The wind bit cold and sharp, carrying the smell of rain and river water. Luna stood on the bridge, small hands gripping the rusty railing, the city lights blurred beneath her like distant stars she could never reach.
Her chest felt heavy, as if every sorrow she had ever carried was pressing down on her lungs. She closed her eyes and remembered the laughter she had once known—a fleeting thing, a memory of friends, of siblings, of a home that had promised safety but delivered shadows.
"Why am I always the one left behind?" she whispered to herself.
Her elder brother's anger still echoed in her ears, harsh and cruel. The voice of the world that called her reckless and unworthy replayed in her mind. Even her parents, though they loved her, seemed distant, weighed down by worries she could never fully carry.
She felt invisible, a ghost wandering through rooms that once felt familiar, a child pretending to be strong while tears streaked silently down her face.
"I am small. I am hurt. I am invisible…"
Her fingers tightened on the railing. She thought of the nights she ran, the loneliness of parks, the cold silence of her room, and the bridge—this very bridge—where despair had almost claimed her.
But somewhere in the deepest part of her chest, a spark flickered. Tiny, fragile, almost imperceptible, but alive.
"One day… one day, I will rise. I will survive. I will fly far from this pain."
She didn't know how, or when, or if the world would ever be kind. She didn't even know if she would be brave enough to make it through tomorrow.
But she closed her eyes and made a silent promise:
"I will not let this break me. I will carry every wound, every scar, and turn them into wings."
The wind howled around her, river rushing below, city lights flickering like distant dreams. Luna took a deep breath. Her small, trembling heart whispered the words she would carry for years:
"I am Luna. And I will not be invisible."
And with that, she stepped back from the edge, her feet finding the bridge once more—not as a place of ending, but as a beginning.