Morning didn’t heal her. It only replaced the darkness with pale, tired light.

She sat on the edge of her narrow bed, staring at the faint reflection of her own face in the cracked mirror. The nightmares had loosened their grip, but they hadn’t gone. They just hid somewhere inside her, waiting.

The hostel slowly came alive around her — footsteps in the hallway, the clang of steel plates, whispers of sleepy girls reciting their morning prayers.

While other girls folded their hands…

She reached for fabric.

She opened the small tin box she kept hidden in her bag. Inside were her most precious things: a spool of faded blue thread, a bent silver needle, and tiny scraps of cloth folded carefully like fragile memories.

She carried them like secrets.

She treated them like prayers.

The old tailor lived three lanes away.

A tiny shop.

Faded blue paint.

A bell on the door that sounded like a tired sigh.

He looked up when she entered, glasses sliding down his nose.

“Come to steal my garbage again?” he teased.

She gave him the smallest nod.

He reached under the counter and placed a pile of discarded fabric on it — torn satin, frayed lace, rough cotton, silk with burn marks.

“Torn cloths for a torn girl,” he said with a soft chuckle.

She never laughed.

Not because it wasn’t funny.

But because laughter felt too loud inside her quiet heart.

She just picked up the cloth carefully, like she was holding something alive.

Back in her small corner of the hostel, she spread the fabric on the bed.

The world faded.

The noise disappeared.

There were no prayers.

No voices.

No expectations.

Just fabric.

And her hands.

The needle slid through cloth like a whisper.

In.
Out.
Pull.

In.
Out.
Pull.

Her breathing matched the rhythm of the stitches.

Slow.

Steady.

Safe.

Every torn edge was joined.

Every broken line was softened.

She didn’t have magic.

She didn’t have answers.

But she had thread.

And the thread made things whole again.

Sometimes she imagined a different world.

A bright one.

A world with music and light and long, shining runways.

She imagined her dresses floating in the air.

Models walking with heads held high.

People clapping.

Admiring.

Seeing her.

Seeing her worth.

She never said that dream out loud.

Dreams were fragile.

And she’d already lost too much to risk breaking another thing.

That night, she stitched until her fingers ached.

Until tiny red dots bloomed on her skin.

Until the pain felt familiar.

Comforting.

Real.

She didn’t cry.

She didn’t scream.

She didn’t pray.

She stitched.

Because stitches didn’t leave.

Fabric didn’t lie.

And in the quiet movement of needle and thread…

She felt less broken.

She felt like someone who could survive.

And she fell asleep that night with fabric in her hands…

not knowing that one day, those same hands would dress queens.