The first thing she saw was the sky—it wasn't up above her. It was below her.
Azra came suddenly to her heels, her eyes squinting against the yellow-blue radiance. She was reclining upon a bed of glassy meadow, one that felt softly and iridescent. Beneath her, like a porthole onto another reality, lay a never-ending sea of stars, galaxies rotating in measured whirls. The sky to which she had grown accustomed, gray and thick with cloud, was gone. This one stretched as though alive.
She got up slowly, racing heart, churning mind. She was sure that she had dozed off in her tiny apartment, huddled under a mountain of unfolded clothes. Now she stood barefoot on island land floating above a sea of stars.
Was this a dream?
"Not quite," a voice at her back replied.
Azra spun around. A boy—no more than ten years old—stood before her, grasping a lantern that didn't appear to require fire. He had silver eyes and was dressed in a tunic constructed of sewn clouds.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"I'm the Messenger," he replied matter-of-factly. "You've crossed through a seam."
"A seam?"
"Between your world and ours. It occurs when someone ceases dreaming long enough that the universe must step in."
Azra blinked. "That sounds… made up."
The boy just smiled. "Everything is made up, until it isn't."
He started walking along a path that appeared to take shape with every step. Azra lingered, then trailed behind. What else was she to do?
They floated by trees that bobbed in the water, their leaves feather-shaped, and uphill rivers that flowed, singing. In the distance, glass-winged birds fluttered up from the ground like shards of light. The air itself glowed, smelling sweetly of lavender and something that she could only call nostalgia. The farther in they went, the more Azra felt like something within her was uncoiling awake.
"Why me?" she asked. "Why bring me here?"
"You stopped believing in things that mattered," he replied, not unkindly. "Your world runs on time. This one runs on wonder. When people stop feeding their wonder, the seam gets thin."
"I didn't mean to," she whispered.
"I know."
They entered a clearing. In its center was a tree constructed of mirrors. Thousands of them, reflecting different faces—some hers, some not.
This is the Heart Tree," the boy explained. "It tells you who you've been, who you could become, and sometimes, who you were always supposed to be.
Azra moved closer. One of the mirrors caught her attention—a reflection of herself in a cloak of gold, eyes aglow with fire and determination, standing at the edge of a battlefield. Another reflected her painting in a sunny cottage. Another, cradling a book that radiated light.
"I don't get it," she said.
The voice of the boy softened. "You used to dream of many things. Somewhere along the way, you forgot. This world didn't. We remember the fragments you left behind."
Tears scorched at the edges of her eyes. "Can I go back?"
"You need to. But not with nothing."
He dug into his lantern and retrieved a flame—not warm, but beating softly like a heart. He held it out to her.
"This is your ember," he told her. "It's built out of all you've lost but still carry. Let it remind you."
Azra held it in the palm of her hands. It flashed, and then it went down into her chest, lingering as a soft heat.
"Will I remember this?" she asked.
The boy leaned his head. "It's your decision. But find the signs. When the breeze blows a bit differently, when a shadow shimmers with light, when something mundane feels wondrous—that's this world recalling you."
The sky below them started to ruffle, as if water stirred by a gust.
"It's time," he said.
Azra scanned the space. She did not want to go. Not yet. But she knew now—this place wasn't a place. It was a flicker. A memory.
"Will I see you again?"
He grinned. "Only if you forget about it."
And suddenly, the ground beneath her feet dropped away.
She woke to the rhythm of rain hitting her window.
Her apartment was the same—laundry still unfolded, the smell of coffee faint on the air. But something within her had changed.
Azra sat up, putting a hand to her chest. The heat was still there, a gentle throb like a second pulse.
She gazed out the window. The rain glimmered differently, as if it bore color. A feather-shaped leaf stuck to the glass. A faraway wind whispered in a language she couldn't quite recall, but nearly understood.
And right next to her bed, on the nightstand, lay a single silver coin inscribed with a star and the word wonder.
Azra smiled, her heart full of something long buried and now awakened.
She didn't get it all yet.
But she would.
Days went by, but they didn't feel like days—not the way they used to.
Azra continued to work. She continued to take the same subway, sit at her same gray desk in the same windowless office, typing up reports that no one read. But something was different. It wasn't the world that had changed—it was her.
The ember flickered softly within her breast with every occurrence where something remarkable came into contact with the perimeters of her routine existence.
When a wind crept down the alley between the buildings and the smell of honeysuckle floated by, when it was winter in the middle of the month.
When she noticed a child writing stars on the sidewalk with chalk—and the stars moved.
When a crow landed on her windowsill and dropped a silver feather, then gazed back at her with eyes far too knowing for a bird.
And at night, just at the moment of sleeping, she cupped her hand around the coin—the one inscribed with the word wonder. It never cooled. It seemed to have a memory of its own, more than she did.
Then one night the sky summoned her.
It began quietly: a vibration in her walls, a flicker on her lamp, a voice calling behind her name. But if she closed her eyes, she saw the boy again. The Messenger. Waiting at the horizon of a mirror sea.
"We need you," he said.
When she woke, the coin was radiant.
Azra didn't ask questions this time. She stuffed a bag—though she had no idea what for—and ventured out into moonlight. The streets were still, the world swaddled in slumber.
She walked aimlessly, allowing her feet to be guided by the tug in her chest. And then, at the border of the park where city lights transitioned to darkness, she found it: a humming silver door, half-buried in ivy.
The coin incinerated in her hand.
She pressed it against the door.
It swung open.
The world she entered was brighter than before. More vibrant. The trees whispered her name. The rivers knew her footsteps. The air hummed a low, wordless melody of welcome.
The Messenger was there.
"You remembered."
Azra nodded. "I never really forgot."
"There's more to you," he said, "than even you know."
He took her through the Heart Tree, now shimmering with new mirrors, and into a valley where others—strange and lovely—were congregated. Some of them had wings. Some of them drifted like smoke. All of them turned as she came.
"She's here," a voice whispered.
A woman emerged, hair like stardust, voice like wind through chimes. "The Ember-Bearer," she said. "The one who walked the seam awake."
Azra's voice shook. "I don't understand."
"You will," the woman told her. "You were born between two worlds. The ember within you is a bridge. And now, our world asks you to recall what yours has forgotten: wonder, wildness, the stories that become truth."
A wind blew up her hair. The stars twinkled near.
"Are you ready?" the woman asked.
Azra gazed out over the valley, her chest burning with something old and endless.
"Yes," she said. "I'm ready."
And the world sighed her name
React
