Chapter 1- Shadows of the past
Prisca sat by the window, her chin resting lightly on her palm as the evening sun slipped behind the skyline. The world outside bustled with life—cars rushing, children laughing in the distance—but inside her small apartment, silence felt heavier than noise. She liked it that way. Silence was predictable. It didn’t betray.
Her life had been shaped by absence. The absence of a mother’s embrace. The absence of a woman she once called “Mama,” who had walked out one rainy night, leaving behind only whispers and a broken-hearted father. Prisca had been just a little girl then, but she remembered the slam of the door, the sound of her father’s muffled cries, and the way her heart cracked without knowing why.
Her father, a simple man, had done his best. He raised her with hands roughened by labor, and a love that carried both tenderness and bitterness. He never spoke much about the woman who left them, but his silence was louder than words.
Prisca had grown into a woman who smiled politely at strangers but built walls against anyone who came too close. Love, to her, was a dangerous illusion. It could vanish in a blink, just as her mother had vanished, leaving her to piece together the fragments of her childhood.
And yet—sometimes, in her quiet moments, her mind drifted back to a different kind of memory. A boy. A pair of bright eyes and an easy laugh. Daniel.
He had been her neighbor, her partner in childish mischief, the boy who once promised to marry her when they grew up. They were inseparable until life carried them down separate roads. She hadn’t seen him in years. But sometimes, when the loneliness grew sharp, she found herself wondering: What became of the boy I once loved?
Prisca shook her head, snapping herself out of the thought. The past was a ghost she had no use for. The future, she reminded herself, would not be built on fragile dreams of love. No, her life would be built on her own strength—and no one could take that away from her.
Or so she believed.
For outside that window, in the very city she called home, fate was already turning its wheels. And soon, Prisca would find that the shadows of the past were not finished with her yet.
---The Meeting of Strangers
The city had changed, but the streets still whispered stories Prisca wished she could forget. Tall buildings gleamed with glass facades, crowds rushed with determined steps, and neon lights flickered promises of wealth, success, and a better tomorrow. Yet for Prisca, the city carried ghosts. Every corner held a memory she had tried to bury — of her mother, of the girl she once was, of the dreams she had lost.
Now twenty-five, Prisca walked briskly through the main square, her notebook tucked under her arm. She wasn’t rich, not like her mother who had climbed her way into fortune and abandoned the family in the process. Prisca had chosen a different life — one rooted in honesty, resilience, and quiet dignity. She worked at a local publishing firm, a job that barely paid enough to cover rent, but she loved the world of stories. Words had saved her as a child, and now they were her livelihood.
Still, there were days she wondered if she had inherited her mother’s hunger for more.
It was on one of those days that she saw him.
Daniel.
She hadn’t heard his name in years, but seeing him again felt like the air had been stolen from her lungs. He was standing by the fountain, his tall frame wrapped in a charcoal-gray suit, his hand slipping casually into his pocket. His eyes — those deep, thoughtful eyes — scanned the crowd as if searching for something he had lost. His hair was darker now, neatly styled, and his posture carried the weight of responsibility, of a man who had built something of himself.
Prisca froze. Her heart raced with a mix of shock and something far more dangerous — longing.
It had been nearly a decade since they last saw each other, back when they were teenagers. Daniel had been her best friend, her first love, the boy who had once promised to never let her feel unloved. But then life pulled them apart — his family moved abroad, her father fell ill, and she had learned the hard way that promises, no matter how sweet, rarely survived reality.
Now he was here. Flesh and blood. A stranger and yet so achingly familiar.
She turned quickly, willing herself to walk away before he noticed. She didn’t need this. She didn’t need the memories flooding back, the pain of what could have been.
But fate, it seemed, wasn’t done with her.
“Prisca?”
The sound of her name — spoken in his voice — rooted her to the ground. Slowly, against her better judgment, she turned.
Their eyes met.
For a heartbeat, the noise of the city faded, and it was just them. The boy she once loved, the girl he once cherished, standing on opposite sides of years they could never get back.
Daniel’s lips curved into a small, almost disbelieving smile. “It really is you.”
Prisca swallowed, her throat dry. “Daniel.”
Her voice betrayed nothing, but inside, her heart was unraveling.
