Everyone in the world was different in some sort of way. Some people lived for the rush of adventure, constantly on the move, chasing the thrill of the unknown with wide eyes and hearts eager for wonder. They packed their bags with little more than excitement and possibility, choosing new cities, new faces, new paths as naturally as breathing. They moved through crowded markets in foreign countries, danced in unexpected rain, and tasted food with names they couldn't pronounce. These people weren't running away from life—they were running toward it, hearts open to whatever the world had to offer. The unfamiliar didn't scare them; it sang to them, promising something more—more stories, more meaning, more of everything.
Then there were the ones who stayed. The still ones. The quiet ones. The ones who found joy in routine and peace in the familiar. Their lives weren't measured by passport stamps or spontaneous road trips, but by the smell of coffee in the morning, the softness of a well-worn blanket, the familiar creak of a floorboard as they padded through the same rooms they had always known. These people weren't stagnant—they were rooted, deeply and purposefully. They found magic in the ordinary, in the small things others overlooked. They cherished moments, not milestones. A rainy day wasn't ruined plans; it was a chance to curl up with a favorite book, to listen to the rhythm of the world and feel safe inside it.
Some people loved noise—the pulse of a crowded room, the beat of live music echoing through their bones, the thrill of fast-talking, fast-living, and faster decisions. Their laughter was loud, their presence electric, and their joy explosive. They filled spaces with their energy, constantly buzzing, constantly craving the next high, the next laugh, the next story to tell. Rollercoasters, skydiving, wild parties—they thrived on adrenaline, on pushing the limits of what it meant to be alive.
Others, though, found all they needed in silence. They didn't need noise to feel something. In the stillness of their rooms, they created universes. They closed their eyes and imagined entire worlds, built of light and shadow, hope and memory. Their imaginations roamed freely, unrestricted by walls or geography. These were the dreamers—the ones who painted sunsets with their minds and gave names to the stars. They could sit for hours with a pencil in hand or music playing softly in the background, not needing company, only the whisper of inspiration. Their minds were endless galaxies, and they explored them without ever leaving their chair.
No two people were the same, and that was the strange, quiet miracle of being human.
Fortunately, Kia belonged to those who held onto that dreamer's heart until their last breath. The quiet ones that could say a thousand words in a look.
Kia was the kind of kid who whispered and grinned at nothing, their brain was always drifting somewhere far away from inside the boundaries of the world around. They were delicate, odd to everyone else, their head perpetually cocked up toward the sky as if they was listening for something no one else could hear.
Their daydreams were luxurious, boundless—cloud-castles, singing seas, starry creatures that breathed secrets in their ears alone. According to their own people, however, Kia was a drain. A child who refused to be "normal," who did not strive for grades or success but wasted time drawing invisible worlds in the air and posing questions they had no desire to answer.
When they contracted a terminal illness, they did not weep. They didn't fight for them. They left Kia at the hospital with only a quiet goodbye and the lasting indignity that they never were what the couple had wanted.
But Kia did not hate them. Kia didn't even miss them. Their days passed by in soft-spoken murmurs of antiseptic quietness, drawing with trembling fingers and imagining friends who would never leave. Nurses drifted by the door like ghosts, sometimes leaving a soft smile, sometimes leaving nothing. Kia lay coiled in a tiny bed, watching the dust creep in patches of light and pretending they were stars.
Years had passed by then and when the time arrived, it was like a chaotic lullaby. The doctors were frantic, their voices raw with mounting panic as they yelled orders and warnings. But Kia no longer heard them. Their breaths dropped slower, gentler, like feathers falling. Their heart beat into a muted rhythm, then a whisper, before it was barely there. They didn't cried or struggle. Their small body just slumped, eyelids dropped closed, and the hospital light faded over them.
The darkness came first—quiet, warm and weightless. Then slowly the light seeped out: pale blues and golds, lavenders and roses. Kia opened their eyes—though it wasn't quite accurate to call it this - they weren't entirely certain they still possessed a body any more. Just presence. Just thinking. Just being.
They were in a place that didn't look like anything they'd ever seen, but felt like everything they'd ever dreamed. There were hills covered in glowing blades of grass that went on and on and seemed to roll etetnally, the sky shone like melted pearls, and in place of stars, words sparkled in the sky—the same ones Kia used to scribble in notebook pages when they felt alone. Stories. Sentences. Memory.
And then, a voice—clear, ageless, calm.
"You never lost hope nor did you ever stop dreaming and now, in this sanctuary your dream has become reality, your visions finally became true."
Kia shifted—not again with body, but with will—and felt a form approaching them. Neither male nor female, yet presence. Like them.
"Where am I?" Kia questioned
"Between," said the figure. "Between what is past and what remains yet to come. Between endings and new commencements. Aetheris The Haven of the Lost."
Kia felt no fear, only curiosity—an old friend they had missed.
"Why am I here?"
The smile spread across the figure's face, a thousand emotions condensed into it. "Because you never stopped creating. The world up there gave up on you, but the universe didn't. And you will make again now—but this time in the world."
Suddenly, the ground beneath Kia's feet solidified. They looked down and realized they had feet now. Legs. Arms. Fingers. A body that pulsed with a warm, celestial energy, but more importantly their soul formed in front of them like a star being reborn - It glowed ominously yet it also added to the celestial energy radiated in the Haven. A breeze moved through the dreamscape and scattered its contents: shards of canvas, tangles of sound, splinters of sculpture, splintered code and luminosity in its wake. A thousand lifetimes' worth of creations.
Kia was in the midst of it all, though their vision began to blur and their new breaths became ragged nothing could deter them from the pure euphoria in this very moment —and for the first time in their entire life, they didn't feel small.
They were infinite.
"Welcome to your new world" the whispering voice said and vanished. "Now my child, adapt and build. "
And for the first time, Kia smiled as her soul burned and burned away in her chest.