Chapter 1: The Forgotten One

Hospitals are strange places. Sterile, white, and quiet—almost too quiet. The kind of quiet that swallows you whole, that presses against your eardrums until you start to wonder if you’ve gone deaf. The kind of quiet that makes you feel like you’ve already been forgotten.

Amara lay in the farthest room of the west wing, tucked away like an afterthought. The room was cold—not just in temperature, but in feeling. The walls, once probably a soft cream, had faded into a lifeless beige. The fluorescent lights above her buzzed faintly, flickering now and then like they, too, were tired of being here.

She had been in that hospital bed so long she’d stopped counting the days. Time had blurred into a dull, gray smear. She couldn’t remember the last time the curtains were opened or the window cracked to let in fresh air. Her meals were the same: bland, lukewarm trays of food that tasted like cardboard. She stopped eating them eventually. There didn’t seem to be a point.

There were no cards taped to the walls, no vases of wilting flowers on the side table, no framed photographs of laughing friends or smiling family. Just the rhythmic beeping of machines, the soft hiss of the oxygen line, and the occasional, distant shuffle of rubber soles on polished tile. Even the nurses rarely lingered—always in and out, polite but detached, like she was a chore on a checklist.

Her body was deteriorating, piece by piece. Muscles once used for dancing, for climbing trees, for hugging tightly, had wasted away beneath thin, bruised skin. Her bones ached even when she didn’t move. She’d been hooked up to more wires and IV bags than she could count, but none of it seemed to matter. Her body was giving up.

But it wasn’t the pain or the sickness that hurt the most. It was the emptiness.

She had lived a life that felt invisible. Passed over. Ignored. Even in the end, there was no one to sit beside her and hold her hand. No one to tell her that she was brave. No one to lie and say it would be okay.

All she’d ever wanted was to be special. Not famous. Not rich. Just… seen.

To be someone whose smile someone missed. Someone who mattered. Someone remembered.

Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes, but she was too weak to wipe them away. Her chest rose slowly—struggling, wheezing. Her vision was already fading, the edges turning dark and soft like sleep pulling her under. But her mind clung to one last thought.

And in that moment, as her chest lifted for what should have been the final time, Amara whispered into the silent void. Her voice was barely more than breath, but it carried all the longing of a soul who had never truly felt she belonged.

“I just want to feel like I was meant to be here.”

No one heard her. Not the nurses passing by. Not the machines that monitored her pulse.

But something—someone—did.

The machines flatlined. A long, unwavering tone filled the room. A line on the monitor stretched out into stillness.

Amara’s eyes slipped shut.

The world blinked out.

And then…

She fell.

But not into nothingness.

Into something far stranger. Far older. Far brighter.

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Chapter 2: Awakening in the Wild

Amara didn’t expect to open her eyes again.

She certainly didn’t expect this.

The scent hit her first—so unlike the antiseptic sting of the hospital, this air smelled wild and alive. Rain-soaked moss, blooming flowers, and something sweet and thick, like honey warmed in the sun. Her lungs drank it in instinctively, and her chest no longer ached. She didn’t wheeze. She breathed.

Then came the sound—birds, maybe? No… something stranger. Their songs echoed like chimes in the wind, rising and falling in tones she couldn’t quite place. A river babbled somewhere nearby, and something large stirred in the trees with a soft rustle of leaves and wings.

Then her eyes opened.

The sky above was a swirling watercolor of violet and deep blue, painted with soft streaks of orange and silver. The sun—if it was the sun—looked more like a glowing orb suspended behind layers of mist. Around her, tall trees towered, their bark slick with moisture, their leaves glowing faintly with bioluminescence. Vines coiled around trunks like lazy serpents, blooming with flowers that pulsed with soft green and pink light. Mushrooms, some the size of dinner plates, lined the base of the trees and shimmered with internal glow.

The forest seemed alive in a way no forest back home ever had. It didn’t just exist—it watched.

Amara gasped.

The air hit her lungs like a cold splash of water. She sat up too quickly, dizziness rushing to her head. For a moment, she thought she’d imagined it all—the hospital, the death, the wish. Maybe this was the afterlife. Or a dream. Or both.

She looked down at herself.

Still her. Human. Flesh and blood. She ran her fingers along her arms and face, half-expecting them to pass through like mist. But no—her skin was warm. Solid. Pale brown, marked with old scars and familiar freckles. Her long, curly hair was a tangle of knots and leaves. Her clothes—a blue crop top and black skirt—were rumpled and stained with mud and crushed petals, but intact. Her boots were missing, replaced by bare feet pressed against damp, sponge-like moss.

Her arm caught her attention next—the one marked with the tattoo she’d gotten on a whim, a swirling sleeve of constellations, waves, and inked fragments of stories she never finished writing. It had always made her feel powerful. Like she carried pieces of other worlds with her.

Now it felt like a prophecy.

She glanced around, heart pounding, and that’s when she saw them.

Eyes.

Not just one pair. Dozens.

Peeking between trees. Perched on branches. Creeping silently along mossy paths. Creatures emerging from the forest with cautious curiosity.

They walked upright but were nothing like humans.

One was tall and sinewy, covered in glimmering scales of emerald and gold. Another stood on goat-like legs, a mane of feathers rising from her back like a living cloak, her amber eyes glowing softly. One being, squat and broad, had four arms and a face hidden behind a shell-like mask. Others slinked between shapes—hybrids of fur, fin, and flame—blurring the line between predator and person.

Tails swayed. Wings twitched. Claws clicked.

They were beautiful, terrifying, and utterly alien. Yet they stared at her with something more than suspicion—disbelief.

One childlike creature—a small, fox-faced being with huge ears and bioluminescent whiskers—pointed at her and whispered something to the others in a language of chirps and clicks.

Their gazes sharpened.

Amara’s breath hitched. She stepped back instinctively, feet squelching in the moss. Fight or flight. But there was nowhere to run. No clue how she’d arrived. No idea what these beings were capable of.

One creature stepped forward, taller than the rest. Horned, draped in a robe that shimmered like liquid metal. Their eyes—violet and slitted—narrowed as they studied her. Then they spoke, slowly, as if tasting the word:

“Hu…man.”

The forest quieted.

Amara froze.

To them, it was more than a word—it was a myth. A ghost from stories whispered around fires. Something that should not exist.

Because in this world, humans weren’t just extinct.

They were legend.

She was the myth now.

The outcast.

The impossible.

The human.

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