The snow fell like ash from a forgotten sky.
It clung to her beautiful long hair, to her lush lashes and, to her silence. Elirys walked through a world half-asleep, where the roads had forgotten their names and even the wind dared not speak. Her boots left quiet imprints behind her, the only proof she had passed this way at all.
The world around her looked like a dream paused mid-sentence—no voices, no footsteps, only the soft sighs of the sky. Cafe's were closed, lights dimmed behind frosted glass, and the windows held her reflection like flickering in the glass like a memory someone forgot to keep.. Everything looked touched by something old and sad, like a memory she wasn't supposed to remember.
What am I looking for?
The question pressed into her again, as it always did. She had asked it so many times it had lost its shape. Was it love? A connection? A sign that someone - anyone - could look at her and see her as something worth holding onto? Or maybe it was something simpler. Something nameless.
She stopped in front of an empty bus stop, half-buried in snow. The bench was cold, and so was she, but she sat anyway. Her fingers trembled in her coat pockets. The night was too quiet.
And that's when she saw him.
A figure, not far. Standing under a broken streetlight just across the road tall, still, wrapped in black from head to toe. His face was turned toward the sky, but his gaze felt like it had found her.
Elirys didn't move.
Neither did he.
They stared across the space between them as the snow floated down, thick and slow. A moment stretched into minutes. The silence between them didn't feel awkward, it felt sacred, like the hush in a cathedral, or a lullaby the night was too shy to sing. His eyes… they looked like he'd been searching too.
Then he moved. Stepped forward. Crossed the road with slow, soundless strides. He sat beside her on the frozen bench without a word. His presence was not sudden, not invasive, more like he had always been meant to arrive just then, just there.
For a while, they said nothing.
Finally, Elirys spoke, her voice a thread in the snow.
"Do you ever wonder if love even exists?"
He breathed in. Fog curled from his lips.
"Sometimes," he murmured, his tone quiet, thoughtful. "Sometimes I think love is just something people chase… so they don't have to sit with their loneliness."
She turned to look at him. "And other times?"
His eyes met hers - gray, soft, unreadable. He looked at her as though she were part of the snowfall.
"Other times," he said, "I think love is what brings two strangers to the same empty bench in the middle of a silent night."
And then, slowly, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small folded piece of paper. He placed it in her gloved hand, gently, like he was handing her a secret.
Then he stood, turned, and walked away. No name. No goodbye. His figure disappeared down the snow-powdered street, swallowed by shadows and streetlamps.
Elirys sat in stunned stillness.
She unfolded the note with care. Inside was a tiny, delicate white flower pressed flat between the folds, preserved like something sacred. And next to it, written in soft, faded ink:
"You are not as invisible as you think."
Just beneath the words, there was a simple drawing.A butterfly.
Tiny. Hand-drawn. Wings open, as if mid-flight.
Elirys stared at it, heart fluttering.
She wasn't sure if she'd just met a ghost, a stranger, or a sign from the universe but in that moment, beneath the falling snow and the echo of silent streets, she felt something stir within her.
Something warm. Something fragile.Like maybe, just maybe, the world still had a secret left for her.