She woke up with thread marks still faintly pressed into her fingertips.

The fabric from last night lay beside her pillow — unfinished, folded, waiting. It always waited. It never rushed her. It never judged her when she stopped halfway.

Her room was silent.

White walls, cracked and tired.
Grey curtains, thin and lifeless.
A fading wooden table, scratched by years that didn’t belong to her.

Nothing in that space felt alive.

Except for one thing.

Her sketchbook.

It lay on the corner of the table, its edges bent, its cover softened by time and touch. She sat in front of it slowly, as if approaching something sacred, and ran her fingers over the paper before opening it.

The first page exploded with colour.

Bold reds.
Deep blues.
Gold that didn’t exist in real life but lived perfectly on paper.

Her pencil rested in her fingers as it had always belonged there.

And then it began to move.

It didn’t ask permission.
It didn’t hesitate.
It didn’t doubt.

Sharp lines turned into gowns.

Soft curves became sleeves.

Flowing strokes shaped long, floating silhouettes.

Her hand moved faster than her thoughts, sketching things she didn’t even know she imagined — dresses that looked royal, fabrics that seemed to catch light, designs that felt like power wrapped in beauty.

Outside, girls laughed.

Someone argued.

Someone cried.

Someone prayed.

Inside, there was only her… and the scratch of graphite against paper.

She felt safe here.

No nightmares.

No rain.

No crashing roads.

Just white paper and endless possibilities.

Sometimes, she paused.

Stared at the sketch.

Tilted her head slightly.

“Who am I making this for?” she whispered.

The answer never came.

So she made them anyway.

For the girl she could become.
For the life she didn’t have.
For the world she wanted to build.

The table shook slightly when someone slammed a door down the corridor.

The pencil slipped for a second.

A line went wrong.

She stared at it.

For a heartbeat, panic rose.

Old fear.

Old weakness.

Then she breathed in.

Turned the mistake into a new design.

A deeper fold.

A sharper edge.

A stronger shape.

Because broken lines didn’t scare her.

She’d been made of broken lines for too long.

By evening, the room felt warmer.

Not because of light.

But because of life.

Her sketchbook lay open, filled with new dreams.

The walls were still white.

The curtains are still grey.

The table is still old.

But her world wasn’t empty anymore.

It was alive in colour.

And her pencil rested beside her hand…

like it finally understood her.