The sky had never felt so wide.
It stretched endlessly above her, grey and indifferent, as if it had grown tired of being looked
at.
Elara stood on the edge of the school rooftop, arms wrapped around herself. The cold wind
whipped her damp uniform against her skin, but she barely noticed. Her fingers were curled
too tightly into her sleeves, not from the cold—but to hold herself together.
No one had followed her.
No one ever did.
Below, the courtyard echoed faintly with the laughter of classmates — soft, distant, and
unkind. It didn't reach her. It never had.
The voices in her world were always muffled, like she'd been living underwater long before
she actually drowned.
She wasn't supposed to be up here.
But she wasn't supposed to be anywhere, really. She just... existed. A shadow that filled the
spaces between others.
Sometimes, she wished someone would look her in the eye and say her name like it meant
something.
Today wasn't one of those days.
Today, someone had written her name on a locker.
But it wasn't a message. It was a joke. A cruel one — in thick red letters that bled down like
paint and accusation:
Freak.
She didn't cry. Elara had long since run out of tears.
Instead, she climbed the stairs no one used, up to the place where silence lived.
And silence greeted her kindly.
She sat down, legs drawn in, forehead pressed to her knees. The sky rumbled above — soft,
distant thunder. Rain would come soon.
Maybe it already had.
Time passed. Maybe minutes. Maybe hours.
Then — something shifted.
A sound. Not thunder. Not wind.
Glass?
She lifted her head slowly.
Behind her, the rooftop door creaked. Footsteps — light, hesitant.
"Elara?" a voice called.
It was the girl from her literature class. She had never said Elara's name before.
Elara blinked.
The girl stepped closer — too close. There was something strange in her eyes. Hesitation.
Guilt.
Behind her... more figures.
"Elara, come here for a sec. We wanna show you something."
Elara stood.
The wind caught her hair. Rain began to fall.
She turned toward them — slowly.
That's when it happened.
A shove.
A scream.
Her feet slipped on the rain-slick edge.
Wind roared in her ears—then silence.
She plummeted from the rooftop, past the broken guardrail, down the cliffside path behind
the school.
Crashing through branches, stone, and light—
—until the ocean swallowed her whole.
She fell.
The wind tore past her ears, a scream caught in her throat but never released.
A blur of grey sky. Of rock. Of rain.
Then — silence.
A second of stillness before the world cracked open.
She hit the surface of the sea with a soundless shatter, like glass giving way beneath the
weight of sorrow.
Cold swallowed her. Darkness clung like oil.
She sank.
Down.
And down.
At first, there was panic.
Her arms flailed. Her lungs burned. Her heart screamed not like this.
But the water did not punish her.
It cradled her. Drew her deeper — not with force, but with... longing.
The deeper she sank, the quieter everything became.
Then... light.
Not from above, but from within.
A faint glow began to shimmer beneath her skin — at the curve of her left shoulder.
A mark, hidden for all her life, now pulsing like it had been waiting.
The sea around her responded.
Currents curled around her like ribboned arms.
Tiny lights blinked awake in the deep — jellyfish, drifting stars, memories of things that no
longer had names.
And somewhere... far below...
A sound.
Not a voice. Not words.
A note.
Low. Soft. Ancient.
Like someone humming a lullaby that only the sea could remember.
Elara's eyes fluttered open.
She should have been choking. Dying.
But she breathed.
Not air — not exactly. But something else.
Something old. Something sacred.
Her clothes — soaked and torn — began to shift.
Not fall away, but transform.
The fabric rippled, stitched itself into something new.
Silken threads of sea-glow wove around her arms, her legs. Her body shimmered with magic
she didn't understand — a dress she had never seen, soft and clinging and radiant like
moonlight through water.
Her hair fanned around her, now longer, heavier — glowing faint mint like it had borrowed
light from something divine.
Her eyes... they weren't brown anymore.
They shone like rose-gold pearls — glowing faintly in the dark.
And still, she sank.
But now... it felt like floating.
Like being carried home.
Above her, the storm raged.
Below her, the ocean opened.
And far off, in the shadows of a forgotten reef, something watched.
Eyes like dusk. Hair like frozen flame.
A voice that did not speak — but felt.
He saw the mark before she did.
And for the first time in a hundred years, the guardian who had fallen whispered—
"She returned..."
The words slipped from him before he knew why.
The ache in his chest had no name — only memory, and a shadow of something long lost.