The first thing she noticed was the sound.

Cracking.

Not bone.

Something older.

It came from somewhere behind her ribs, slow and deliberate, like winter splitting the trunk of a dead tree.

She stopped walking.

The sound stopped with her.

She took another step.

Crack.

Something fell.

A small white fragment lay beside her boot.

She bent to touch it, but it collapsed beneath her finger into a fine powder.

There were more behind her.

Hundreds.

Perhaps thousands.

A pale trail disappearing into the darkness from which she had come.

She did not remember shedding them.

She continued walking.

Crack.

Another piece.

Then another.

Whatever was breaking away had once fit her perfectly.

That was the unsettling part.

The corridor narrowed ahead until the stone walls pressed against both shoulders. She turned sideways and continued.

Soon even that was impossible.

There was nowhere forward.

She tried backward.

The passage had closed behind her.

Something moved beneath her skin.

Not inside her.

Beneath it.

Her stomach turned.

She clawed at her collarbone.

A seam appeared.

Her hand flew away from it.

For several seconds, she could only stare.

There are certain things the body knows before the mind has language for them.

This was one.

She touched the seam again.

Then pulled.

The sound that came from her throat was not quite a scream.

There was no blood.

No wound.

Only darkness beneath what had opened.

She pulled again.

Something tore from her shoulder to her wrist, and suddenly one arm was free.

Not naked.

New.

She stared at it.

Then at the arm still trapped inside the thing she had mistaken for herself.

Every instinct told her to stop.

She pulled harder.

Shoulders.

Chest.

Hips.

Legs.

The pressure became unbearable. For one terrible moment, she thought she might suffocate between what she had been and whatever waited outside it.

Then she tore free.

Something enormous collapsed behind her.

She dropped to her knees, gasping.

When she finally stood, she almost turned around.

Almost.

Some doors are only dangerous when mistaken for entrances.

She walked on.

Heat reached her first.

Then the smell of iron.

Figures gathered along the road.

Some had horns.

Some had beautiful faces.

Some wore the faces of people she had known.

Her body remembered them before she did.

Her pulse quickened.

Her hands tightened.

An old instinct whispered, Run.

She didn’t.

One stepped directly into her path.

Its mouth opened.

She knew the sentence before it spoke.

She had heard it many times before.

Once, those words could have kept her awake until morning.

Now she tilted her head.

“Is that all?”

The creature smiled.

Then stepped aside.

Another approached.

This one carried something in its hands.

She stopped.

It was small enough to hold against the chest.

Warm.

Familiar.

Everything she had once begged to have returned to her was inside it.

Every answer.

Every apology.

Every person who should have stayed.

Every ending rewritten.

Every locked door opening at once.

Her chest tightened.

The creature held it closer.

For one dangerous second, she wanted it.

Not as she once had.

More like the body remembers hunger long after the mind has learned what poisoned it.

She reached toward it.

The creature’s smile widened.

Her fingers stopped inches away.

Then lowered.

“No.”

The smile disappeared.

She walked past.

The others moved aside.

Not bowing.

Not defeated.

They simply watched her pass with the peculiar courtesy afforded to something they could no longer frighten.

Or bargain with.

At the end of their kingdom stood a black gate with no lock.

She pushed it open.

Everything beyond it was white.

The brightness should have hurt.

It didn’t.

Winged creatures descended until the air trembled around her.

There were hundreds.

Perhaps more.

None touched her.

That frightened her more than if they had.

They gathered close enough that she could hear the movement of their wings, all of them staring as though something ancient had just returned wearing an unfamiliar face.

One approached.

Its eyes were older than anything she had seen below.

It leaned close and whispered something into her ear.

She did not know the language.

Still, somewhere inside her, something answered.

The creature stepped back.

Every wing opened at once.

A path appeared between them.

She walked through.

No one followed.

The white world eventually faded into gray.

Here, no one noticed her.

Thousands sat beside a motionless river.

Some clutched photographs.

Some held keys to houses that no longer existed.

One woman held a dead flower so tightly the thorns had grown through her palm.

A man stood waist-deep in the river screaming at the water to return what it had taken.

No one answered him.

She moved among them.

Some were crying.

Others stared toward the horizon as though expecting someone.

One had been waiting so long that moss covered his shoes.

Then she noticed what was beneath them.

Roots.

Thin ones beneath the newly arrived.

Thicker ones beneath the others.

The deepest disappeared so far into the earth she could no longer see where the person ended and the ground began.

Her chest began to ache.

Not pity.

Recognition.

She looked down the riverbank.

There, between a woman clutching a letter and a man staring at an empty road, was a small depression in the earth.

The shape of someone who had sat there for a very long time.

Nothing grew inside it.

But beside the hollow lay a single white fragment.

She stared at it.

Then looked at the powder still clinging to her own fingers.

She said nothing.

There were no gates around the place.

No guards.

No chains.

She stepped into the river.

The current took her immediately.

Her body tensed.

For one second, she fought.

The water pulled harder.

She stopped.

The river softened around her.

It carried her through places she could not name.

A childhood bedroom with the door slightly open.

A funeral where everyone wore her face.

A city where every clock moved backward.

Then a house.

Inside stood a woman who looked exactly like her.

Same eyes.

Same hands.

Same scar.

But something was different.

The woman on the other side of the glass had made one different decision many years ago.

Neither knew which of them had chosen correctly.

They stared at each other.

Neither waved.

The river carried her on.

Eventually she turned her head toward something in the distance.

The water turned with her.

She looked the other way.

Again, the river followed.

She whispered a word.

A bridge appeared.

She stopped.

The water continued beneath her.

She whispered another.

A door formed in the middle of the bridge.

Another word.

It opened.

For a moment she simply stared at it.

Then she laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because somewhere, in another life, she had spent years knocking.

She stepped through.

Night waited on the other side.

She walked for what might have been hours before noticing the moon.

It was behind her.

Yet there was no shadow at her feet.

She turned.

Nothing.

She raised her arms.

Still nothing.

Everyone casts a shadow.

Don’t they?

She searched the ground until a voice came from somewhere beyond the trees.

“You are looking for something that requires a light behind you.”

She looked toward the voice.

No one was there.

Only a narrow path through the forest.

She followed it.

A thorn caught her dress.

Another caught her wrist.

She thought of how easily she could become trapped there.

The forest tightened.

Branches intertwined behind her.

She stopped.

Somewhere beyond the trees, something growled.

She thought of wolves.

A second growl answered.

Closer.

Her heart began hammering.

“This place is dangerous,” she whispered.

Something large moved in the darkness.

She froze.

Then came the terrible realization.

It wasn’t attacking her.

It was listening.

Even the thoughts she had never spoken were being heard.

Especially those.

She tried not to think of teeth.

Something snapped its jaws in the darkness.

She tried not to imagine footsteps.

Leaves crunched behind her.

She tried not to be afraid.

The trees moved closer.

She closed her eyes.

Not wishing.

Not praying.

Listening beneath the noise she had mistaken for thought.

Her breathing slowed.

The footsteps stopped.

The growling disappeared.

The branches became still.

The forest waited.

“There is a way through.”

A stone appeared beneath her foot.

She looked ahead.

Nothing.

“There is another.”

A second stone surfaced from the earth.

She stepped onto it.

Then another.

And another.

She stopped asking the forest where the road was.

She walked.

By dawn, she reached the edge of the world.

There was nothing beyond it.

No road.

No river.

No gate.

Only an impossible distance and, far below, a small piece of solid ground.

Something about it was familiar.

The stone was uneven.

Imperfect.

Some pieces were darker than others.

Some still carried the marks of fire.

She knew those stones.

She had carried every one.

Behind her, something whispered that she should be afraid.

She smiled.

There are voices that warn us.

And there are echoes that simply learned how to sound convincing.

She stepped from the edge.

For one exquisite second, she belonged to nothing.

Not the body behind her.

Not the creatures below.

Not the wings above.

Not yesterday.

Not tomorrow.

Not even gravity.

She fell.

The last piece cracked away somewhere between worlds.

It floated beside her for a moment.

Translucent.

Almost beautiful.

The shape of something that had once contained her.

She reached for it instinctively.

The wind took it before her fingers could touch.

Her feet struck stone.

She did not collapse.

She landed standing.

Silence surrounded her.

Ahead was darkness.

She waited.

Nothing appeared.

No gate.

No bridge.

No river.

No angels descended.

No creatures came to meet her.

She waited longer.

Still nothing.

For the first time, there was no world telling her where to go.

She looked behind her.

There should have been footprints.

There were none.

She walked to the edge of the foundation and searched the darkness for the worlds she had crossed.

Nothing.

Not even the glow of them remained.

A sudden panic moved through her.

She called out.

No answer.

She tried the words that had summoned the bridge.

Nothing.

She tried another.

Still nothing.

For the first time, the world refused her.

She looked back at the empty stone.

There was no trail.

No shell.

No opening through which she could crawl backward.

Whatever had brought her here had closed behind her.

She stood very still.

Then something unexpected came over her.

Not grief.

Not relief.

Something quieter than both.

She turned toward the darkness.

There was no road.

So she lifted one foot and stepped into it.

Stone formed beneath her.

She stared down.

Another step.

Another stone.

She stopped.

Nothing waited ahead.

Nothing followed behind.

She lifted her foot.

The darkness beneath it became stone.

So she kept walking.