Nights were always the hardest for Elara.
Daytime at the foster home carried noise—footsteps in hallways, the clatter of dishes, voices rising in laughter or in quarrels. But when the lights went out and silence settled across the dormitory, her thoughts grew louder than anything else.
Elara lay on the thin mattress of her bunk, staring into the darkness. Around her, children shifted in their sleep. One sucked his thumb, another whimpered through a bad dream. A girl in the corner clutched a teddy bear missing one eye. They all had something to hold on to, something to chase the night away.
Elara had nothing—except memories.
She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to summon her mother's voice. Sometimes, if she tried hard enough, she could hear it faintly, like a song playing in another room. "Elara, sweetheart, sleep now. Tomorrow will be bright." But when she opened her eyes again, the only brightness came from the streetlamp outside the barred window.
The bed creaked as she turned to her side. She tried to copy the breathing rhythm of the girl above her, as if falling in sync might trick her into sleep. But sleep never came easily. It had been stolen on the same night her parents were taken.
The warden had warned them all: "Lights out means silence." Talking after dark earned punishment. But rules couldn't stop whispers. Across the room, two boys whispered about football. Somewhere, a girl whispered a lullaby to her younger brother. Elara kept her mouth shut, afraid of drawing attention, afraid of being reminded she had no sibling to comfort or be comforted by.
She reached for the sketchbook hidden under her pillow. By touch alone, she traced the worn edges. The pages inside held her fragile world, one she could only visit when no one was looking. Slowly, carefully, she flipped it open just enough to feel the paper under her fingers.
On one page was the outline of a bird, wings spread wide. On another, clouds shading the corner of a giant sky. She turned to the last drawing she had made: an airplane, flying above the clouds, small but determined. A simple shape, but to her, it meant freedom. A promise.
Her hand hovered as if she might draw again, but there was no pencil tonight. Instead, she pressed the sketchbook against her chest. "Take me away," she whispered, so quietly the words melted into the night.
A creak broke the silence. Someone had climbed down from a bunk. Elara froze, clutching the sketchbook tighter. From the shadows, a girl with curly hair appeared, tiptoeing toward the door. She carried a small flashlight and a piece of bread, clearly stolen from dinner.
Their eyes met for a second. The girl's expression was defiant, daring Elara to tell on her. But Elara only looked away, burying her face in the pillow. She wasn't interested in secrets that weren't hers. She already had enough of her own.
The door clicked softly, and the girl vanished into the hall.
Elara breathed again, slowly. She wondered if that girl had someone waiting for her in the world outside. Parents? A relative? Or maybe, like Elara, no one at all.
She hugged the sketchbook until the edges pressed into her skin. "One day," she thought, "I'll have a room that's mine. A bed that's mine. A life that's mine."
Outside, the rain began again, tapping against the glass like gentle fingers. Elara listened until the rhythm became steady enough to calm her heart.
Finally, her eyelids grew heavy. She drifted into a sleep filled with fragments of memory—her mother's laughter, her father's warm hand, the sound of a plane flying high above the city.
It was not peace. But it was enough to survive another night.