Chapter 1 – The Girl Who Dreamed of Another World

The first page was blank.

Suzu Ayanami stared at it for what felt like the hundredth time.

Her pen rested between her fingers, unmoving.

On the desk in front of her was a thick notebook filled with years of ideas.

Maps.

Kingdoms.

Magic systems.

Monsters.

Ancient ruins.

Legends.

Characters she had created when she was younger.

Some had names.

Some had entire histories.

Some had endings.

Suzu knew how the final battle would unfold.

She knew which kingdoms would fall.

She knew which characters would betray one another.

She even knew what kind of world existed beyond the borders of the map she had drawn.

But there was one thing she could never figure out.

How did the story begin?

She looked down at the empty page.

At the top, she had written two simple words months ago.

Chapter One

Nothing had been written beneath them.

"...Why is this so hard?"

She leaned back in her chair.

Her room was quiet except for the ticking of a small clock.

Fantasy novels filled one side of her bookshelf. On another shelf were mythology books, old folklore collections, and notebooks filled with handwritten notes.

The walls were covered with drawings.

A castle surrounded by mountains.

A floating island.

A mysterious forest.

A knight standing beneath a red moon.

A girl holding a strange weapon.

A creature with enormous wings.

Suzu had been building this world for years.

Yet somehow, she could never enter it.

She could only look at it from the outside.

"Maybe I'm just not good enough to write it..."

She sighed.

Then she shook her head.

"No. That's not it."

Her fingers slowly tightened around the pen.

"I know the story."

She looked at the map pinned above her desk.

"I know what happens."

Her eyes moved across the hand-drawn continent.

"I know where everyone ends up."

Then she looked back at the blank page.

"...So why can't I write the beginning?"

She didn't have an answer.

She never did.

Five Years Earlier

"Suzu! Come on!"

A young girl stood in the backyard with a toy medical kit in her hands.

She wore a big white coat that was clearly too large for her.

Suzu laughed as she ran toward her.

"Wait for me!"

"You have to hurry, Doctor!"

"I am hurrying!"

The two girls sat beneath a tree, surrounded by toys and blankets.

They had decided that afternoon that they were doctors.

One of them was the doctor.

The other was the patient.

Suzu placed the toy stethoscope against her friend's chest.

"How are you feeling?"

The girl thought seriously.

"Very sick."

"How sick?"

"Extremely sick."

Suzu gasped.

"That's terrible!"

The girl laughed.

"Can you save me, Doctor?"

Suzu smiled confidently.

"Of course I can."

She didn't know much about sickness back then.

She didn't understand hospitals.

She didn't understand how fragile a person's body could be.

To her, being a doctor meant that if someone was hurting, you simply found a way to make them better.

Because that was what doctors did.

They saved people.

The two girls continued playing until the sun began to disappear behind the houses.

Neither of them knew that it would become one of Suzu's most precious memories.

Because not long afterward...

Her friend became sick for real.

And this time, Suzu couldn't fix it.

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The hospital room had smelled like medicine.

Suzu remembered sitting beside the bed.

She remembered holding a hand that felt weaker than before.

She remembered pretending everything would be okay.

Most of all, she remembered smiling.

Even though she wanted to cry.

"You're going to get better, right?"

Her friend had smiled back.

"I hope so."

Those words stayed with Suzu.

Days passed.

Then weeks.

Eventually, there was a day when the room became too quiet.

Her childhood best friend was gone.

Suzu was only twelve years old.

She didn't understand why someone so important could simply disappear from her life.

She didn't understand why adults kept telling her that she needed to accept it.

She didn't want to accept it.

For a long time, she kept a small torn piece of a photograph.

It showed the two of them together.

The other half of the picture had been lost somewhere.

Suzu didn't know where.

But she kept her half anyway.

She kept it inside the first notebook she ever used for writing stories.

That was also around the time her dreams began.

At first, they were ordinary dreams.

A forest.

A strange castle.

A night sky filled with unfamiliar stars.

Then the dreams became more vivid.

She began seeing places she had never visited.

People she had never met.

Creatures that couldn't possibly exist.

Sometimes she woke up with words in her head that she didn't remember learning.

Sometimes she could still remember entire conversations from dreams after opening her eyes.

And sometimes...

She felt like she had been somewhere before.

Somewhere she had never been.

Instead of being frightened by it, Suzu became curious.

She began researching mythology.

Then fantasy.

Then magic.

Then ancient civilizations.

Then worldbuilding.

Her collection of notebooks grew.

And slowly, the world inside her head grew with it.

She never told anyone how real it sometimes felt.

She didn't know how to explain it.

Present Day

At seventeen, Suzu had become a quiet girl.

She wasn't unpopular.

She simply didn't have many people she felt comfortable around.

At school, she kept to herself.

She studied.

She took notes.

She finished assignments.

She answered teachers politely.

Then she went home.

It was easier that way.

There were also people at school who enjoyed making things difficult for her.

Sometimes it was a whispered comment.

Sometimes someone would hide one of her belongings.

Sometimes they laughed when she talked about fantasy.

"Still reading those childish books?"

Suzu didn't answer.

She simply picked up her notebook.

Another voice laughed.

"Seriously, when are you going to grow up?"

Suzu lowered her eyes.

She wanted to say something.

Anything.

But the words never came.

Instead, she walked away.

It's fine.

She repeated that to herself often.

Just ignore them.

It'll be over eventually.

But every time she said it, a small part of her felt more tired.

Her parents didn't make things easier.

They visited when they could, but Suzu always felt nervous whenever they came.

Not because they were cruel.

They simply had expectations.

Grades.

College.

Career choices.

Her future.

Questions about what she planned to do with her life.

Suzu never knew how to answer.

She didn't want to disappoint them.

But she didn't know what she wanted either.

Whenever they left, she usually sat alone in her room.

Looking at the same blank page.

Wondering why everyone seemed to know where their lives were going.

Everyone except her.

One afternoon, Suzu was walking through the school hallway when someone suddenly called out.

"Hey."

She stopped.

A boy from her class stood a short distance away, holding a book.

He looked slightly nervous, as if he wasn't sure whether he should approach her.

"Do you like fantasy novels?"

Suzu blinked.

"...Yeah."

He held up the book.

"I saw you reading one yesterday."

"Oh."

She looked at the cover.

"I've read that one."

His face brightened.

"Really?"

Suzu nodded.

They began talking.

At first, it was only about books.

Then magic systems.

Then dragons.

Then stories where the protagonist traveled to another world.

It was the first time in a while that Suzu had talked so much without worrying about what someone thought of her.

When the conversation ended, she realized something.

She had actually smiled.

"See you tomorrow," he said.

"Yeah."

Suzu watched him leave.

Then quietly thought:

Maybe talking to people isn't always so bad.

That evening, Suzu stopped at a small bookstore on her way home.

The bell above the door rang softly when she entered.

She wandered through the shelves until she reached the fantasy section.

An older man behind the counter noticed the notebook in her hands.

"You write stories?"

Suzu looked up.

"A little."

"Only a little?"

She smiled awkwardly.

"I haven't actually written one."

The man laughed.

"Then what have you been doing all this time?"

Suzu hesitated.

"Planning."

"Planning?"

"Worldbuilding. Characters. History. Magic..."

She began counting on her fingers.

"...kingdoms, monsters, religions, wars..."

The man stared at her.

"That's quite a lot of planning."

Suzu looked embarrassed.

"I just can't figure out how to start."

The old man reached for a book from the shelf.

He handed it to her.

The cover showed a lone figure standing before a distant horizon.

"Try this."

Suzu read the title.

Beyond the Horizon.

She turned the book over.

"What is it about?"

"A journey."

"That's it?"

"That's what most stories are."

He smiled.

"People think stories begin when the adventure begins."

He tapped the cover.

"But sometimes, they begin long before that."

Suzu looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Before you send someone into another world..."

He paused.

"First, let the reader meet the person."

Suzu became quiet.

The words stayed with her.

Meet the person.

Not the kingdom.

Not the war.

Not the magic.

The person.

She thanked him and left the bookstore with the novel tucked beneath her arm.

That night, she sat in the park near her home.

The sun was beginning to disappear.

She opened her notebook.

The same blank page waited for her.

Suzu stared at it.

Then she remembered the bookstore.

Meet the person first.

She looked down at her own hands.

"Who is the person?"

Silence.

She thought about the characters she had created.

None of them felt right.

She thought about the kingdoms.

The wars.

The magic.

Nothing.

Then she remembered the girl she used to be.

The girl who played doctor.

The girl who believed she could save anyone.

The girl who lost her best friend.

The girl who began dreaming about another world.

Suzu slowly opened the notebook containing the old photograph.

Her fingers touched the torn edge.

"...Maybe I've been looking in the wrong direction."

She looked at the blank page again.

For the first time, it didn't look frightening.

It looked like a door.

Suzu picked up her pen.

She took a breath.

Then she wrote:

MYSTIC TALES OF ETERNIA

She stopped.

Her hand remained above the page.

"Eternia..."

The word felt strangely familiar.

She didn't know why.

She had never visited such a place.

She had never heard the name from anyone.

Yet something inside her reacted to it.

Not fear.

Not surprise.

Something quieter.

Something almost like recognition.

Suzu shook her head.

"Where did I even get that name?"

She laughed softly.

"Maybe I'm just weird."

Below the title, she began writing.

Not about a kingdom.

Not about a war.

Not about magic.

She started with a girl.

A girl who didn't know where she belonged.

A girl who dreamed of another world.

A girl who wanted to find a place where she could finally become someone different.

Suzu wrote until the sky became dark.

For the first time in years...

She had finally started.

On her way home, rain began to fall.

Suzu hurried along the sidewalk.

She held her notebook tightly against her chest.

She was already thinking about what she would write tomorrow.

Maybe the girl would travel somewhere.

Maybe she would meet someone.

Maybe she would discover something hidden inside herself.

Suzu smiled.

"I'll figure it out."

Then she heard a child's voice.

"Mom!"

Suzu looked up.

A little girl in a yellow raincoat had wandered too close to the road.

A vehicle was approaching.

Everything happened at once.

Suzu dropped her notebook.

"Hey!"

She ran.

She reached the child and pushed her away from the road.

The little girl fell safely onto the sidewalk.

Suzu didn't have time to move.

There was a sudden sound.

Then silence.

The rain continued falling.

Suzu couldn't hear it anymore.

Everything around her seemed distant.

Her vision blurred.

She couldn't move.

So this is it...

The thought came quietly.

There was no anger at first.

Only disbelief.

I just started.

Her notebook lay nearby.

The first page was open.

The title was still there.

MYSTIC TALES OF ETERNIA

Suzu stared at the words.

She had spent years trying to find a beginning.

And somehow...

She had finally found one.

But now she wouldn't be there to finish it.

A painful thought crossed her mind.

I never got to live the life I wanted.

Her eyes slowly closed.

She remembered school.

The whispers.

The loneliness.

Her parents.

The expectations.

The blank pages.

Then she remembered something warmer.

A tree.

A sunny afternoon.

A toy stethoscope.

A familiar smile.

Her childhood friend.

Suzu's eyes filled with tears.

"I wish..."

Her voice was barely audible.

"...you were still here."

For a moment, she could almost hear that old voice again.

Can you save me, Doctor?

Suzu smiled sadly.

"I tried."

Her memories began fading.

The world became quieter.

She thought about all the years she had spent wondering why her life felt so empty.

Then one final thought remained.

"I did my best to be human..."

Her voice trembled.

"What did I do to deserve this...?"

She looked toward the darkening sky.

There was so much she had never done.

So many places she had never seen.

So many words she had never written.

She thought about the story waiting inside her notebook.

The story that had finally begun.

Suzu closed her eyes.

"If I had another chance..."

She took a slow breath.

"I'd do things differently."

A tear slipped down her cheek.

"I'd live."

The world grew darker.

And with the last strength she had, Suzu whispered:

"I wish to be reborn again."

Then everything disappeared.

Somewhere Beyond

Darkness.

No sound.

No pain.

No sense of time.

Only silence.

Then...

A faint sound.

Like wind moving through leaves.

Suzu could not open her eyes.

She couldn't remember where she was.

She couldn't remember why she was there.

But somewhere in the distance...

A world waited.

A world of magic.

A world of ancient mysteries.

A world she had spent years imagining without ever understanding why it felt so familiar.

And somewhere within that world...

A story had finally begun.