this…?"
"Welcome, Lyra Halden."
She froze. The voice came not from around her—but from within the very air. It was layered, rich, and genderless, like a choir singing through a waterfall.
"This is a threshold between endings and beginnings. A space for lost songs and singers who nearly surrendered."
Her hands curled at her sides.
"I didn't surrender," she whispered. "I just… didn't want to keep playing."
"But you came here."
A soft hum floated around her feet. The stage beneath her rippled gently like a pond of polished wood.
"If you wish to step forward, you must prove you still have a song within you."
The words hit her like cold water.
"I don't," she said bitterly. "I'm empty."
No response.
Just a breeze. A hush. And the slow appearance of a single microphone at the center of the stage—vintage, golden, glowing.
Her heart skipped.
VIVA stirred inside her thoughts.
"Lyra… the energy patterns in this environment respond to emotional resonance. This place may require auditory output to proceed. A performance."
"VIVA," she whispered shakily, "I can't. I don't have anything left."
"You have pain. That is something."
She looked down at her trembling hands.
When was the last time she sang for herself? Not for grades, not for choir auditions, not to impress judges or make her mother nod in approval. Just… sang?
Her knees bent. Slowly, she knelt on the stage, chest heaving. Tears dripped down her chin and pooled in the space between the wooden planks.
"I don't want to be alone anymore," she whispered, voice cracking. "I'm so tired of pretending I'm okay. I just wanted to make people proud… I didn't ask for this system, I didn't ask to be born with this brain, I just wanted to belong—!"
The lights flickered above. The silence pressed closer.
She looked up, and the microphone was still there. Waiting.
One hand rose.
Her fingers wrapped around it.
And the sob broke into melody.
The song began without her realizing it. A trembling note that carried the weight of everything she'd buried—the ache of being cast out, the sting of betrayal, the suffocating silence after love turned cold.
The words weren't polished. The tune wasn't perfect. But it was hers.
Her truth.
"I walked through doors with stars in my eyesDreamed of gold, while hiding all my criesThey called me liar, threw me awayBut I still breathe, so I'll still stay…"
Her voice cracked mid-verse, tears streaming down her face, but the stage didn't reject it.
It welcomed it.
Light rippled out from her feet like rings in water. The instruments embedded in the marble began to glow, harmonizing gently with her melody. Harps sighed. Strings whispered. The whole amphitheater vibrated with quiet understanding, as if saying: We see you. We hear you.
She poured her whole soul into it.
All the loneliness.
All the broken pieces.
She didn't care how she looked.
She didn't care if anyone was watching.
For the first time in her life, Lyra sang without fear.
And when her voice faded—when the last note drifted upward and dissolved into starlight—the silence that followed was sacred.
Then, slowly, the stage pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
And erupted in soft golden fireflies of light, swirling around her in celebration.
"Accepted."
The voice returned, but this time, warmer. Almost proud.
"Your song has been heard. You may proceed."
A new door appeared ahead, curved and crimson, inscribed with a symbol: a treble clef over a heart.
Lyra fell to her knees, sobbing quietly, but no longer in despair.
"I'm still here," she whispered.
VIVA's voice was like a gentle friend smiling inside her.
"Yes. And you're just beginning."
Behind her, the amphitheater faded.
Ahead, the gates to Harmonia University opened wide.
END OF CHAPTER 1