Zamira lay awake long after the shadows in her room had settled. The air felt heavier than it should, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. The last thing Nayel had said still echoed through the darkness like a pulse that refused to fade:
"This wasn't just a choice.
This… was a beginning."
A thin crack of light—no, not light, something daha old—trembled along the edges of her room. The two layers she had stepped between refused to close properly now. She swallowed hard, pressing a hand to her chest. The faint pulse she'd felt earlier was still there, like a hidden thread tugging from somewhere far beyond the physical world.
And then the window shuddered.
Outside, the sky rippled—just once—as if someone had traced a finger across the fabric of the night. A vertical line, barely visible yet unmistakably there, quivered from the clouds to the horizon.
A tear.
Not in the sky.
In reality.
Zamira's breath hitched. She took a step back from the window, heart pounding, the pulse in her chest syncing with something she couldn't see. The room felt too small, too stretched—as if both worlds were inhaling at the same time.
Then everything went still again.
Completely still.
Zamira didn't sleep the rest of the night. She drifted in and out of shallow breaths, lying on her bed fully awake, waiting for the shadows to move or the air to shift again. But nothing else came.
Not until morning.
---
Morning
When she finally stood from her bed, the ache behind her eyes was sharp enough to blur her vision. Her room looked normal. Almost too normal.
As if it desperately wanted to pretend the night before hadn't happened.
Zamira washed her face, brushed her hair, tried to fold herself back into the routine of an ordinary student—but her reflection betrayed her. Her eyes looked different. A little too aware. A little too awake.
She grabbed her bag, stepped into the hallway, and the entire apartment felt… off.
The lights flickered once when she passed under them.
The air vibrated with a faint hum.
It wasn't dangerous.
Just present.
As if the world had started paying attention to her.
---
On the Bus
The bus ride started like any other—crowded, noisy, smelling of cold air and cheap coffee. Zamira stood by the window, forehead leaning against the cold glass. Her eyes followed the pattern of buildings sliding by.
But something was wrong.
The morning felt muted.
Like someone had turned the sound down on reality.
Voices were muffled, movements sluggish. The colors outside the window washed into pale greys.
Zamira frowned and glanced at her phone.
No notifications.
But her neck pricked with the sensation of someone exhaling right beside her ear.
Then—
"Do you hear me?"
The whisper wasn't human.
It was too cold, too thin, as if spoken from somewhere between waking and dream.
Zamira's head snapped around.
No one was looking at her.
But in the cluster of people, one shadow—just one—seemed too heavy. Too concentrated. As if it had more weight than a shadow should have. It shifted ever so slightly, like something inside it moved.
Zamira blinked.
The shadow disappeared.
But her pulse didn't calm.
She looked at the window again—and froze.
A pair of icy blue eyes flashed in the glass behind her.
Just for a heartbeat.
Her chest tightened, but it wasn't fear.
It was recognition—deep, instinctive, buried somewhere she couldn't name.
---
At School
The school looked normal. Teachers chatting, students laughing, lockers slamming shut. But between all that normality, something else lingered.
Corners darkened without reason.
Light bent strangely at times.
And once—just once—Zamira swore she saw the floor ripple under her shoe, like a thin veil being stretched too far.
Between classes, she walked down the main hallway when it happened again.
A flicker.
A dark fold in the air.
Then a voice—this time clearer, closer:
"Don't step back."
Her entire body went still mid-stride.
Students brushed past her, oblivious.
But Zamira saw it—another shadow leaning forward, unfolding into a partial form. Shoulders broad. Hair catching a faint golden hue even inside the darkness. Eyes—those same icy blue eyes—sharp and unyielding.
The silhouette bent, strained, then snapped back into the dark as if dragged away.
Her heart dropped.
Something was trying—fighting—to reach her.
---
Evening
The headache hit her the moment she entered the apartment.
A deep, splitting pressure behind her temples. She nearly dropped her bag.
The walls hummed again.
Not sound—vibration. Energy. A silent warning or a silent invitation, she couldn't tell.
She stumbled into her room, collapsed onto her bed, closed her eyes—
And the darkness moved.
Not vanished—moved.
Her room dimmed, but the light behind the dimness grew brighter, peeling open a second layer of reality. Same room, same layout—but older, colder, unfinished. The shadows looked like living things half-formed, waiting.
And then he stepped forward.
---
Nayel
He emerged from the fold in the room, almost completely visible now.
Tall.
Structured.
Human, but not quite.
Golden streaks shimmered in his hair even with no light to reflect them. His eyes cut through the dark like a blade. His clothes were seamless, woven from shadow and substance both.
His face carried no anger.
Only pain.
"Zamira."
It wasn't a whisper this time.
It was real.
His voice filled the room.
Zamira felt the air shift with it.
He took a step toward her—instinctive, desperate—but an invisible force slammed into him. His body jerked back, like he'd hit an unseen barrier.
A crack ripped through the shadow behind him.
He grimaced but didn't look away from her.
"I was punished."
His voice was steady, but strained.
Zamira swallowed.
"Punished?… Why?"
His eyes softened—a breathtaking, devastating softness she didn't expect.
"Because I chose you."
The room's walls fractured with thin, spider-web dark veins.
Reality trembled.
A question slipped from Zamira's lips before she even understood it:
"Where… do I know you from?"
Nayel's expression flickered.
Sad.
Tender.
Resigned.
"It's too soon for you to remember."
The words vibrated through the entire room.
Every shadow quivered.
Every light pulled back.
The second layer collapsed inward like a closing curtain.
Nayel's form dissolved into the fold just as the last crack in the wall sealed.
And in a blink—
He was gone.
Zamira sat up in her bed, drenched in sweat, chest heaving.
But there was no more confusion.
This wasn't a dream.
Not a hallucination.
The world had changed.
Light, darkness, layers—they could all see her now.
And she could see them too.