I write this knowing how unreliable beginnings can be. Memory rearranges itself when observed, and yet this journal insisted on starting here. It opened to a blank page and waited, patient, as if it already knew what I was about to live.
Beyond dreams, there are doors. Not metaphors. Not symbols. Doors. I have always sensed them. We notice them only in passing, convincing ourselves they are locked so we don’t have to test our courage. Some doors, I would later learn, are already open. The key is believing that anything is possible.
It always begins with a storm. Always on a Thursday.
I did not understand that yet, of course. Autumn was sharpening its teeth along the edges of the year, and the rain had decided to fall like a thousand tiny beads of glass.
The kind of rain that does not soak you. It claims you.
It stung when it touched my skin, light but insistent, a cold whisper of crystals tapping against my cheeks, my hands, my thoughts. My denim jacket was a useless shield, held clumsily over my head as I ran, already drenched, breath puffing white in the chill.
Home was still a block away.
Dusk pressed low against the rooftops, purple and bruised, the time when supper should have been waiting and the world should have been ordinary. Instead, the only thing guiding me was color.
My window.
High on the second floor, light spilled through stained glass in fractured rays: gold, scarlet, ocean-blue, violet so deep it nearly swallowed itself in its own beauty. My bedroom. My sanctuary. A lighthouse made of shattered rainbows.
I splashed through puddles, failing heroically to avoid them. Shoes soaked. Socks ruined. A graceless hop here, a near-slip there.
And then I saw it clearly. The window.
A mural made of fire and glass.
Dragons curved through clouds of molten amber, their bodies folded into spirals of light, their stories disguised as constellations. One awakened amongst mountains carved from dark crystal and shimmering mother of pearl; the other coiled through the sky like a living waterfall.
Its body flowed in silver ribbons, frozen mid-current, glass shaped into the illusion of motion. Within its chest drifted tiny points of light, soft and pale, like distant stars caught beneath a surface that could never quite hold them.
They shone with uncanny defiance.
Not brightly.
Not enough to draw attention.
Just enough to feel enchanted.
Above them all, near the highest arc of the window, a single star burned deeper than the others.
Not sharper.
But brighter.
Mighty.
Its light did not scatter like the rest, but seemed to gather itself inward, as if the glass were only pretending to contain it. I had never noticed that before. Or perhaps I had, and simply never asked myself why it made my chest ache when I looked at it.
Fields of impossible flowers unfurled beneath the dragons in blues no botanist had ever named. Rivers of brightness braided through towers leaning toward invisible skies. Even the constellations were etched with unnatural clarity, holding me captive in the fragile moment just before daydreams took over.
A story told in remnants.
Secrets soldered into color long before I learned how to read the language of longing.
I smiled, the way I always did when I looked at it.
Another world, pretending to be decoration.
I was almost safe.
That was when the storm noticed me.
The wind sharpened. Rain thickened. Thunder dragged its knuckles across the sky.
The closer I came to my door, the more violent the storm became, as if something alive and angry had reached into the ordinary.
Lightning split the sky in white flashes.
I screamed.
Another strike followed, then another, each closer than the last, thunder detonating through my ribs, through my bones, through whatever fragile certainty still lived behind my eyes.
I ran. Not toward curiosity. Not toward destiny. Toward my front door.
I slammed into the steps, fumbled with shaking fingers, nearly dropped my keys, and then I was inside.
Breathing. Alive.
And just like that, the storm died.
Not faded. Not weakened. Stopped.
Rain cut off mid-thought. Wind folded into nothing. Thunder dissipated in its own echo.
The world suddenly went quiet, as if nothing had happened. I was still drenched.
I leaned against the door, heart punching trying to escape my chest, water dripping onto the welcome mat. Something had already set the true story of my life into motion. Unaware that the storm was not trying to kill me.
It tried to delay me.
As I often did, once I was safe in my room, I lay back on my bed and opened my journal.
Something felt different that night.
The déjà vu had been happening more often lately, stacking over itself like echoes. People called it fate, but that word always felt lazy to me. This felt deliberate. Like a message I was failing to read.
What if these moments were markers, signs pointing toward a change I could not yet see? How was I supposed to know what was right or wrong when everything suddenly felt larger than me?
I wished I knew how to understand it.
I closed the journal without realizing these pages had already begun answering me.
I decided to nap before dinner. My mother was still at work, and the house was quiet in that way that makes thoughts grow louder.
I was twenty-three, curious to the point of restlessness, long accustomed to the unexplainable—but mostly within my thoughts and dreams.
Déjà vu had followed me for as long as I could remember. My grandfather once tried to explain it to me when I was very young, though most of his words faded with time. Those were the last words I ever heard from him before he passed, so I never had the chance to ask what he truly meant.
But the feeling it left behind lingered so deeply that déjà vu still feels like a kind of magic whenever it happens, as though, somehow, it still connects me to him. It was the last experience we ever shared together.
Since then, memories had become untouched rooms I could walk into at any given time. I could relive them in perfect detail—except for one. That old childhood memory. His last words.
No matter how many times I returned to that moment, it remained just out of reach, like a word resting stubbornly on the tip of my tongue. All I remembered was holding his hand while looking at my favorite constellation: Orion.
So I began to watch for signs. I wrote them down. Patterns. Repetitions. Small impossibilities others dismissed. I didn’t know then that attention itself is a kind of invitation.
I felt certain that another soul somewhere in the world must have been experiencing something similar. Being drawn to patterns, to meanings others might have dismissed. Perhaps, somewhere beyond common understanding, our thoughts were already orbiting the same hidden truth.
I couldn’t explain why I believed it. I only knew I couldn’t possibly be alone.
Sleep took me gently, and then all at once.
You know that strange feeling between wakefulness and deep sleep when it suddenly feels as though you are falling off your bed? That was what happened to me—except instead of waking up in my bed, I heard splashing, and suddenly I was underwater.
Panic arrived before thought. My arms thrashed, lungs burning as I fought my way upward. When I broke the surface, I gasped and coughed, dragging air back into myself as if it had been stolen. I found myself in a small lake, a small waterfall roaring nearby. Morning light scattered across the water in rippling flecks.
I swam toward shore on instinct. When my feet touched the lakebed, I stood there for a moment.
Everything felt too vivid. Exhaustion weighed on me as if I had truly been swimming for my life. Then I heard another splash.
I stayed perfectly still. Sharks haunted my dreams, appearing where they should not exist, so just in case. The shape rose, broke the surface, and coughed.
Relief hit me so hard I nearly laughed.
It was not a monster. It was a person.
He swam quickly to shore, confidence in every stroke. When he stood, water streaming from his clothes, his gaze found mine. Only my eyes and forehead remained above the surface as I held my breath beneath the water.
“Are you a mermaid?” he asked, completely serious in a familiar accent I instantly recognized and had always adored.
I laughed before I could stop myself. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Though I wish I were. I’m just a two-legged girl.”
He flushed. “Sorry. I mean… never mind. That was a silly question.”
We stood facing each other, strangers bound by an impossible coincidence. Our clothes looked old-fashioned. The world shimmered with color that refused to stay still.
“I’m Kyæn,” he said quickly, words tumbling over one another. “Some people call me Ky. Kyæn is fine too.”
He sounded nervous, as if speaking too loudly might ruin the moment. Perhaps he had not meant to share his childhood nickname, but his nerves betrayed him before he could stop himself.
“My name is Claret,” I said, steadying my voice despite the strange thrill rising in my chest. In the back of my mind, I almost heard my mother’s voice, warm but firm, the way it always sounded whenever she corrected those who said it wrong. It’s Clarét.
Somewhere, unseen, the world seemed to lean closer, curious about this meeting.
We stood in silence. The lake lapped gently around me. Even the soft splash of my movements felt intrusive, as though the water itself were listening.
“Do you always sound this… careful?” I asked softly.
He blinked, a faint blush rising. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s not every day you’re in a place like this and meet a non-mermaid who looks like one.”
I smiled. For an instance, the world narrowed to just the two of us. Standing there, half-soaked and breathless, felt far too real to dismiss as a dream.
The water was impossibly clear. Trees curved gently toward the sky. Flowers bent with a breeze I could not feel. Somewhere in my pocket, I found sunglasses. Deep red, nearly matching my outfit, fading to a softer tint at the bottom.
I smiled. Kyæn noticed.
“Find something useful?”
“Sunglasses,” I said, slipping them on. “Which makes no sense, but I’m not arguing. I love sunglasses.”
He laughed, a soft, surprised sound that stayed with me longer than it should have. I began working my way out of the water to join him.
The light shifted, sharper now. Unease settled in my chest.
Thunder cracked overhead.
“That sounded personal,” Kyæn said, glancing upward.
The next strike hit closer. The ground shook.
“Oh no. Here we go again,” I said, my stomach tightening.
“There,” he said, pointing toward a narrow opening in a rock face nearby.
We ran.
The cave was smaller than it first appeared, barely wide enough for one person. I hesitated, bracing against the slick stone walls. Kyæn remained outside, framed by flashes of white light.
“What are you waiting for?” I called, desperate.
“I’ll be fine,” he said too quickly.
Lightning responded in disagreement.
I grabbed him and pulled him inside just as the ground where he had stood erupted with light.
Pressed together, breathing hard, we listened as the storm raged outside.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
I nodded, my voice lodged somewhere between awe and adrenaline.
Time passed strangely. Minutes stretched. Seconds collapsed. We hovered in a fragile suspension, unsure whether any of this was real, or whether that even mattered.
“Well,” he said at last, “this isn’t exactly the best setting for a first hello, but at least now we have time for chatter. Let me try this again. Hi, I’m Kyæn, and I’d really love to stretch out my arm and shake your hand.”
I giggled. His first attempt fell short. The second did too. He caught a handful of my hair instead.
“How do you do?” he said solemnly.
“My hair is fine, thank you,” I replied, laughing.
“I think I now know what pickles feel like,” he added.
I laughed harder.
“You’re quite welcome,” he continued.
I didn’t know what it was about him, but I liked his sense of humor.
“Claret, was it?”
“That would be me.”
“Like the color?” he asked.
“Like the color. Most people don’t even know claret is a color,” I said, surprised by my own blush. “The only difference is the emphasis. It falls at the end.”
“So,” I said, “Kyæn. I noticed your accent. Where are you from, if I may ask?”
“I’m Irish,” he replied.
“Oh! Then we’re in Ireland,” I said brightly.
He shook his head. “No. This kind of storm… this is not Ireland.”
I exhaled, thinking: Then I have no idea. Maybe one of those dreamland places that exist only in my head. Or his. Now I’m not sure who is dreaming whom.
“It’s not your dream,” he said firmly. “It’s mine.”
I stared at him. How could he possibly know what I was thinking?
“Unless you’re avoiding telling me where you’re from,” he added, “at this point, who cares whose dream it is?”
“Oh no,” I said quickly, embarrassed. “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I’m from the other side of the world.”
“American?” he said with a nod.
“Well,” I said, “let’s just put it this way… we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”
We exchanged one last glance, shy smiles touching the corners of our lips, before surrendering to sleep.
The storm eventually faded.
The world seemed to hold its breath around us.
Kyæn was charming, clever, unforgettable.
And even as sleep claimed me, a quiet sorrow settled in at the thought that I might never see him again. Some part of me already missed him. I had to surrender to the inevitable next phase.
Waking up.