The days that followed felt lighter like something between us had shifted.
Mira still liked her quiet moments, but she wasn't cold anymore. She smiled when I told her stories, helped me find my way around the school, and sometimes even waited for me after class.
It was… nice.
One afternoon, we sat by the dorm window, sunlight spilling across the floor as we worked on our assignments. Mira hummed softly a tune I didn't recognize. It was soft and flowing, almost like waves rising and falling.
"That song," I said finally. "It's pretty. Where'd you learn it?"
She looked up, startled, then smiled faintly. "My mother used to sing it. It reminds me of home."
"Where is home?" I asked.
Her eyes flickered toward the sea in the distance. "Far away," she said softly.
Sometimes I caught her staring out the window, eyes lost in the horizon, as if the ocean was calling her name. And other times, I noticed small things like how she never joined the others for pool practice, though she loved swimming… or how her hair always seemed damp in the mornings, even when it hadn't rained.
Still, she made me laugh.
She told me stories about teachers, teased me when I tripped over my words in class, and even shared her favorite snacks sea-salt crackers that tasted strangely too salty, but she swore they were perfect.
One evening, as we sat outside watching the sun dip into the ocean, I realized something.
Mira wasn't just my roommate anymore.
She was my friend.
But beneath the laughter and warmth, there was something else too something unspoken. Because every night, I still woke up to the sound of waves, and when I looked across the room… her bed was always empty.
It was Friday afternoon, and the air smelled like sea salt and sunshine. Classes had just ended, and the courtyard buzzed with weekend energy laughter, chatter, and the clinking of lockers closing.
Mira and I had spent the whole morning painting sets for the school play. She'd somehow convinced me to help, even though I couldn't paint to save my life.
"Hold the board steady," she said, kneeling beside me with a brush dripping blue paint.
"You're wobbly."
"I'm trying!" I laughed. "You're the one painting like it's a race."
She grinned but then, just as she dipped her brush again, she winced. The brush slipped from her hand, leaving a streak across the canvas.
"Mira? What happened?"
She pulled her hand back. A thin line of red appeared across her palm a small but sharp cut from a nail sticking out of the board.
"Ouch," I said, reaching into my bag. "Hold on, I've got tissues."
But by the time I turned back, she was staring at her hand and the blood was gone.
Completely gone.
The skin had already healed, smooth and unmarked.
"Mira," I breathed, "your hand—"
She quickly turned it over, tucking it behind her. "It's nothing. Just a scratch."
I blinked. "But… it was bleeding a second ago!"
She forced a laugh that didn't reach her eyes.
"Maybe you imagined it, Lina."
And just like that, she picked up the brush again, as if nothing had happened.
But I knew what I'd seen.
That cut had been real. And so was the shimmer that had flickered across her skin — faint, like sunlight under water.
All afternoon, I couldn't focus. I kept replaying it in my mind, the way her wound had just vanished, the way she'd avoided my gaze.
Something was happening something she wasn't telling me.
And I was going to find out what it was.