I wake to wind.

  Cold and sharp and endless.

  It drags across my skin—

  Skin?

  Yes. I think I have skin now.

  The world is screaming.

  Light splits above me.

  Clouds peel open like paper on fire, and the sky—

  It’s so wide.

  Too wide.

  I wasn’t meant to see this.

  Am I dreaming?

  Am I dying?

  I twist, trying to find something to hold, but there’s nothing.

  Just the open sky. Just me—and the pull.

  I’m falling.

  Panic claws its way up my throat.

  I don’t even know what I’m afraid of—just that something is wrong.

  I don’t remember who I am.

  Or where I came from.

  But I know this isn’t how it’s supposed to start.

  Then—

  A flicker of light beside me.

  Small. Bright.

  Alive.

  A shape blinks into view—a tangle of wings and golden glow, spinning through the air like she doesn’t know which way is up.

  She isn’t flying.

  She’s trying—tiny limbs flailing, light sputtering—

  But she’s falling, just like me.

  The breeze catches her wings, tosses her like a leaf.

  She spins, jolts—locks eyes with me.

  And she’s terrified.

  Not of me.

  Just like me.

  I don’t think.

  I move.

  My arms stretch toward her, heart pounding like it remembers something I don’t.

  She reaches back.

  Instinct.

  Fear.

  Hope.

  I wrap my arms around her glowing form, pull her tight against my chest—

  and turn.

  My back takes the sky.

  Her light flickers, and she clutches at me like I’m all she has.

  Like I’m the only thing in the world that understands.

  Maybe I am.

  We fall, together.

  No words.

  No magic.

  Just the silent promise between us:

  If we break—

  we break as one.

  The wind howls louder now, like it’s trying to warn the earth below.

  My arms tighten around her.

  The sky rips wider, and through it—

  I see them.

  Far above, high in the clouds, four stars drift through the sky like falling feathers.

  Peaceful.

  Gentle.

  Untouched.

  They fall with purpose.

  Like they belong.

  Not like us.

  Not like me.

  Not like this.

  I tumble sideways.

  My star spins out of rhythm. I twist, flailing, confused—

  Why am I falling like this?

  What am I?

  No answer comes.

  Only the forest, rushing up to meet us.

  But not a real forest.

  The trees below aren’t trees.

  Their roots are metal. Their leaves are glass.

  No scent. No song. Just silence and shadows, shaped to look like life.

  And then—

  I feel her shift.

  The little being in my arms begins to glow brighter—too bright—

  Her wings buzz against my skin like they remember what to do, even if she doesn’t.

  Tiny fingers claw at the air, trying to weave light into something solid.

  She’s trying.

  Desperately.

  A choked, starlit sound escapes her—

  And then the light erupts.

  For half a breath, the world slows.

  We’re wrapped in flare and heat and hope—

  Then it breaks.

  She isn’t ready.

  The magic flickers out.

  She slumps against me, breath stilled, wings twitching weakly.

  And the world rushes back.

  Branches of glass snap like bones.

  Metal vines slash across my skin.

  Then the earth.

  A flash.

  And everything goes quiet.

  The last thing I feel is her glow—warm and flickering inside my arms.

  I wake to buzzing.

  Not in my ears.

  In my chest. In my bones.

  Like something small and frantic is trying to pull me back together.

  I blink.

  Blurry shapes.

  Cold light.

  Shards of metal branches jutting from the ground like broken ribs.

  Where—?

  “Finally!” a voice squeaks—high and fast. “You’re alive! I mean, I thought you were! But you weren’t moving, and you were really pale—are you always that pale? Oh no, is that a side effect of falling?”

  A blur of gold flutters into view.

  Wings. Hands. Glowing eyes.

  The fairy.

  She’s real.

  She’s here.

  And she’s spiraling.

  “I tried to help, I swear! I caught us—just for a second—but it wasn’t enough, and then you were holding me so tight, and then the ground was just—there, and—”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I try to sit up. Pain lances through my ribs. My head spins.

  “I—what…?”

  She gasps. “Oh stars, you don’t remember, do you? That explains so much! Okay—okay—I can fix this. Maybe. Sort of?”

  She zips in a frantic circle.

  “I’ve never made it this far. I don’t survive the fall! But this time—I did. Which means something’s wrong. Or different. Or both?”

  Her voice tangles—fast and breathless.

  I manage a single word. “Survive?”

  She freezes. Mid-air.

  Then slowly shrinks, curling into a ball of light barely larger than my palm.

  “I don’t… know,” she says, softer now. “I think I’m supposed to remember. But it’s like trying to hold stars in your hands. They slip through. I remember falling. Over and over. I remember pain. Fear. But never this.”

  She looks at me—eyes too wide and too old for someone so small.

  “I’ve never met you before.”

  The glow around her hums, then brightens again.

  “I mean—maybe I have? But I don’t think so. Something about this time feels... different.”

  She zips around me again, faster than I expected.

  “Are you broken? You don’t feel broken. But maybe you’re broken on the inside? Do you even know how many bones you have? Wait—do you remember what bones are?”

  I groan. Or maybe just breathe too loud.

  I squint up at her—vision full of leaves and shimmering sky.

  Everything feels too bright. Too clean.

  Too… fake.

  I push myself up, hands sinking into ground that’s too smooth to be real.

  The trees are too perfect. The leaves are still.

  No smell. No wind.

  No life.

  “This place…” I whisper. “What is it?”

  She hovers near my ear. “Artificial Forest. Looks real. Isn’t. Still hurts when you hit it, though.”

  I nod slowly. Everything hurts.

  She drifts closer, her glow dimming just a little.

  She stops. Just for a second.

  Then, more quietly:

  “Do you know who you are?”

  I hesitate.

  Then shake my head.

  Her glow fades a little further.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Me neither.”

  She drifts closer again, light pulsing in a slow rhythm—like breathing, if breathing were made of stars.

  “No one’s ever… been here when I arrived,” she says, so soft I almost miss it. “Usually it’s just the fall. The ground. Then…” Her wings twitch. “Nothing.”

  She shivers, curling tighter.

  “But this time, you were there. You held me.”

  She peers up, gaze bright again.

  “Do you think that’s why we survived?”

  She flutters back, gaze flicking between my face and the broken canopy above us.

  “I… I think you’re important,” she says after a pause. “Not just to me. To… everything.”

  I stare at her.

  Important?

  “I don’t feel important,” I say. My voice sounds smaller than I expected.

  “You held me,” she repeats.

  “I always fall alone,” she adds, quieter now. “Or… almost. I never get this far.”

  That quiet hits something I can’t name.

  “…Maybe I just didn’t want to be alone,” I whisper.

  She flutters closer, settling on my knee like a candlelight with wings. Her glow is gentle now.

  “Maybe that’s all it ever takes.”

  We sit like that for a moment—me, broken in the dirt, her flickering like a heartbeat.

  “Okay,” she says, more determined now. “Step one: you’re alive. Step two: I’m alive. Step three: we figure out what the stars just threw us into.”

  I glance at her. “There are steps?”

  “There are always steps,” she says, rising back into the air. “Even if we’re making them up as we go.”

  She twirls in the air, then glances down at me.

  “You should name me.”

  I blink. “What?”

  “I don’t remember my name,” she says, spinning again. “Names are important, right? They stick. They anchor. So, you name me.”

  “I don’t even know my own name,” I mutter.

  She shrugs. “Then maybe we both need new ones.”

  I look at her—the strange, glowing being who feels like warmth and chaos and memory all tangled into one.

  “Alright,” I say. “But only if I get one too.”

  Her wings flicker.

  “Deal.”

  I shift, pushing up from the ground. My limbs feel wrong. Heavy and new. Like I was only just stitched together.

  The fairy hovers nearby, spinning slow circles like she’s trying not to hover too close, but doesn’t want to drift too far either.

  “So…” she says, twirling midair, “do you want to go first?”

  I blink. “Go first?”

  “With names! You pick mine, then I pick yours? Or we flip it?”

  I groan, one hand pressed to my head. “I don’t even know how to name someone. What if I get it wrong?”

  She tilts her head. “Then it’ll just be wrong together, which sort of makes it right.”

  I look at her. At the golden light humming around her wings, the way she flickers when she’s unsure. The way she stayed. Tried. Reached back.

  “You’re warm,” I murmur. “And quick. And kind of blinding.”

  She grins. “That’s the nicest insult I’ve ever gotten.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know,” she says gently, then somersaults backward in the air. “Keep going.”

  I think. I search for something that fits—not perfect, just true.

  “Luma,” I say at last. “Your name is Luma.”

  She freezes mid-spin. Blinks. Then her whole body glows just a little brighter.

  “Luma,” she repeats, like she’s tasting it. “I like it. It feels… right. Like I’ve had it before. Or should have.”

  She lands lightly on my shoulder. Her warmth buzzes against my skin.

  “Okay,” she says. “Now you.”

  I freeze. “Me?”

  “Yep! Fair’s fair. You gave me a name, now I give you one.”

  “I really don’t think—”

  “Shhh,” she interrupts. “I have to concentrate.”

  She zips in front of my face, hovering inches from my nose, glowing eyes narrowed with dramatic seriousness.

  “You’re stubborn,” she mutters, circling. “And weirdly calm for someone who just fell out of the sky. You carry things you don’t remember, like your bones already know they’re broken. You feel… heavy. But not in a bad way.”

  I shift awkwardly. “Thanks… I think?”

  She beams.

  “I’m gonna call you Sol.”

  “Sol?”

  “Like a piece of a star that never stopped burning, even when it was buried.”

  It’s a small name.

  But it feels wide inside my chest.

  “Okay,” I whisper. “Sol.”

  She nods, then gently taps her forehead to mine.

  “Hi, Sol,” she says, all softness now. “We made it.”

  Luma hovers just above the broken glass-leafed floor, turning slow circles in the air like a bug trying to figure out which light to fly into.

  “There,” she says, pointing with a flick of one glowing wing. “That one definitely looks important. Big. Tall. Suspicious. We should go there.”

  I squint toward the horizon. Between the silver trees and humming metal trunks, I can just make out the jagged silhouette of a tower—half-obscured in mist and shadow. It rises like a claw from the forest, crooked and dark and definitely too far away.

  “Nope,” I say, pointing the other way. “We’re going that direction.”

  Luma blinks. “Toward the glowing dome city that looks like it eats people for breakfast?”

  “It’s closer.”

  “That’s your reason?”

  “My feet hurt,” I say flatly. “I’m not wearing shoes. I didn’t ask to fall from the sky.”

  She gasps. “Neither did I!”

  “Yeah, but you can fly.”

  “Barely,” she huffs. “I’m like 80% wing and 20% existential crisis right now.”

  I start walking.

  She zips in front of my face. “Wait—wait—what if the answers are in the tower?”

  “What if my bones collapse before we get to the tower?”

  “My wings still feel like soup!”

  “My whole body feels like soup!”

  We both pause.

  Then Luma groans and flops midair, arms crossed.

  “Ugh, fine. But if we get eaten by city robots, I’m haunting your kneecaps.”

  I smile—just a little. “Deal.”

  And we head toward the city. One barefoot step at a time.

  We walk in the direction I choose—because it’s closer, because my feet hurt, because I’m not ready for towers made of shadows. Not yet.

  Luma floats beside me, wings fluttering in quick, uneven bursts. She tries to stay quiet, but she’s buzzing again, just under her glow. Like if she doesn’t speak soon, she might pop.

  I don’t stop her.

  My legs ache. My skin feels like it’s stitched together with fire. Every step is heavier than the last.

  After a while, I say, “Those other lights I saw—when we were falling. The ones in the sky.”

  Luma perks up, drifting higher.

  I glance over at her. “Do you know anything about them?”

  She goes still mid-air.

  “…No,” she says finally. “But I—I feel something when I think about them. Not memories. Just… gravity. Like they matter. Like they’re part of something we’re supposed to find.”

  I hesitate. “We’re supposed to find?”

  She blinks, then grins.

  “Well, yeah. Of course we. You think I’m letting you go off without me? We’re in this together. It’s part of the steps.”

  I sigh, too tired to argue, and nod once.

  She flutters lower, bumping gently against my shoulder.

  “We’ll figure it out. One achey step at a time.”

  I don’t answer. Not really.

  Just keep walking.