Tokyo, Japan — 9:12 PM
The sound of the clock ticked in Hana Yamamoto's room, loud and piercing like the second hand was piercing her mind with each passing moment.
Outside, the city lights twinkled like stars struggling to be seen. Inside, all was quiet. Too quiet.
She looked at the dance shoes on her shelf — frayed, cracked at the ends, but the only real thing in her life. The only thing that ever made her come alive. But those shoes had been silent for months now. Just like her.
The door creaked open.
Her mother peeked in.
"Hana, have you finished prepping for the university admission exams?" She spoke softly. Too softly.
"Yes, Okaasan," Hana said without moving.
Her mother hesitated. "Don't forget, Tokyo Medical is highly competitive. You're going to have to work twice as hard now if you want to please your father."
"I know."
Three words. Heavy as chains.
The door shut once more, and Hana shakily exhaled. Her fingers were clenched around the table's edge as she struggled to breathe. She was exhausted — not the type of exhausted that sleep corrects. The type of exhausted that dreams can't endure.
She was the ideal daughter for years. Top student. Mannered. Reserved. Compliant. A machine programmed to please.
But no one ever realized when she ceased to smile.
No one had asked her when she quit dancing.
She got up, moving slowly to her window. The wind was gentle this evening, as though even the heavens were aware that she was on the edge.
Hana opened the drawer of her desk and retrieved her journal. Her writing was tidy — as perfect as everything else about her.
"I wanted to dance. Not because I was good at it. But because it made me feel like I existed."
"But maybe I was never meant to be more than a shadow in this house."
She closed it quietly. No anger. No tears. Just… silence.
Walking to her closet, she reached for a small box — the one in which she stored the secrets no one was privy to. Her first recital picture. Her best friend's middle school letter. A ribbon from the costume she loved.
She sat on the bed, the box resting in her lap.
"Perhaps, if I disappear quietly, then at last they'll hear me."
Hana gazed up at the ceiling.
She smiled. It was a small, quiet, almost serene smile.
And she stood up.
The bulbs in her room remained on, but the essence in the room had already faded.
And then, an instant later, silence enveloped the Yamamoto home. And Hana's shadow… disappeared from existence.
????
Somewhere distant, in a land beyond time….
An air stirred the leaves. A gentle light filtered through heavy green boughs. The forest pulsed with life — birds sang, leaves glimmered, and the ground heaved like a heartbeat.
And at its center, a girl was unconscious on a soft bed of moss.
Her fingers moved.
Her eyes blinked open.
Hana Yamamoto awoke.
And things were never going to be the same again.