Everything had been fine — just another ordinary day. Aria hadn’t expected anything unusual when the dull ache in her head began to throb, so she reached for a painkiller from the cabinet. It was routine, harmless — until the rush of warmth spread through her chest and the world began to tilt. The room seemed to expand around her; the familiar scale of her small life fell away. In the mirror, the reflection staring back wasn’t the child she had been forced to become. It was her — the woman she once was.

Somehow, the Silver Cure had reacted again. Not to destroy, but to restore.

Aria didn’t wait to understand it. She slipped on her coat and stepped into the evening air, her stride unsteady, her breath catching at the feel of her longer shadow. The streets felt different from this height — unfamiliar, almost foreign — and she moved through them in a daze, trying to remember how it felt to belong in her own body.

Then, turning a corner too sharply, she collided with someone.

The impact jolted through her, a sudden tangle of motion and startled breath. Of all the people she could have run into, it had to be someone from her past. Her pulse faltered as she lifted her gaze, rain beginning to fall in soft streaks around them. The air grew still for a moment, the city holding its breath as recognition settled in.

She hadn’t planned for this. She hadn’t planned for any of it.