Chapter One—Behind the Stone

Reverie had been unemployed for twenty-three days. She knew because she had counted them, although she couldn't remember when she had started. The number simply kept appearing whenever she opened her calendar, sitting among a collection of empty days as if quietly mocking her. Twenty-three days since she had resigned. Twenty-three days since she had walked out of the office with a cardboard box containing a water bottle, two pens, a half-dead desk plant, and the last fragments of whatever dignity she thought she had left.

She had told everyone she needed a break. That was the polite version. The truth was that her body had been asking her to stop for months, long before she finally listened. It had started with headaches that came and went throughout the day, then settled behind her eyes whenever she stared at a screen for too long. Her shoulders were perpetually tense, her neck constantly sore, and she often woke with an aching jaw from clenching her teeth in her sleep.

Even after leaving work, her body seemed to have forgotten how to relax. Sleep had become almost insulting. She could spend ten hours in bed and still wake up feeling as though she had barely rested at all. Her limbs felt heavy from the moment she opened her eyes, as if someone had filled her arms and legs with wet sand during the night.

Sometimes she would lie there for several minutes simply staring at the ceiling, knowing she had to get up but feeling strangely incapable of doing so. She wasn't physically sick. At least, she didn't think she was. She was simply tired in a way that sleep couldn't seem to fix.

Her stomach had become unpredictable too. Some mornings she couldn't eat at all. Other days, she would make herself something and lose her appetite after only a few bites. She had grown used to the occasional nausea, the dull headaches, and the tight feeling in her chest whenever she thought too long about money or work.

None of it was dramatic enough to make her stop. That was probably the problem. She had simply learned how to function while feeling terrible.

She had thought resigning would fix everything.

It didn't.

Now she was unemployed, still exhausted, and somehow even more frightened than before. Her laptop sat open on the small table in front of her, displaying another job listing she had been staring at for the past ten minutes. She read the same paragraph over and over without absorbing a word. Her eyes burned from the screen, but she couldn't bring herself to close the laptop.

She needed a job. She knew that. Her savings weren't endless, the bills weren't going to disappear, and nobody was going to knock on her door with the perfect opportunity.

She clicked on the application form and stared at the empty boxes.

Name.

Email.

Experience.

Skills.

She almost laughed at the last one. What exactly was she supposed to put there? Good at pretending she wasn't exhausted? Capable of answering messages while wanting to throw her phone against a wall? Experienced in forcing herself through another eight-hour shift while counting the minutes until she could go home?

Instead, she typed the usual things.

Organized. Responsible. Willing to learn.

She hated every word.

A notification appeared in the corner of the screen. Another email. Reverie clicked it without thinking and found another rejection waiting for her. She read it once, then again, even though there was nothing complicated about it. They thanked her for her interest and informed her that they had decided to proceed with another candidate.

She stared at the screen until the letters blurred, then quietly closed the email.

The apartment was silent. It had always been silent. There was no roommate complaining about the electricity bill, no friend dropping by without warning, no boyfriend asking whether she had eaten. There was nobody nearby who would notice if she stayed in bed all day or disappeared for an entire weekend.

There was only the refrigerator humming in the corner and the occasional sound of traffic passing somewhere beyond the window.

She looked around the room and suddenly felt exhausted by the sight of it. The bed hadn't been made properly in days. Laundry sat folded over a chair because putting it away felt like an unnecessary task. A mug had been sitting beside the sink since yesterday, and there was a glass of water on the table that she had forgotten to finish.

Nothing was particularly dirty or terrible. It was just... unfinished.

Like everything else in her life.

Her phone was lying beside the laptop. She picked it up and opened social media almost automatically. People were getting married. People were travelling. Someone she vaguely knew had bought a car. Someone else had moved abroad.

Another person had posted a photograph of flowers their boyfriend had sent them, accompanied by a caption about how lucky they were to be loved.

Reverie stared at the photograph for a few seconds before locking her phone.

“Good for them.”

Her voice sounded strange in the empty apartment.

She wasn't jealous. At least, she didn't think she was. She was just tired of watching everyone else's life move forward while hers seemed to be standing in the same place. She had imagined that by this age, she would have figured something out.

A career, perhaps. Friends she could call at midnight. Someone who would notice when she wasn't doing well. Maybe a direction she could follow without constantly wondering whether she was wasting her time.

Instead, she had a collection of unfinished plans, several abandoned applications, a growing pile of laundry, and an alarming ability to sleep until noon whenever she had nowhere to be.

Her parents had started asking about work again. Her bills had started asking too. Even the people who meant well had begun giving her advice.

Just keep applying.

Don't be too picky.

Maybe you should try something outside your field.

You need to get back on your feet.

As if she didn't know.

As if she had forgotten how.

Reverie pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes until all she could see was red. Her head throbbed beneath her fingers. She stayed like that for a while, breathing slowly, trying to convince her body that there was nothing it needed to be afraid of.

When she finally lowered her hands, the room looked exactly the same.

She glanced at the clock. It was barely afternoon.

For some reason, that made her feel worse.

She didn't want another day that felt exactly like this one. She didn't want another morning where opening her eyes felt like receiving an assignment. She didn't want to spend another night lying awake while her body begged for sleep and her mind kept running through money, work, expectations, and all the things she was apparently supposed to become.

She stood up slowly. Her legs felt weak for a moment, and she had to steady herself against the edge of the table until the dizziness passed.

Then before stepping out of her apartment that afternoon, Reverie dressed in a stunning white dress made of silk that glowing softly under the indoor light. The gown featured a square neckline and delicate sheer long sleeves that fluttered gracefully, flowing down into a multi-layered tiered skirt that pooled elegantly around her ankles. She paired the look with matching white flats adorned with dainty ribbons, creating an ethereal contrast against her heavy mood. She also slipped her cell phone into her pocket, and picked up her keys.

She didn't know where she was going. She only knew she couldn't stay there today. Not because she had somewhere better to go. She just needed somewhere that wasn't this apartment, wasn't her laptop, wasn't another job application waiting for an answer.

So she walked outside.

The afternoon air was cool against her face. Reverie pulled her jacket tighter around herself and started walking without deciding where she would end up.

For once, she didn't want to know.

Reverie left her apartment with the last of her money folded inside her wallet. She didn't have anywhere to go, and she didn't have anything she particularly needed to do. She simply couldn't stand the thought of spending another day inside those four walls, staring at job listings until the words blurred together and wondering how many more times she could convince herself to try again.

She bought a cup of coffee from a small café near the main road, even though she knew coffee on an empty stomach would probably make her feel worse. A few minutes later, she bought a warm piece of bread from a street vendor and ate half of it while walking.

The rest stayed in its paper bag, forgotten in her hand as she wandered through the city without any particular destination.

The city was busy in the way cities always were. Cars crawled through intersections. People hurried along the sidewalks with somewhere to be, someone to meet, something to finish. Reverie passed them without really seeing them.

She watched buses come and go, listened to fragments of conversations she would never remember, and kept walking until her feet began to ache.

At the corner of an old building, she noticed a poster pasted over several others.

PROTECT OUR FORESTS.

The letters were large and uneven, printed in dark green ink. Beneath them were photographs of trees being cut down, hillsides stripped almost bare, and a river turned brown with mud.

OUR FORESTS ARE NOT INFINITE.

STOP ILLEGAL LOGGING.

PROTECT THE LAND BEFORE THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO PROTECT.

There was a small illustration of a hand holding a seedling at the bottom, along with the name of a local environmental group.

Reverie stopped for a moment. She read the poster twice. She didn't know why. Maybe because she had nowhere else to look. Then she kept walking.

She had no idea how long she wandered after that. Eventually, the buildings began to change. The streets widened, opening into the oldest part of the city, where tourists and locals gathered around a famous landmark built centuries ago.

She had seen pictures of it before, but never had any reason to visit. Today, apparently, she did.

The place was crowded.

Families took photographs. Children ran between the stone structures while their parents called after them. Street vendors shouted over one another. Tourists gathered around guides holding little flags above their heads. Somewhere nearby, someone was playing music.

Reverie moved through the crowd without joining any of it. Eventually, she found a quieter spot at the edge of the landmark, where several enormous stones stood beneath the shade of an old tree.

Her feet hurt. Her head hurt. Everything hurt in that dull, distant way exhaustion made pain feel almost unimportant. She sat down beside one of the stones and finished the last piece of bread.

For a while, she simply watched people passing by. Then she leaned back. Her shoulder touched the stone. It was strangely warm.

Reverie frowned and shifted against it, expecting the rough surface to scrape against her shirt.

Instead, her shoulder sank.

She froze.

For half a second, she thought she had imagined it. Then the stone gave way beneath her. There was no crack. No sound. No sudden flash of light.

The world simply seemed to fold inward.

Reverie's breath caught as her body slipped backward, as though she had fallen through the surface of the stone itself. She reached forward instinctively, but her fingers caught nothing.

The last thing she saw was the crowded landmark. People were still walking. Someone was laughing. A child was crying because she had dropped an ice cream.

Nobody looked at Reverie. Nobody screamed.

Nobody even noticed that she had disappeared.

Then the stone closed behind her.

And everything went dark.

★★★

When Reverie opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was the smell.

Earth. Wet leaves. Something green and alive.

She lay perfectly still. For several seconds, she couldn't understand what she was looking at.

Above her was a ceiling of leaves.

Not the occasional branches of a city park. Not a few trees scattered along a sidewalk.

Trees.

Hundreds of them.

Their trunks rose so high that she couldn't see where they ended. Thick branches tangled together overhead, layered with leaves in shades of green so deep they almost looked black in the shadows. Vines curled around tree trunks. Ferns covered the ground. Moss spread across fallen logs and stones, softening everything the forest had swallowed.

Reverie slowly pushed herself upright. Her breathing quickened. She looked behind her.

There was no stone.

No landmark.

No city.

No road.

Nothing.

Only forest.

A vast, impossibly dense forest stretching in every direction. She should have been terrified. But she wasn't.

That was the strange part.

The forest was enormous. Wild. Completely unfamiliar. There was no visible path, no sign of civilization, not even the distant sound of an engine.

And yet, standing there beneath the enormous trees, Reverie felt something she hadn't felt in months.

Quiet.

Not the uncomfortable silence of her apartment. Not the silence after another unanswered application. Not the silence that came when she had nobody to call.

This was different.

The forest was not silent at all.

There were birds somewhere above her. Leaves whispered in the wind. Water trickled faintly in the distance. Something small moved through the undergrowth before disappearing between the ferns.

Reverie listened.

For the first time in a very long while, she wasn't thinking about tomorrow. She wasn't thinking about work. She wasn't thinking about money.

She wasn't thinking about what she was supposed to become. She simply stood there.

And breathed.