"𝕾𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖆𝖉𝖊 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕾𝖔𝖚𝖑"

Prologue

In the sprawling, chaotic heart of Los Angeles, where ambition and despair shared the same breath, there lived a girl named Morana. Her world unfolded not in sunlit parks or bustling city streets, but within the suffocating sterility of hospital walls.

The rhythmic beeping of monitors was her only lullaby, and the antiseptic scent of disinfectant lingered like a second skin. From the moment her fragile heart first fluttered to life, it seemed as if the universe had already written her story—a tale marked by fragility, pain, and a dance with mortality so precarious that every beat felt borrowed.

Morana was born with a heart as delicate as the wing of a butterfly, a condition so rare that doctors spoke of it in hushed tones, as though naming it might shatter her altogether. Days turned to weeks, then years, her existence confined to hospital rooms painted in muted hues of sadness. The sunlit world beyond was a distant dream, glimpsed only through smudged windows.

She had no family to soothe her pain or anchor her in love. Abandoned as an infant, she had been left on the doorstep of a run-down orphanage, swaddled in blankets with only a crumpled note for company.

The note, scrawled in desperation, bore her name and a plea for forgiveness—a silent testament to the fractured life she'd been born into. Morana's life became a question mark written against the backdrop of a city too busy to notice her absence.

For eighteen years, she had carried the weight of her condition like an invisible yoke. Doctors offered her sympathy wrapped in cold facts; nurses tried and failed to disguise their pity behind forced smiles. Strangers saw her as a tragedy in the making, a girl destined for brevity, a fleeting candle struggling against an inevitable gust. Yet beneath the frailty of her body was a soul alight with defiance.

To Morana, life was not something to simply endure—it was a puzzle she ached to solve, even as the pieces slipped through her trembling fingers.

She had grown tired of watching the world through a pane of glass, of dreaming about things she had never touched: the laughter of friends, the warmth of a family, the intoxicating scent of rain-soaked earth. She yearned for a life that didn't feel like a prison sentence, for days that didn't feel numbered.

In her darkest hours, she whispered silent prayers for an end to it all—for the pain to stop, for her heart to falter, for the relentless ache of existence to finally subside. Yet, no matter how often she surrendered herself to despair, fate refused to grant her peace. Life clung to her with cruel tenacity, as if knowing that her story was not yet finished.

And then, the impossible happened.

It began with a moment so small it could have been missed—a glance, a word, an encounter as fleeting as a wisp of smoke. But in that moment, something shifted. A light, faint at first, began to pierce the shadows that had long since engulfed her world. It wasn't just a chance encounter; it was a key unlocking the door to a truth she had never imagined.

Somewhere out there, beyond the fluorescent glow of hospital corridors and the shadows of her past, there was a family—her family. Not the ghosts she had dreamed of in lonely nights but flesh and blood, real and waiting.

They had searched for her, defied time and circumstance, and now stood on the precipice of finding the girl they had lost. Their love was a beacon, guiding her toward something she had never dared to hope for: belonging.

For the first time in her life, Morana allowed herself to imagine a future. What would it feel like to have someone call her name with joy, to be embraced by arms that wanted nothing in return, to laugh until the walls of her fragile heart vibrated with life? Her fear and uncertainty warred with this fragile hope, but the ember of possibility refused to be snuffed out.

As she prepared to step out of the only world she had ever known, Morana felt the weight of her past loosen its grip. The road ahead was uncertain, clouded by shadows and storm, but she no longer stood frozen in despair.

She was ready—ready to claim the life that had long seemed out of reach, to find the family who had never stopped searching, and to rewrite the story the universe had tried so hard to script for her.

For the first time, Morana dared to believe that her heart, fragile as it was, might not just beat to survive. It might beat for love, for adventure, for the radiant possibility of truly living. And no matter what lay ahead, she knew one thing with quiet certainty:

Her story was only just beginning.