The city was alive the moment Neria stepped out.
Bright lights.
Honking cars.
The smell of roasted meat drifting from a street vendor.
Young people chattering loudly in the warm evening breeze.
Music from a passing bike shaking the pavement beneath her feet.
Life pulsed everywhere.
She inhaled it deeply, letting the familiar chaos soothe her. It was strange.....comforting Mira always made her feel lighter too. Maybe that was friendship. Maybe it was love. Maybe it was just their ridiculous bond.
Neria tugged her jacket closer and crossed the first street, weaving through the crowd toward the mall.
The glass doors slid open with a soft hiss, letting out a rush of cold air. The lights were bright, almost painfully so, and the scent of popcorn, perfume, and disinfectant wrapped around her.
She didn't waste time.
Straight to the ice cream counter.
"One big bowl," she said. "The biggest you have."
The bored-looking staff member raised a brow. "Rough day?"
"Not mine," she muttered. "My friend's existential crisis requires sugar."
He chuckled and handed her an absurdly large bowl of cookies-and-cream ice cream, crowned with extra toppings because he found her amusing.
Neria paid, thanked him, and headed out.
The ice cream was cold in her hands, the weight solid and real, grounding her.
"You better appreciate this, Mira," she muttered. "I'm basically risking diabetes for you."
She stepped out of the mall and onto the crosswalk.
Traffic rumbled ahead, loud and impatient.
She waited for the light....green pedestrian signal blinking....and started crossing.
Halfway through, a car shot out from the opposite lane.
Too fast.
Too close.
Too unexpected.
Someone screamed.
Neria turned, confusion sharp and sudden.
The headlights swallowed her.
There was a deafening crash...
a bone-shaking impact...
a burst of color...
and the world flipped upside down.
Her body lifted off the ground.
The bowl of ice cream slipped from her fingers, spinning beautifully through the air like a cruel slow-motion dance. White cream splattered against the dark sky. Sprinkles scattered like tiny falling stars.
She felt weightless.
Then she felt nothing.
No pain.
No sound.
Just air rushing past her as her body tumbled.
Her head hit the pavement with a dull thud she didn't fully register.
Voices screamed around her.
"Oh my God—!"
"Someone call an ambulance!"
"She's not moving—"
"Please—please—she's so young—"
Blurry faces hovered over her, melting into streaks of color.
A woman knelt beside her, shaking. "Sweetheart… stay with us, okay?"
But Neria couldn't. Her vision blurred into soft white.
She blinked slowly, the world fading at the edges.
The last thing she saw was the ice cream bowl rolling across the asphalt, settling gently against a gutter.
Her eyes closed.
And then—the city vanished.
*******
Silence.
Complete, absolute silence.
No pain.
No ache.
No heaviness in her lungs.
Just… nothing.
Neria opened her eyes.
She lay on the ground, staring up at a sky that wasn't the city's at all. No streetlights. No skyscrapers. No noise.
The sky was clearer. Larger. Too blue.
"What…?" she breathed.
She sat up quickly—and froze.
She wasn't on asphalt. She wasn't surrounded by cars. She wasn't in the city. She was lying on a dirt road, patches of grass growing in messy tufts around her.
She pushed herself upright, brushing her palms against her jeans—except she felt nothing. No texture. No warmth. No friction.
Her brows furrowed. She looked down.
Her hands looked normal… yet not. They were pale. Dim. Slightly blurred at the edges.
"Okay…" she whispered. "This is a dream. Yes. Definitely a dream."
She stood and looked around.
Wooden houses with slanted roofs. Stone wells. Dirt paths. Lanterns hanging from tall posts instead of streetlights.
Villagers walked by in strange robes and old-fashioned clothes.
It was like she had stepped into a historical movie set.
"Hello?" she called, waving at a man hauling a barrel. "Excuse me—uh—sir?"
He walked right through her.
Straight. Through. Her.
Cold ripples shot all the way down her spine.
She spun around, eyes wide. "What the—?! Did you just....? Hey!"
Two women approached, baskets of herbs balanced on their hips. She stepped right into their path and waved her arms.
"Hi! Sorry....can you see me? I'm a bit lost and....."
They walked past without a blink.
Neria stared at them, scandalized. "Rude! You could at least say something!"
She stomped away....
well, floated away, though she didn't know it yet...
toward a narrow, sharp corner between two houses. She reached out to steady herself and placed a hand on the wall.
Her hand slipped through the stone.
Through it.
Her breath caught.
She snatched her hand back, heart racing even though she wasn't sure it was beating.
"No. No, no, no....." She pressed her palm forward once more. It sank into the wall like she was pushing into mist.
She jerked back violently and stared at her arm.
It glittered faintly, translucent like fog catching sunlight. Her fingers blurred at the tips. Her legs shimmered with ghostly edges.
A chill swept over her.
"What… What is this…?" she whispered.
Panic stormed through her chest. Her feet lifted slightly off the ground.....she didn't even feel herself ste....—and she floated backward, eyes wide, breaths coming fast despite the fact she didn't need air at all.
She spent hours wandering the unfamiliar streets, shouting for help, for a sign, for anything that made sense. No one heard. No one saw. The world moved through her like she didn't exist.
By sunset she had gathered only one solid piece of information:
She was in a kingdom called Eldoria.
She heard women talking near a fountain....though they didn't sense her—speaking of Eldoria's laws, Eldoria's troubles, Eldoria's king.
And every detail made one thing clear:
This was not her world.
Not her time.
Not her life.
"Impossible…" she whispered as the sun dipped and lanterns lit the streets. "This has to be a coma dream. A hallucination. Anything but…"
But she stayed there for an entire day.
One long, lonely, terrifying day.
And then.....
The next morning, she drifted too close to a glowing circle etched into the ground.
A circle that pulsed once.
Twice.
Then snapped shut with violent magic.
The jolt hit her.
Electric. Burning. Blinding.
Her scream ripped through her soul, but the world heard nothing.
The trap expelled her, spitting her out into the street like rejected energy.
Her body flickered uncertainly.
And that was how she learned:
Ghosts were hunted here.
And she was one of them.
*Flashback ends*