Between the Past and the PresentBy IsraaThere are stories that begin with a choice, others with a mistake, and a few with a whisper that should never have been heard.Serena Vale's story began with all three.In the forgotten kingdom of Ebonmere, where ancient castles watched over villages swallowed by fog and church bells rang for the dead long after midnight, people learned to live with their fears. They locked their doors before sunset, avoided the forest beneath the blood-red moon, and never spoke the names written in the oldest books. Some believed these customs were nothing more than the remnants of an ignorant age. Others knew better.For centuries, the kingdom had survived beneath a fragile peace, protected by forgotten bargains and promises sealed in blood. Yet peace was never the same as safety, and silence was never proof that the darkness had disappeared.Serena had never believed in devils.She believed in old books, in the smell of rain against stone, and in the quiet comfort of stories that could be understood from beginning to end. She believed that every mystery had an explanation, every tragedy a cause, and every nightmare an end. Her world was small, familiar, and imperfect, but it was hers.Until the night she opened a book that should have remained buried.The pages were filled with symbols older than the kingdom itself. Beneath the faded ink lay a name that seemed to stir something inside her, something distant and strangely familiar. She spoke the words without understanding them, unaware that some names were not meant to be read aloud.The candles died.The air turned bitterly cold.And something on the other side answered.Lucien Blackthorne had not been summoned by a frightened girl in centuries. King of a realm where shadows possessed memories and the dead were rarely permitted to rest, he had long since abandoned the weaknesses that once made him human. Mercy was a language he no longer spoke. Love was a wound he had taught himself to forget. And the past was a grave he had sworn never to reopen.Yet Serena's voice reached him across a boundary that should have been impossible to cross.He came expecting a mistake to correct, a soul to claim, and a brief interruption to an eternity of power. Instead, he found a girl whose existence threatened to awaken a secret buried beneath generations of lies.Their encounter was no accident. Their connection was no blessing. And the contract that bound them together would demand far more than either of them understood.As Serena is drawn into a world of cursed bloodlines, haunted halls, forbidden magic, and creatures that wear familiar faces, she begins to discover that the past is not as distant as she has always believed. Some memories survive death. Some promises outlive the people who made them. And some loves return carrying the very darkness that once destroyed them.Lucien may be the monster in her nightmares, but monsters are not always the only things worth fearing. Sometimes, the most dangerous truth is the one that makes you wish the monster would stay.Between the past and the present lies a fragile boundary, and Serena has already crossed it.What waits beyond that boundary may change the kingdom forever.Or destroy everything she has ever known.

Do not believe everything you see, and do not mistakenly think that you see everything. There are those who see things that you do not see, and there are things that you will not see until you close your eyes. You often go through strange moments and events and do not find a logical and clear explanation for them, and you do not know whether they were inspired by imagination or an exit to another world. There is a thin barrier between your world in which you live and another hidden world full of mystery, excitement, and sometimes surprise and shock.?! Written and written by: - ​​Esraa

"" حياة كلٍ منّا ،، لوحة لا تكتمل ،، الا لحظة رحيلنا !! فلتختاروا أجمل لألوان لرسمها.. وتجميلها .. عندما تقتحم حياتك ظروف صعبه وتتركك امامها ذابلا ضعيفا .. عندما تختفي منها ملامح الفرح فتتفاجأ بحياتك يملؤها الحزن .. عندما تقسو عليك الحياة وتجرعك الهموم و الآلام .. عندها ..اشعلها لتجد سمائك انت .. قد تحولت الى العاب نارية.... تغزو بالوانها السماء وتنيرها بهجة .."