The orphanage gates swung open.
Noor stepped out like some ancient queen descending from her throne, the sun hitting her just right, making her seem untouchable. Behind her, cars full of crates of gifts rolled in, attendants moving like clockwork to unload them.
Zeyla and Maya stood off to the side, watching.
Maya squinted. "Why does she look like she just returned from conquering a kingdom?"
Zeyla crossed her arms. "Technically,she did."
Before Maya could answer, a stampede of children ran past them, full speed, screaming—
"MOTHER NOOR!"
Noor barely had time to kneel before they crashed into her, hugging her from all sides.
A little girl clung to Noor's dress. "You're back! We prayed for you every night!"
Noor smiled, soft and knowing. "And here I am. Did you think I wouldn't hear you?"
The girl gasped. "You heard us?"
Noor tapped the girl's nose. "Of course. Good children's voices travel far."
From the side, Zeyla scoffed. "Oh, please. If that were true, Maya and I should be able to hear the screams of our dignity dying."
One of the older boys, arms crossed, turned to them. "You two came back too? What did you bring us?"
Maya blinked. "Um. Emotional support?"
A younger girl nodded. "Where are the gifts?"
Zeyla put a hand over her heart. "We are the gift."
The children just stared.
A particularly sharp-eyed boy muttered, "That sounds like something brother Janir would say."
Zeyla and Maya visibly flinched.
"Take it back," Maya whispered.
The boy shrugged. "Big brother Janir energy."
Maya turned to Zeyla. "Did we just get compared to—?"
Zeyla, horrified, nodded. "We need to reflect on our life choices."
Noor, overhearing smirked. "You should."
And just like that, the children erupted into laughter.
Later, Noor sat across from one of the sharper boys, setting up the chessboard. The children circled them, watching.
The boy moved first—aggressive, fast. Noor countered smoothly. They played in near silence, every move precise, the board shifting like a battlefield.
Midway through, the boy frowned. "Why do I always lose?"
Noor studied the board. Then him. "Because you think the game is about beating me."
The boy blinked. "Isn't it?"
"No," Noor said simply. "It's about outgrowing yourself." She moved a piece. "You don't win by being stronger. You win by being better than you were yesterday. Can you say that you are?"
The boy hesitated.
Noor tilted her head. "Then you haven't lost. Not yet."
Maya, watching, muttered, "I think she just mentally checkmated my entire existence."
Zeyla nodded, shaken. "Same."
The game continued. Noor's pieces moved carefully, not quite cornering him but pushing him toward decisions. The boy's mind raced. He thought, calculated, and for once—he saw it.
The winning move.
Checkmate.
Silence.
Then chaos.
"HE DID IT!"
The kids exploded into cheers. Noor leaned back, pleased. "And now, you understand."
The boy, still in shock, whispered, "Did I actually win?"
Maya, arms crossed, whispered to Zeyla, "She totally let him win."
Zeyla whispered back, "Obviously. But look at him. He believes it. And that's the real checkmate, isn't it?"
Noor smirked, hearing them. "Some people take longer to learn their lessons than others."
Maya gasped. "Did she just—?"
Zeyla sighed. "She did."
And the children laughed even harder.
____________________
The spring was beautiful.
A perfect mirror of the night sky—moonlight swimming in its depths, the stars caught in its reflection like scattered silver. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth, crushed herbs, and something ancient—something watching.
Noor stood at its edge, bare feet pressing into the cold stones. The night was silent, as if the world itself held its breath.
The moment her skin met the water—
The spring blackened.
Ink bleeding through glass. A shadow unraveling beneath the surface, reaching, spreading—hungry. The water recoiled from its own purity, suffocating under something that should not be.
Then—
Agony.
The herbs, meant for healing, burned through her like molten iron. The water, meant to soothe, clawed at her flesh like fangs sinking deep.
Her nerves screamed.
It was inside her.
It crawled beneath her skin, coiling, wrapping, burrowing.
Something old. Something that had waited for her.
Her veins tightened—as if they were trying to tear free from her body.
Her ribs caved inward.
Her breath—
A sharp, suffocating pressure clenched around her chest—an invisible hand closing around her heart, pressing down, pressing in.
Then—
She coughed.
And blood spilled from her lips.
It hit the water, curling like ink, vanishing into the abyss below.
Her hands trembled, nails pressing into her palms, drawing half-moons of pain to anchor herself—to feel something other than this.
But there was no escape.
Her own existence rejecting itself.
And yet—
She did not step back.
Because she knew.
Pain was an old friend.
Then suddenly_
A shift.
A presence.
Noor's eyes, heavy-lidded with exhaustion, flickered.
For a single heartbeat—gold.
Then—
The pain receded.
Like a tide being pulled back, like something had been waiting for a moment of hesitation—only to be interrupted.
The water, once a void of shadows, was clear again.
Moonlight swam in its depths.
Zeyla stood at the edge.
She frowned. "Something feels… off."
Noor did not turn.
Her back remained to Zeyla, her head tilted slightly as water slipped down the sharp angles of her jawline, catching in the hollow of her throat before disappearing beneath soaked fabric.
Her long, ink-dark hair clung to her body, dripping like black silk down the curves of her back. Her robes, heavy with water, wrapped around her figure—hiding nothing.
She was untouched.
Yet—
Zeyla's stomach twisted.
Her fingers curled at her sides. "You shouldn't be in there."
A breath.Almost too calm.
"And yet," Noor murmured, voice like distant thunder, "here I am."
Zeyla hesitated, watching Noor carefully. "You were in pain."
Noor let out a breath, slow and quiet.
"And yet," she repeated, "here I am."
Zeyla's jaw clenched. Noor was doing it again.
"Don't do that."
Noor finally turned.
And Zeyla felt it.
The weight of her gaze.
Her eyes—deep obsidian, bottomless and unreadable—felt like a void, pulling in every word, every thought, every unspoken fear.
Noor's expression was unreadable, but her beauty was almost violent.
Something meant to be worshiped. Something meant to be feared.
"You talk like you're fine," Zeyla said, voice low. "When I know you're not."
Noor studied her for a long moment. Then—
A ghost of a smile.
"Pain is not an enemy, Zeyla."
Zeyla stiffened.
Noor's voice was soft. Deadly in its knowing.
"We are taught to resist it. To fear it. But pain is a sculptor—it strips you bare, cuts away the parts of you that are false, until all that is left is the truth."
Zeyla swallowed. "You sound like a corpse justifying the grave."
Noor tilted her head, moonlight threading through her wet hair, slipping down the curve of her cheek like silver ink.
"Or a soul that's already walked through it."
Silence.
Zeyla hated how that made her stomach tighten.
Finally, she exhaled, voice quiet. "You scare me sometimes."
Noor blinked.
Then, she smiled .
"And yet," she whispered, eyes gleaming like obsidian glass,"here you are."
Zeyla swallowed hard. The words had left her before she could pull them back, and now, they hung between them—fragile, unspoken things finally dragged into the open.
"You scare me sometimes."
Noor blinked,then, she smiled. Her expression unreadable.
"And yet," she whispered, eyes gleaming like obsidian glass,
"here you are."
Zeyla exhaled sharply, frustrated. "That's not an answer."
Noor's expression didn't change, but something in the air shifted.
Zeyla's hands curled into fists. "You always talk like this. Like nothing touches ,taking the poisin ,cough up blood, and still act like you're untouchable. Like you'll always be here."
Silence.
Zeyla's voice dropped. Softer. Almost afraid.
"But one day... What If you won't be."
She clenched her jaw, staring at Noor's unreadable face. "One day, I'm going to call your name, and you won't answer. One day, you won't open those eyes. And that'll be____."
Her throat tightened.
"And that terrifies me."
Noor was still.
The night whispered around them, the only sound the soft ripple of the spring, the hush of wind through the trees.
Then—
A breath.
A slight tilt of Noor's head.
And a quiet, almost thoughtful voice:
"Why do you fear the silence of something that was never meant to speak?"
Zeyla froze.
Noor's gaze lowered, as if studying the reflection of the sky in the water.
"Did you ever wonder," she murmured, "why I do not tremble at the end?"
Zeyla said nothing.
Noor's voice was soft and unhurried.
"Because perhaps I have never known the beginning.Or it's long forgotten."
Zeyla's breath caught.
Noor looked at her then, those deep obsidian eyes holding something too vast and endless.
"I have always been an echo in this world, Zeyla." A small, knowing smile. "And echoes do not belong."
Zeyla felt the ache of those words like a fist pressing against her chest. "That's not—" She stopped herself, frustrated. "You talk like you're not—"
She swallowed.
"…Like you're not real."
Noor exhaled, slow and quiet.
A cold wind swept through the trees, shifting Noor's drenched hair, the moonlight catching the wet strands like silver ink.
Noor watched her for a moment, something almost… amused in her gaze.
A ghost of a smile flickered on Noor's lips.
"You hold onto the sand as if your hands were not made of water."
She lifted a hand, running her fingers through the water—watching as the ripples tore apart the reflection of the stars.
"You cannot grip what was never meant to be held."
Zeyla looked at her, heart pounding, fingers trembling.
Then, almost desperate— "Then why are you still here?"
Noor turned back to the water.
And then—
"Because someone called my name."
Noor tilted her head, gazing at the shattered stars in the water. "And for a moment…"
A slow blink.
"I wanted to believe I was someone who could answer."
Zeyla felt something break.
She took a shaky breath, fingers curling at her sides.
Noor was already turning away. Already stepping deeper into the water, already slipping away into something unreachable.
Zeyla had the urge to grab her. To hold onto her.
But then—
Noor whispered, without looking back—
"Go back, Zeyla."