Whispers Between Worlds.

Lena heard the whisper again at 3:17 a.m.

It wasn’t the creak of the old pipes in her grandmother’s house, nor the wind scratching at the attic window. This whisper had a rhythm — almost a name.

Her name.

“Lena…”

She sat up slowly in bed, her breath caught halfway between fear and familiarity. This was the third night in a row. Each time, the voice felt closer, clearer. And despite its ghostly hush, it made her heart race in a way that didn’t feel like danger.

She pulled the attic cord and climbed up, flashlight in hand. Dust motes danced in the air like tiny stars. The voice always led her here — to the large mirror that stood propped against the wall, too clean for something untouched in decades.

She didn’t remember the mirror from childhood summers. It had appeared a week after her grandmother’s funeral. No one mentioned it. No one questioned it.

Tonight, something shimmered at the mirror’s edges.

She reached out and touched the glass.

It rippled.

Before she could think, the world around her twisted like light through water — and then silence. Heavy and endless.

Lena blinked.

She was standing on a stone path under a violet sky, where twin moons hung low and silver trees bent as if bowing in greeting. It wasn’t Earth — that was obvious — but it wasn’t terrifying either. It felt… like a memory.

"Lena."

The voice was no longer a whisper.

She turned.

A boy stood there — no older than her — tall, wrapped in dark fabric that shifted like smoke. His eyes glowed faintly, not from magic but recognition. He smiled like someone seeing home.

"You came back," he said.

“I… what?” Lena stammered.

“You crossed the veil. You remembered.”

“Do I… know you?”

His smile faltered, just a little. “Not yet. But you did. In the life before.”

Lena felt her heartbeat echo louder. This couldn’t be real. Yet every color, every scent of the air, felt more vivid than anything she’d known.

"Who are you?"

He stepped closer, his voice lower. "I’m Kael. You and I were once bonded — two souls split across dimensions. We loved before this world… and after.”

Lena laughed nervously. “Okay, sure. So I’m your interdimensional ex?”

“No,” he said gently. “You're the half I’ve been waiting for. Every cycle, we find each other — just before the veil closes again.”

“I don’t remember any of this.”

“You will. You always do.”

He held out his hand. Something in her chest pulled forward — not just emotion, but gravity. The same pull she felt in dreams she couldn’t explain. Hands trembling, she reached for him.

Their fingers touched.

A wave of images surged through her — flickers of other lives. Her hand in his under twin suns. Her laughter echoing through an ancient city of light. A kiss beneath a tree with silver leaves. War. Fire. A goodbye screamed across collapsing skies.

And then—this.

Lena staggered back, breath stolen. “That was… us?”

Kael nodded. “Fragments. We’re soulbound. In every life, we’re separated. And in every one, we try to find our way back.”

“Why separated?”

Kael’s jaw tightened. “A curse. Not by hate, but by fear. Your world feared what we were. What we could be.”

“Who cursed us?”

Kael’s eyes drifted to the sky. “Your ancestors. My people. Both.”

She stood there silently, the weight of past lives pressing against her heart. “And this place? This world?”

“It’s the In-Between,” he said. “It only opens when both of us remember. A doorway between your world and mine.”

"Why now?"

“Because time is folding in. This may be our last chance.”

As he spoke, the air shimmered again. The trees blurred at the edges, and the path behind her flickered like static.

Lena turned toward the shimmer. The mirror. Her world was pulling her back.

“No—” Kael grabbed her hand. “Stay. If you go now, you may never return.”

“But I have a life there,” she said, panic rising. “What happens to it? To me?”

“Same thing that happens every time,” he said softly. “You forget me. And I wait.”

She looked back and forth between him and the fading path.

Her heart screamed in both directions.

“Can’t I stay just a little longer?”

“You can,” Kael said. “But if the portal closes… you’re mine forever.”

He didn’t say it like a threat. He said it like a vow.

Lena looked down at their hands. His felt real, warm. Familiar. Like something she'd never known she was missing until now.

“I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

Kael touched her face gently. “You do. You're just scared.”

“I’m not ready.”

“You said that in the last life too.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “And what did I choose?”

Kael smiled, eyes shining. “You stayed.”

A pause.

“And?”

“You died with me. But we were together. We always are, in the end.”

The portal behind her crackled louder, impatient.

“I…” Lena whispered. “I’m not ready to die.”

Kael nodded. “Then go. But remember this—every version of you finds her way back. Maybe not today. Maybe not even in this life. But love like ours… it echoes.”

The wind swirled, tugging her hair and her heart. Her fingers loosened from his.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Kael nodded once, not angry, not hurt. “I know.”

She turned toward the fading mirror and stepped through.

The attic air was cold when she landed, heart pounding. The mirror was just a mirror again. No shimmer. No sound.

No Kael.

Weeks passed.

The whisper never came again.

Lena went on — school, life, pretending things made sense. But the colors of her world seemed duller now. Her reflection didn’t quite feel like her anymore.

And at 3:17 a.m., every night, she woke up reaching for a hand that wasn’t there.

Six Months Later

She found the mirror again at an antique market. Same frame. Same flawless glass.

She asked the old woman selling it where it came from.

“No one knows,” she said. “It just… showed up.”

Lena stared into it, waiting. Wishing.

Nothing.

Until she walked away.

A faint shimmer.

A breath on the glass.

A whisper:

“Lena…”