When We Were Fireflies

Freya Pajardo once believed in magic. In fireflies. In her brother's pledge that they would never lose each other, even in the dark. Back then, everything was glowing. The summer nights were warm and filled with laughing. During the Firefly Festival, their small village of Santa Maria would come to life, with food stalls on every corner, kids racing through the bamboo groves with sparklers, and music spilling from every home like joy too enormous to contain. And in the midst of it all—Fred. Freya's older brother had a way of making mundane things seem magical. He converted flashlights into constellations. Transform empty notebooks into storybooks. Fireflies transformed into hopeful messengers. But it was five years ago. The night the Firefly Festival lit up Santa Maria for the very last time. The night Fred vanished. He was standing next to her, looking at the stars and joking that the constellations were just fireflies that had flown too high. The next— Gone. No screams. No idea. No goodbyes. Just stillness, shadows, and unanswered questions. Since then, the town had gone quiet. The festival was buried like a bad memory. Everyone stopped saying Fred's name. And Freya? She learnt how to hide in plain sight. She no longer laughed as much as she once did. She quit drawing. I gave up asking why. She mastered the skill of faking—pretending to be fine, pretending to have gone on, and pretending her brother's visage did not still live behind her eyelids every night. Freya, now sixteen, floats about her days like a ghost. A bit quieter than everyone else. A bit chilly. Not very sad—just... stuck. She walks the school hallways as if they don't belong to her. She avoids the town plaza, bamboo forest, and seashore at night. She avoids recollections. And then—one ordinary Monday—everything changes. A sketch appears in her locker. Neatly folded. No name. No message. Just a drawing. It’s the bamboo grove. Their bamboo grove. A place only she and Fred ever knew. Her hands shake as she stares at the page. The lines are soft, but precise. Familiar, almost. It feels like someone has reached into her memory and stolen something sacred. Then another drawing appears the next day. And another. As the Firefly Festival returns to Santa Maria for the first time in five years, Freya finds herself pulled into a quiet mystery made of pencil lines and secrets—guided by someone who might know more than they say. And at the center of it all is Luis Imperial—a quiet, artistic new student whose gaze lingers too long, whose sketchbook seems to mirror her past, and whose presence feels strangely... familiar. The past is calling. And maybe, just maybe... It never really let go.