Under the Surface

This is the first story I've ever written, and I'm very grateful for your comments. If anyone has an idea for a chapter, I would love for you to share it. I would also really appreciate it if you'd like to contribute any images.

I first uploaded the Spanish version, and now I'm sharing the English one, which was translated with AI. Please excuse any errors.

Magi lived in silence with the familiarity of one who prefers the company of books to that of people. Her dark skin, speckled with faint freckles, and her rebellious black hair, always haphazardly held up with bobby pins that would fall out, spoke of a practical person, not an ideal. She wore loose, comfortable clothes—worn-out sweatshirts and faded jeans—and carried a canvas backpack so heavy with books it weighed her down like a stone.

​Her large green eyes, framed by slight dark circles, observed the world with meticulous curiosity, but she would lower her gaze as soon as someone confronted her, concealing her thoughts. Her humanity was revealed in the small details: in the way she'd blow a stray strand of hair from her face, or how she'd massage her knuckles, chapped from the cold.

​And now, an uncomfortable certainty settled in her stomach. It wasn't fear, but the sharp unease of knowing that something—a change whose shape she didn't know—was approaching irrevocably. She took a deep breath, pressing the book she held against her chest, knowing that the fragile balance of her silent world was about to shatter.