Chapter 1
"Ten years later"
(Luna's studio)
(Luna's thoughts)
It’s strange how ten years can pass quietly. so quietly that you don’t notice it until one day, you do.
My name is Luna Mae Diaz.
I used to think I would become someone loud, someone unforgettable in the way the world usually defines it. But life… it has a way of shaping you differently. Not into something louder but into something deeper.
Now, I create.
I shape clay, stone, and silence into something that can speak when I no longer have the words. I work as a sculptor and designer, though I never really call myself that out loud. To me, it’s simpler than that.
I make memories visible.
My studio is small, quiet, tucked away from the noise of the city. It smells of clay and dust, mixed with a faint scent of paint and time. The walls carry pieces of unfinished thoughts, sketches, half-formed ideas, and sculptures that look like they’re waiting… for something I cannot always give.
I like it that way.
Because sometimes, what is unfinished says more than what is complete.
My hands are rarely still. Even when I’m not working, they remember the shape of things the curve of a shoulder, the tilt of a head, the pause before a touch that never happened. I don’t always know where these ideas come from.
Or maybe I do.
Some things are not meant to be explained.
Only felt.
People sometimes ask me what inspires my work. I never give them a proper answer. Instead, I smile and tell them that inspiration is quiet. It doesn’t shout. It lingers.
And sometimes…
It never leaves.
There’s a sculpture in my studio that I never show anyone.
It isn’t complete.
Its face is almost there—but not quite. The features blur if you look at it too long, as if it refuses to be fully remembered. I’ve tried to finish it many times.
But every time I reach the point where I should define its expression…
I stop.
Because some memories are not meant to be finished.
Some are meant to stay exactly as they are..
a little blurred…
a little distant…
and painfully close at the same time.
The studio feels even quieter now, as if it’s waiting for me to say something I don’t know how to say.
“Goodnight,” I whisper.
It’s a habit. A small ritual. Like closing a conversation with something that doesn’t speak back.
I turn off the lights and step out, locking the studio behind me.
(Way back to her house)
( dinner)
(In her room)
Dinner is simple nothing special. I eat in silence, the kind of silence that doesn’t feel empty, just… familiar. The kind I’ve grown used to.
Afterward, I wash my hands, change, and walk to my room.
The moment I close the door behind me, everything becomes quieter.
Safer.
I sit at the edge of my bed, staring at the desk across the room. My diary lies there, waiting.
The diary in front of me is empty.
Every page.
White. Silent. Waiting.
I open it anyway.
The clean pages look back at me, patient in a way I’m not used to. I run my fingers lightly over the surface, as if expecting something to appear something I forgot I had already written.
But there’s nothing.
I turn a few pages.
Then I stop.
There’s a memory I haven’t thought about in a long time.
A different diary.
Older. Worn. Filled.
The one I used to carry everywhere.
The one I trusted with everything
I couldn’t say out loud.
The one I lost.
At my grandmother’s house.
My fingers still on the empty diary tighten slightly.
For a moment, I can almost feel the weight of that old book again. The texture of its cover. The ink I used to pour into its pages. The parts of me I left inside it without realizing.
I swallow softly.
“Maybe…” I whisper to the quiet room, “it’s still there.”
The thought settles, then grows heavier.
If the old diary is still at my grandmother’s house… then so are the parts of me I thought I had forgotten.
I stand up.
The decision feels simple, but it isn’t.
It never is.
But tonight, it feels necessary.
I close the empty diary and place it gently back on the desk.
Then I turn off the light.
Tomorrow.
I will go back.
Back to my grandmother’s house.
Back to where I once was.
Back to something I never truly left behind.
And maybe…
I will find it again.
(Sleeps)
Continued..
