Chapter 1 (Elena)
A distant violin drifts through the darkness, fragile and haunting, as if it belongs to another world entirely.
It slips through my consciousness like a hand pulling me under, deeper and deeper, until I am no longer sure whether I am dreaming or remembering.
And then I am there again.
Harvard.
White stone buildings glowing under a cold morning sun. My name spoken with pride I can almost feel on my skin. A future unfolding exactly the way it should—precise, controlled, perfect.
I see myself standing at the top of it all, graduating with highest honors in architecture. No hesitation. No doubt. Only certainty.
Then another image follows—too vivid, too real.
Kane Global Industries.
Glass towers that cut into the sky like something built to challenge God himself. My name on a door I do not yet deserve. A title I have not earned but somehow already belong to.
Head of department.
Everything I have ever worked for aligning into a straight, inevitable line.
And just like that— it shatters.
My eyes snap open.
Silence. Darkness. Reality.
My body jerks upright before I even fully understand what is happening. The room is too small, too real, too ordinary after the world I was just living in.
My gaze finds the clock.
And my stomach drops.
I might already be late.
My first job interview after graduation. The first real step out of everything I have ever known. Harvard was supposed to be the hard part. Getting through it. Surviving it. Proving I was enough. But no one warns you about what comes after. About the silence when achievement is no longer enough to define you.
I throw the blanket aside too quickly and immediately regret it. My foot catches. The world tilts. And I hit the floor with a sharp breath that steals all air from my lungs.
Pain blooms instantly in my shoulder—hot, sharp, grounding me more brutally than any alarm clock ever could. For a moment, I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself this is not how my life is supposed to start today.
Then I move. In the mirror, I am a mess of contradictions.
A growing bruise marks my shoulder like a warning. My hair—long, black, unruly—is a storm I cannot control. My eyes look tired, sharper than I remember them being yesterday, as if sleep has stopped offering mercy. I have thirty minutes. Maybe less. I exhale once. Slow. Controlled.
And refuse to panic.
Shower. Fast.
Water hits my skin, pulling me back into my body, into something that resembles control. When I step out, I don’t waste time thinking—I never do when it matters.
I face the mirror again.My hair fights me. Always has. Thick, dark strands slipping free no matter how tightly I bind them. As if they refuse obedience on principle alone.
For a second, I consider forcing it. Then I stop.
No. Not today. Today, I will not fight every part of myself just to appear acceptable. I let it fall loose.
Wild. Uncontained.
A quiet rebellion I don’t have time to question. A simple black suit. Clean lines. Sharp edges. Black heels that demand confidence even when I am not entirely sure I have it.
I glance at the clock.
Five minutes.
Coffee.
Not a preference. A requirement for survival.
As I step out of my room, I find it waiting for me.
Sarah. Of course....
A cup of coffee on the table and a small note beside it.
"Good luck, sleepyhead. May today bring you success".
Something tightens in my chest—not pain, not joy, something in between.
I take the note and slip it into my bag like a charm I refuse to leave behind. Coffee in one hand. The rest of my life in the other.
And I leave.
Outside, the city is already awake—fast, indifferent, alive in a way that makes you feel either inspired or invisible.
I call a taxi with shaking fingers I refuse to acknowledge.
For a brief moment, I think about Sarah.
My constant since university. The one person who never made my dreams feel impossible, even when they were ridiculous. When I told her I was leaving everything behind for New York, she didn’t ask me if I was sure.
She asked me when we were leaving.
And just like that, we arrived in the city of dreams.
Our small apartment. Our shared chaos. Our future, still unfinished but dangerously close to becoming real.
All that is left now is one interview.
One door.
One chance to step into the life I have been chasing since I learned what ambition feels like.
I should feel ready.
I should feel certain.
But as the taxi arrives and I step forward, something inside me whispers the truth I am not yet prepared to accept.
This is only the beginning.
And beginnings, I am slowly learning, are never gentle.
