The Realm Between Moments, Before Time Accepted the Soul
Before Lia of Romania was born,
before Bao Ji of China took her first breath,
There was only a single soul drifting toward the mortal world.
It glowed brighter than most —
warm enough to soothe,
sharp enough to burn.
A soul meant not for one path,
but for two eras shaped by opposite skies.
As it descended toward life,
The soul hesitated.
One part turned its gaze backward —
toward memories older than mountains,
toward ancient halls where kings and queens wove fate with trembling hands.
The other part gazed forward —
toward cities of steel and glass,
toward a world where hearts beat faster
and choices were carried like storms.
Two directions.
Two destinies.
One soul.
Time tried to pull it into a single thread.
But the soul resisted —
unwilling to abandon the past,
unwilling to forsake the future.
The tension grew,
stretching the soul thin as silk,
until Time itself tore.
Light burst across the sky like a silent flame.
The backward-facing half was flung to the far East,
toward the land of rising suns and ancient empires.
There, it found a fragile vessel waiting —
a child who would be named Bao Ji of China.
The forward-facing half shot toward the far West,
chasing the edge of the setting sun
until it settled in a new land,
into the heartbeat of a girl who would be called Lia Ionescu of Romania.
Across continents, across centuries,
the two halves awakened in separate worlds,
born incomplete —
each carrying only one face of the same destiny.
Yet the tear between them never fully closed.
In sleep, they felt each other.
In fear, they echoed each other.
In loneliness, they breathed the same strange ache.
And fate waited.
For one day —
when past and future collided in a moment of dying breath —
the two halves would race back toward one another.
and the Janus Soul would rise whole again,
ready to rewrite the destiny it was born to mend.