The ocean breeze hit her first. Sharp, salted, alive. 

This feels... oddly familiar.  

"Is it home?" she thought. The sky stretched in streaks of dull blue and white, mesmerizing--yet her mind drifted like a soft fog, staring blankly at the open horizon. 

"Eh, I guess I just really love the sea," she muttered to herself, a lil embarrassed at how small and pointless it sounded. But it felt right. Somehow. 

The wind tugged at her hair, rattled her clothes, and she shivered. Not from the cold, but from something deep in her chest she couldn't name. Something like an urge in her. 

"Wanna buy one? They're for sale."

Startled, she turned. A child, no taller than her hip, stood just a few steps behind. The child clutched a bundle of balloons so bright they almost hummed against the gray sea behind them. Her eyes were wide and bright, hair whipping across her face. 

She almost laughed. "Out here? To who?"

The child just shrugged. "You, maybe."

Something about her voice.... It made her pause. The woman stared for a moment longer. There was something oddly familiar in the tilt of her chin, the way her hair curled behind her ear, the faint dimple that appeared on her round cheek. 

"Strange place to sell balloons," she said, forcing a smile. 

 

The child smiled back. "Strange place to be alone."

The words hit harder than she expected. She looked away, toward the horizon. The sea breathed heavy and boundless. When she turned back, the child had already started walking. Toward the cliff. 

Small feet, sure steps. The balloons trembled wildly in the wind.

"Ehh?--wait!" she called, heart skipping. The child didn't answer. Just kept walking, faster than expected, as if she knew exactly where she wanted to go. 

"Is this kid insane? She's going to FALL.." Her breath caught. Without thinking, she lunged forward, arm outstretched--just as the child turned, smiled, and caught her hand. 

There was no time to pull back. 

The world tilted. Wind roared; fierce, playful, insistently moving. The balloons soared upward as the ground disappeared beneath them. And yet, at such a height, she didn't feel fear. Only... familiarity. The air wrapped around her like a blanket. Soft, warm, and real.

Then came the shift.

 

One blink, and the rush of wind turned into laughter echoing down tiled corridors. The scent of chalk and polished floors replaced the salt. She blinked again, confused. There were now walls; tall, brick, proper. 

A school. 

The school hallway stretched endlessly, and lining them were blue classrooms, ones that were all too familiar. She peered into the nearest one, and at the corner of the room, she caught sight of the same child from the cliff, the one with the balloons.

She sat shrinking behind a desk in a full classroom, eyes lowered, as if hesitant to speak or afraid of drawing attention.

"Wait. Wasn't she just right beside..." she thought, but before she could move closer, the child looked up towards the whiteboard--and when she looked again, the child wasn't there anymore.

A voice echoed suddenly from the front of the room. "Keep up!"

There the girl was again, standing tall now, hand raised high. The same eyes, but brighter. More daring, even as eyes turned toward her. 

The woman blinked, half-running to catch up. And somehow, as though the wind was following through, her own hand lifted too, as if she's answering before she even knew the question. A small surge of courage filled her, thrilling and strange. 

 

The hallways soon melted, and a crowded dining hall emerged. The child spun into the rows of seats, cheerfully greeting people she didn't even know, like the world was her playground. 

"What on earth..." 

The woman almost laughed. Something about the girl's reckless joy, the way she moved without thinking, stirred something in her. Then before she knew it, maybe by some miracle, or the wind's quiet persuasion... she followed too. Twirling, laughing, arms wide, unafraid, the weight of the gaze of others fading into nothing. For once, she wasn't watching from the outside. She was in it. 

Then the floor rippled under her feet. The walls started trembling, like something faster was coming. She blinked, and a train thundered past, its windows flickering with fragments of faces she half-remembered; echoes of who she had been. Each one standing taller, shining a little braver than the last, as if racing with herself, untethered from fear or judgment.

The train screeched to a halt beside them, and its doors slid open. 

"Are we... supposed to get on?" the woman asked. 

The child smiled. "You already did." 

And she had. Last time, she would have watched the train pull away, her hands still in her pockets. And yet now, she was on it. The train doors closed, and as they did, the floor had become sand.

The air, salt.

A shore stretched before her, endless and blue. 

 

The child ran ahead, barefoot in the sand, laughter spilling into the wind. She quickened her pace, the sand slipping beneath her feet until she was beside the child.

A turtle crawled out of the surf, slow and steady. Its shell gleamed in the sun, old but unbroken. The child crouched beside it.

 

"You see? It always moves forward. Doesn't rush. Doesn't stop."

 

The woman nodded, feeling something ease in her chest. 

"Why are you showing me all this?" she asked quietly. 

The child looked up. "Because you forgot how it felt to be all in." 

The words struck her. Clear, undeniable. For a moment she just stood there, then a small laugh escaped her, light and startled, as if something in her had finally stirred awake. 

Without thinking, she danced forward, wind teasing at her sleeves. 

And then, as if transported by the wind, another cliff rose beneath her like the stage of something she had always known... until the edge came.

The old fear, quiet and familiar, pressed against her ribs. She paused; but only for a heartbeat. This time, she inhaled the salt and sun, taking in the beauty of the moment, and leapt.

The air roared. Shades of sapphire and ivory unfurled endlessly. And then... calmness. Solid ground beneath her.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself standing in a flower shop. The jasmine hung thick in the air, rich and familiar. She inhaled, and something clicked. The breeze--the one that felt so familiar, the one she thought was the sea--it was this, always. Her mother's flowers, grown to smell like salt and sun, like the ocean she had always loved.

The child was nowhere in sight. Just the quiet rustle of leaves and the soft hum of the shop. Her mother looked up from her work, smiling as usual.

"Hey hun, you doing alright? You've been dazed for... well, who knows how long. Anyway, could you help me replace these Obreeze orchids? The ones outside need some change."

She blinked, taking it all in; the scent, the sunlight, her mother's voice. 

"Oh." she smiled sheepishly, "Sure." 

Cradling the flowers, she walked outside. The ocean, the train, the cliff--all of it felt like an alternate reality. It seemed dreamlike yet real, stitched together by moments she hadn't even realized she had lived. And just then, a breeze touched her. 

This time soft, gentle, unhurried. Reassuring. It lingered, weaving through her hair and fingers, as if the air itself was giving a quiet nod. 

Somewhere far beyond the edges of the world, time moved in rhythms she could not name. Mountains wore their stone slowly. Oceans rose and fell with patience no one could measure. And she... she was here, breathing, noticing, letting the world carry her for a moment.

 

 

 

And maybe that was enough.