I was small. Just a child again, nestled within the warm hum of family — safe, familiar. I remember looking out of the window, and then suddenly, we weren’t grounded anymore. We were high. And I mean high high — like, clouds-are-your-neighbors high. But strangely, it wasn’t scary. It felt normal. Natural. Like the sky had always been mine.
Outside the window, I watched the clouds roll past like ancient whales swimming in slow motion. I whispered to no one in particular, “When I was a kid, I used to think the clouds were dense enough to walk on — like you could touch them. That maybe they were hiding something. Like in Jack and the Beanstalk, you know?”
And just like that, I wasn’t in the room anymore.
Something cracked open inside me. I wasn’t just imagining—I was there. Out of body, fully in spirit. Astral travel mode: activated.
I was flying. Effortlessly. Floating through clouds that cradled me like old friends. And as I soared, the sky gave way to a strange, dreamlike world below — a patchwork of frozen realms, like someone had pressed pause on existence.
Cathedrals pierced the sky, intricate like Indian temples, domes glistening with frost. People stood still in time — mid-step, mid-conversation — castles glazed in ice, their towers catching the light like prisms. It was beautiful… and haunting. Time had stopped here.
Far in the distance, I spotted two castles. Fairytale-level gorgeous, both frozen solid. Between them, a staircase floated upward into nothingness — like it had been built for gods who didn’t need doors.
The clouds above swirled into a perfect circle — a portal. A soft hum, vibrating with energy, pulled at me. I hovered. I stared. My whole being itched with curiosity. But then I thought: Not now. There’s something else I have to do. And I flew on.
I found myself in a garden, still within the clouds, still frozen in time. Ice shimmered across petals and leaves, catching the light like a dream wrapped in diamonds. But it wasn’t cold. That’s the thing. I kept wondering why it wasn’t cold.
At the center of the garden was a stone coffin — ancient, carved with care — and on top of it, a statue of a sleeping dragon, wings curled in protectively.
I knew someone was inside. Not dead, just… not awake. I tried to lift the lid to kiss him awake (don’t ask me how I knew that was the move — dream logic, okay?), but the lid wouldn’t budge far enough. The dragon moved. Not a statue anymore. It slammed the coffin shut like “nope.”
Well.
I said, “Fuck that,” called on every ounce of power I had, and shoved that lid off and the dragon with it. Boom. Coffin cracked open. Inside lay a man, glowing with golden light — not made of gold, but light so intense it seemed golden. He wore a white suit, had white hair, and he radiated something between peace and power.
I kissed him. (Listen, it was a necessary kiss, okay?) And he woke.
“I need your help,” I told him, “and we don’t have time for the Q&A portion of this reunion.”
In his coffin lay a long golden scepter, broken into three pieces. At its top was a hand — reaching, frozen mid-motion. I picked up the top piece.
“I can fix this,” I told him.
“You can?”
“Yes,” I said. Like I believed it. But no matter how I tried — with spells, heat from my palms, calling in every trick I knew — it wouldn’t meld. It stayed broken.
So I handed him the one piece I could offer. “This will have to do.”
We turned toward the castle in the garden.
She appeared in the air like a glitch in reality — hair floating like seaweed in a storm, dress twisting in non-existent wind. The Time Witch. I knew her name before she said a word. Her energy reeked of stolen seconds and devoured tomorrows.
She tried to scare us away. I looked at her and said, “Yeah, no. Go haunt someone else.”
The angel beside me asked, “Who is she?”
“She’s the one who’s been stealing time. She plucks places from the timeline, freezes them, locks them here in her sky collection — so she can feed off their suspended life. That’s how she stays immortal.”
We had one goal: destroy her, so time could flow again.
She ran when she realized we weren’t bluffing. Her minions — half-real, half-nightmare — came at us in droves. We fought through corridors and spiral staircases, casting spells like wildfire.
The angel turned to me mid-battle. “Why are your spells… so aggressive?”
“You mean effective?” I shot back.
“You’re hurting them.”
“Yeah, because I can. I’m not like you,” I said, slicing through shadow with light and heat. “I was meant to be like you. But I became human. And I remember pain.”
He didn’t ask again.
We fought our way to her. And when we finally found her — I didn’t hesitate.
I don’t remember the exact spell I cast. Maybe it wasn’t a spell at all. Maybe it was just my will — raw and furious and holy.
She disappeared. Just… gone. Like fog burning off in the morning sun.
And as she vanished, the frozen realms began to thaw. Slowly, softly, the shimmer faded. People moved again. Worlds returned to themselves. The staircase between the castles crumbled into mist. Everything that had been stolen… went home.
And no one will ever know it happened. Except us.
Because sometimes, being a spiritual warrior doesn’t mean being remembered. It means restoring what was lost, even if no one knows it was ever taken.
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