Fragment 2: Her Dream

"Some people leave a massive effect on our lives, whether real or in a dream."

Raya opened her eyes.

Enormous white pavilion. No memory of waking, no memory of falling asleep either. Just white floor, white walls, and her own body standing in the middle of it.

The marble under her feet was polished so smooth it threw the light straight back at her. The walls kept climbing until somewhere near the top they gave up being walls and dissolved into brightness.

She tipped her head back to find the ceiling and never quite got there. Then the pillars.

Four of them, spread out around her, and her eyes went from one to the next almost on their own.

The first one glowed, steady, lit from inside. The second caught the light every time she moved her head, glittering the way water does. The third was quieter than the other two, softer, warmer, and something in her chest actually unclenched a little just looking at it.

The fourth one was wrong.

She couldn't have said how. It looked farther away, even though the distance had to be the same as the rest. Where the other three drank the light in, this one had a gap right at its edge, like the brightness had gotten close and thought better of it.

Colder... That was the word, and she didn't know why. It left something uneasy sitting in her chest.

A whistle cut through the pavilion, sharp enough that the whole crowd around her snapped into motion at once.

She turned. People everywhere, hundreds, maybe more. Adults talking. Kids weaving between legs. Somewhere ahead a crowd was thickening around something she couldn't see yet, and her feet were already carrying her toward it.

A wide field. Kids lined up along the starting mark, waiting for the race to begin.

And there was her sister.

Her whole face lit up.

"You can do it!" she called, hands cupped around her mouth.

Her sister glanced back and smiled, and Raya waved both arms over her head like an idiot. "Come on! Come on!"

The kids lined up, a couple of the starting marks a step or two ahead of the others. Her eyes had found her sister and weren't leaving. The whistle went. They ran.

"Go! Go!" She was shouting now.

Her sister ran like she meant to win it. Small legs, faster and faster, and for one bright stupid second Raya actually believed she'd catch up.

"Almost there!"

She didn't. The others crossed first, and her sister came in a beat behind, slowing to a stop with her chest heaving, and Raya was already halfway to her before she'd finished catching her breath.

"You did great," Raya said.

Her sister looked back at the finish line, then at her. "I almost won."

"You did." Raya smoothed her sister's hair back into place. "Next time, you'll get it."

Her sister just nodded. Not crying, not even really upset, she'd tried, she'd lost, and somehow she was already done with it.

"Well... well..."

The smile dropped off Raya's face before she'd even turned around.

An elderly woman stood a few steps off, watching them, wearing an expression that looked rehearsed, the kind of smile that comes from years of finding exactly where someone's pride is thinnest.

"At least you can try," the woman said, chuckling. "Second time and still lose?"

Raya looked at her sister. The girl had already dropped her eyes, and the words settled over the moment like salt pressed into a wound that had barely begun to close.

"She tried," Raya said, straightening up.

"And lost—" The woman shrugged.

"So?" Raya cut her off.

The woman just gave her a look, and something about it made Raya take a step closer.

"You don't have to say that."

"Why not?"

"She already knows."

"She should get used to it," the woman said, smile widening.

"She doesn't need you laughing at her." Raya stepped closer.

The woman stared at her a second. Then smirked. "Protecting her?"

Raya didn't say anything, and the woman tilted her head, studying her like she'd just gotten interesting.

"That's funny," the woman said. "You didn't want anything to do with her years ago, so why start acting like her mom now?"

Raya stopped. It landed somewhere she hadn't braced for, somewhere she didn't even know was still soft.

A mask she'd been wearing had split right down the middle, and everything underneath was suddenly out in the air.

''Raya?''

Her sister's voice reached her from somewhere behind a thought she'd been sitting inside without realizing it, and when she looked around the race was gone.

''Raya?''

The field, gone. The woman had vanished like she'd never stood there. Somehow, without any sense of having moved, she was on a bench, her sister beside her.

"Raya?"

"...Yeah?"

"You weren't listening."

"Sorry." She blinked, trying to pull herself back into the moment.

Her sister watched her a beat. "You didn't have to fight with her."

"She was being mean."

"I know."

"She was talking about you."

Her sister shrugged, easy about it in a way Raya still hadn't managed. "I know. You don't have to keep doing that, you know. Worrying about me like I'm still that kid on the field."

"I know," Raya said, too fast to be believed.

Her sister studied her a second longer, like she could see straight through the answer, then let it go. "You always try to fix everything."

"Someone has to," Raya said, quieter now.

Her sister gave her a small look and stood.

"I have to go."

"Where?"

"My friends."

"Oh."

"My dance group is waiting."

Raya looked at her a beat longer than the question needed. "Have fun."

"I will." Her sister was already running, shrinking down the path, and Raya sat there with the bench feeling too big beside her.

She didn't mean to keep thinking about it. She did anyway, the woman's voice circling back uninvited, settling somewhere under her ribs and refusing to leave. She wasn't even sure how long she'd been sitting there when something in her chest simply turned, no warning, no reason she could point to.

Something was wrong.

She was on her feet before she'd decided to stand.

The path had been empty. Now it wasn't.

One person. Another. Then it was all bodies, filling the space in both directions, kids darting through, adults cutting across her, shoulders in the way. She slowed only enough to search, and caught her.

There. Her sister's shape, small and unmistakable.

"Sis!"

She pushed forward. Someone crossed in front of her.

Gone.

She went left. Someone else went left. Right, and a shoulder blocked her. Right again, then left, her eyes jumping from face to face and never landing, and then, there, a flash of familiar hair.

She shoved through, hand already reaching.

Nothing.

The crowd closed up again. Too many faces, too many voices, and something close to panic building behind her ribs, tightening with every second she couldn't find her.

There. No, there. Gone. Her sister flickered into view for a second and vanished behind a wall of strangers.

Faster now. Left, right, right again. A shoulder slammed into hers and she barely noticed it, because all she could think about was reach the gap before it swallowed her sister whole. Her hands kept parting bodies, chasing that one shape.

There she was again. Closer. Raya's eyes were already stinging before the relief even hit her.

"Sis!"

She reached, stretched as far as her arm would go. Her sister was right there, just past the last wall of people.

Someone grabbed her hand.

She didn't look. She pulled forward, and the grip only tightened. She ignored it and kept reaching.

The hand yanked. Fast.

She lurched backward and everything hit at once, the crowd, the noise, her sister's shape disappearing, her own heart slamming in her ears. For one second her mind just stopped.

Then the ground wasn't there anymore.

Everything went white, and she fell into the clouds.

The clouds held her. She didn't know how, didn't try to figure it out, but her feet sank a little into the pale surface with every step, soft, like the clouds were swallowing whatever hard edges might have hurt her.

A boy was running ahead of her. She ran too, without knowing why.

''Don't'', said some small voice in the back of her head.

''You don't know him.'' Her feet kept going anyway, following him across all that soft white nothing.

She looked down and found his hand around hers, a red ribbon caught between their fingers, its loose end whipping around behind them.

She stared at it for a second, then looked up, his shirt moving in the wind, the clouds rolling under their feet, every step weightless in a way that didn't need to make sense, not here.

He glanced back and smiled. Whispered something she didn't understand. She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but he'd already turned forward again, and then, no warning at all, he jumped.

Her eyes went wide. "Wait!"

She grabbed him, arms locked around his shirt as the ground, or whatever had been passing for ground, dropped away beneath them both. Wind tore past her ears. She held on harder. For one breathless second everything went white again, and then, they landed.

Cold marble under her feet.

She let go slowly and looked around. A rooftop, all white marble, stretching out. He walked to the edge and sat down. She followed and sat beside him.

A river moved quietly below, far off.

No crowds up here.

No shouting, no whistles.

just water and a soft wind sliding across the roof, and for a while she just sat with it, letting the quiet settle into her.

She had questions. Who was he. Why had he grabbed her hand. Why had she followed him, trusted him enough to jump off a roof into open air. None of it made it past her throat.

He leaned over the edge and swung his arm into the clouds below. When he pulled it back, there was a handful of small blue berries in his palm. He held them out.

She looked at them, then at him, and just ate one.

Her eyes went wide. Sweet, then sour, then sweet again, and she reached for another almost immediately.

He laughed. She laughed too, and that's when she noticed the blue splattered across his white shirt, little stains everywhere. She pointed at them. He looked down and grinned at his own mess.

He stood up and held out his hand.

She looked at it for a second before placing hers in his. He pulled her up. She stood there a second, unsure, until he stepped forward. She followed. Another step, and she followed again.

It didn't take long before she stopped thinking about it. Her body just moved with him. She nearly tripped once and he steadied her without missing a beat. She laughed under her breath, cheeks warm, and he smiled back.

He turned. She turned with him.

Somehow they were dancing.

There was no music, at least none she could hear. She didn't know the steps. Nothing was telling her where to put her feet. She just watched him and moved when he moved. When he stepped closer she did too. When he turned she turned with him.

She stumbled again.

This time she laughed first.

He laughed too.

She shook her head with a small smile and kept going.

Little by little the self-consciousness faded. She stopped counting steps or second-guessing. She simply moved with him, sometimes rushing ahead a half-step, sometimes lagging, once turning a beat early and catching his already-soft smile when she glanced up.

The sky kept changing while they danced.

The blue slowly faded into orange, then softer pinks. The clouds stretched far beneath them, and the evening light moved across his face whenever they turned.

Raya didn't know how long they stayed like that.

For once she wasn't thinking about anything else. She wasn't looking for her sister. The woman from the race, the questions about what any of this meant, the worry about where they were headed, none of it touched her right then.

She was just happy.

They drifted back to the edge of the rooftop after a while and sat down next to each other.

Neither spoke.

The river below held the last of the evening light. Raya rested her hands on the cool surface beside her. Even after he let go, the warmth of his hand lingered in hers.

Then he reached over and hooked his little finger around hers. She looked down. Their fingers curled together.

A promise.

He said something quiet, and heat rushed straight to her cheeks. She looked away, pouting, and he only grinned wider and said something else, something even worse, in the good way, and she tried to keep a straight face and failed completely.

The smile just came. She looked down at their joined hands, at the ribbon still sitting right where it had been the whole time.

Far off, the pavilion again, white, silent, empty, the four pillars standing under a dimming sky. The first lit up. Then the second. Then the third. Then, finally, the fourth.

The cold in it was just gone.

Warm light spread through all four at once, until the whole pavilion felt almost alive. All four pillars glowing together now.

She blinked, and the pavilion was gone. She was back on the roof, him still beside her, and this time she actually looked at the sunset catching his black hair and turning the edges gold, his eyes brown at first and then, in that light, almost hazel.

She stood. He stood with her. Neither one stepped back.

She moved a little closer.

He did too, the space between them shrinking with every small shift, until she could feel the warmth coming off his skin and her heart had picked up.

She dropped her eyes for a second, lifted them again. He was closer now. One more step. Closer still. She could feel him breathing.

Their faces were only inches apart, and closer, closer, just a little more.

BEEP.

Her eyes snapped open.

BEEP.

She stared at the ceiling.

BEEP.

Her hand shot toward the alarm.

BEEP.

"Ugh!"

She slapped it off. The room went quiet.

She lay on her bed for a few seconds, the dream still lingering. It felt warm in her chest, unfinished and sweet, and it wasn't going away yet.

She covered her face with both hands and laughed. She was smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. She just stayed like that for a moment.

After a while she sat up and rubbed her head. Morning light was coming through the gap in the curtains.

She got up, went to the window, and pulled the curtain open. Sunlight came in. Outside everything looked normal. Cars on the road. Birds in the sky. The neighborhood was waking up like always, like nothing special had happened.

She stood there a moment, let the light land on her face, and looked down at her hand.

Nothing.

She blinked. Just a dream, then. Obviously.

She turned away from the window.

"Raya!"

She looked toward the door. Her sister, still half asleep.

"You gonna be late—"

Her sister stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes had caught on something.

"What is on your finger?"

Raya looked down.

"It's a ribbon—"

She stopped. The smile was already gone.

A thin red ribbon, tied around her pinky.

Raya stared at it. Her thumb moved to it before she'd decided to move at all, slow, tracing the small knot at the side of it. The fabric was soft under her touch.

Worn soft, the kind of soft that only comes from being handled again and again.

She turned her hand over, slow, letting the morning light catch the color, and something in her chest went very still.

Her sister stepped closer. "What?"

Raya didn't answer. She kept looking at it, at the frayed little edge of the loose end, at the exact shade of red, waiting for the rest of her to catch up to what her hands had already understood.

"Wait..."

Her mouth opened, catching her breath.

"IT'S THAT RIBBON!"