Prologue

Elira woke to the sound of screaming.

Her breath caught before her eyes even opened, the sharp tang of smoke burning down her throat like fire in liquid form. It clung to her lungs, heavy and acrid, making every gasp feel like swallowing ash. The air was hot—too hot—pressing against her skin with the searing weight of an open flame.

Somewhere nearby, wood splintered. Somewhere farther away, something—someone—exploded into another round of desperate, guttural cries.

Her body reacted before her mind could catch up. She sat up fast, her heart slamming against her ribs like a trapped bird, wings beating frantically against bone. Her gaze darted in every direction, seeking—no, hunting—for exits, for shadows, for places to disappear.

And that was when she realized—

She wasn’t in her apartment.

She wasn’t even in her own world.

She was crouched low behind the blackened skeleton of a building that looked like it had once been made of stone, now charred and brittle under the weight of the fire consuming it. The night sky was not the black she knew—it pulsed orange, flickering as though it were alive, breathing with the rhythm of the flames swallowing the city.

Gunshots cracked in the distance—sharp, staccato bursts that sliced through the air with vicious precision. Each one rattled through her, syncing perfectly with a heartbeat she didn’t own.

Her hands were trembling. No—someone else’s hands were trembling. She could feel the grit embedded in the skin, see the grime ground deep into calloused lines. They weren’t her hands—too scarred, too thin, the nails jagged as if broken from clawing at stone. In them, she clutched a small leather satchel tight against her chest, her knuckles pale beneath the soot.

She had never seen this place before.

But she remembered it.

The realization twisted in her gut like a knife.

The moment she tried to shift her weight, her body—this body—moved with a speed and certainty that startled her. She darted into the shadows without thinking, slipping into a side alley littered with broken glass and half-buried shell casings. Her bare feet—or were they booted?—hit the pavement with the muted precision of someone who had done this a thousand times. She knew which alleys would keep her hidden from watchful eyes. She knew the routes where the sound of footsteps wouldn’t carry. She even knew where snipers lay in wait atop crumbling rooftops, rifles glinting faintly in the firelight.

And she knew the name of the boy whose voice was screaming her name through the chaos—though she had never met him.

“Elira!”

Her pulse stumbled mid-beat. The sound of it was so familiar and yet so impossibly foreign, a voice that had no right to know her name.

She risked a glance over her shoulder.

Somewhere beyond the curtain of smoke, she caught the shadow of movement—fast, urgent, heading toward her. He was tall, wiry, his clothes torn and smeared with ash. His voice carried desperation, a raw edge that dug into her chest like claws.

That voice didn’t belong here.

That voice belonged to another world.

And then—

The ground buckled.

Not an earthquake—not exactly—but something deeper, stranger. The air itself seemed to twist, thickening until it shimmered like heat mirages on a summer road. Her vision rippled at the edges. For half a heartbeat, the city bled away, replaced by another scene entirely—impossible, fragile, and bright.

She saw herself.

Not this soot-streaked, sweat-slick version crouched in the shadows, but herself—barefoot, standing in a gown of pale silk that spilled like liquid moonlight around her feet. A violin was poised in her hands, bow drawn across the strings in perfect stillness, the music frozen mid-breath.

They locked eyes across the impossible gap—two Eliras, staring at each other from different realities.

The other her looked startled, too, as if she could feel the crack between their worlds.

The floor beneath Elira’s feet split—not with sound, but with sensation, as though her very sense of self were being pulled in two directions at once.

And then—

The burning city was gone.

The world snapped into blinding light. Stage lights. They blazed down on her, so bright they carved halos into her vision. Applause swelled like a wave crashing against her ears—thunderous, relentless, suffocating. She could feel her heartbeat shift, no longer pounding with fear but racing with the adrenaline of performance.

Her fingers—no longer scarred and grimy—were slender, their tips hardened with the smooth calluses of years of practice. They moved with graceful certainty, drawing the bow across the strings to release the final, ringing note.

She could smell rosin and polished wood, the faint perfume of flowers tossed onto the stage.

Elira nearly dropped the violin.

Because she knew—knew with a bone-deep certainty—that she had just stolen a moment from a life that wasn’t hers.

She didn’t just see it. She felt it—down to the smallest breath, the smallest muscle twitch, as if she had been there all along.

As if both lives had been hers from the start.

The applause roared on. Lights burned hotter. The violin grew heavier in her hands. But beneath it all—beneath the veil of silk and music—she could still hear the echo of her name being screamed in the burning city, the voice cutting through the air like a desperate plea she couldn’t answer.

And she had no idea which world she truly belonged to.

To Be Continue..

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