Meira009
At fifteen, Leah was everything the world overlooked-soft-footed, sharp-eyed, always a little too quiet. She moved through her home like someone trying not to wake a monster.
Because in her house, even a dropped spoon could lead to punishment. Even breathing wrong could earn her a bruise-sometimes on her skin, more often on her soul.
She wasn't living. She was surviving.
Each day blurred into the next: school, silence, shadows. No one saw the way she flinched, the way she folded herself smaller. But late at night, when the walls couldn't watch and her heartbeat was the only sound, Leah let herself dream.
She dreamed of other worlds. Worlds where magic healed what cruelty broke. Where girls like her had power. Where kindness didn't have to be earned.
And one night, when the ache inside her grew too heavy to hold, she whispered a wish into the dark.
She didn't see the shooting star that crossed the sky as her heart cracked wide open.
She only woke up-somewhere else.
Not in her bed. Not in a hospital. But in a grand, candlelit chamber, silk sheets beneath her, unfamiliar hands gently lifting her into the arms of a stranger who called herself mother.
And for the first time, reality bent.
Something had changed.
Magic, it seemed, had been listening.