The night—with all her shadows—revealed to me a truth I still carry: not everything alive breathes, and not everything that dies truly leaves.
While other children feared the dark, I welcomed it as one welcomes an old friend who always returns, even when uninvited. I liked the way it spoke without words, how it spread through every corner with its soft cloak of shadow, how it kept secrets with a loyalty that even light could never understand. The darkness never frightened me—it embraced me. And in that silent embrace, the presences began to arrive.
At first, they were lights—tiny sparks suspended in the air, as if the stars had decided to rest and fall asleep in my room. Some drifted slowly across the ceiling; others hovered still, floating near my books or resting atop the doorframe. They had no definite form, yet none was needed. They were like luminous thoughts, fragments of sky that found comfort near me.
Then came the silhouettes.
But that is another story…
One that lives on the fragile border between sleep and waking— where the mysteries of the night still whisper in their secret tongue.
Nel Duarte ✨
Because sometimes, darkness is not the absence of light, but the sacred space where all answers are born.