Guardians of the Heart

They say madness runs in the blood. If that’s true, then I’m already drowning in it. I dream of cats who speak in riddles, of stars that bleed light, of hearts that throb beneath soil and stone like they’re trying to escape. Most nights, I wake up with the echo of a heartbeat in my ears—never mine, always someone else’s. Louder. Closer. My aunt says it’s just the wind. The others in the village say it’s something worse. We don’t talk about dreams here. We till the earth, we bake our bread, and we keep our heads down. Dreamers don’t last long in places like this. And girls like me—girls who see more than they should, who hear what no one else can—they don’t get happy endings. They get whispers. Looks. Doors shut a little too hard. So I’ve learned to pretend. I smile when I’m supposed to, nod when I’m spoken to. I hide my journal beneath the loose floorboard, the one that creaks only if you step just wrong. No one knows what I write there. No one knows that sometimes, in the quiet, I can feel the weight of a thousand hearts pressing against mine. Longing. Ache. Something else I can’t name. Until last night, I thought I was still pretending. Then the cat came. She didn’t knock, didn’t ask. Just sat on the windowsill like she owned the moonlight and said— "You’re late, Inimar. The hearts are dying."