The Space Between Your Shoulders
Close your eyes for a moment. Press your fingertips gently between your shoulder blades. That flutter you feel? That's not your imagination. They say people walk, but the truth is we're all born with wings. Invisible ones, made of light and memory and the part of you that dreams of flying. Most people forget them before their fifth birthday, the way children forget the language they spoke before words.
But some remember. And when they do, the story kingdom sends its messengers. This is happening now. To children everywhere. Maybe even to you.
Before the Wings Remembered
Ha Ria had always felt like she was walking through thick glass.
Every morning was the same struggle: shoes that never felt right, clothes that seemed to weigh her down, and that awful feeling of being lost even when she knew exactly where she was going. Other children moved through the world like they belonged there. Ha Ria moved like she was swimming upstream through invisible honey.
"Come on, love," Mama called, already three steps ahead on the harbor path. "The ice cream will melt."
Ha Ria hurried to catch up, her vanilla cone dripping despite her careful attempts to keep it steady. Nothing ever stayed where she put it. Toys disappeared, socks went missing, even her drawings seemed to fade faster than other children's. It was like the world kept slipping away from her no matter how tightly she tried to hold on.
She was thinking about this, about the strange weight that pressed between her shoulder blades, about how tired she always felt - when the screech cut through the afternoon like glass breaking.
The Moment Everything Changed
Ha Ria felt something tear awake inside her chest the instant the dove hit the ground.
Two massive seagulls spiraled from nowhere, their shadows too dark for an ordinary Tuesday, crashing into the small dove that had been pecking peacefully near the wall.
White feathers exploded into salt air like prayers being shredded.
"No!" The word ripped from her throat, and her cone tumbled forgotten. Behind her ribs, something that had slept for seven years suddenly stretched, hard and urgent, as if invisible wings were trying to break free from her spine.
Mama was already running. "Get away!!!"
The gulls lifted with harsh laughter, cruel and knowing. They'd done this on purpose. Ha Ria somehow knew it with bone-deep certainty.
Below them, the dove lay crumpled, one wing twisted wrong, blood dark against silver feathers. But his round eye was open, watching her with impossible intelligence.
Waiting.
Choosing.
Ha Ria dropped beside him, her shadow falling across his broken body like a claim. The world went still, no harbor sounds, no wind, just his tiny heartbeat against her palms and the overwhelming sense that this moment had been arranged by forces older than the stones beneath her knees.
"We have to save him." Her voice carried authority that surprised her. Not a child's plea, but something deeper.
The dove's eye fixed on hers, and she heard the whisper that would change everything: I've been waiting for you, little wing-keeper.
Her breath stopped. "Did you just… ?"
Yes. And this is only the beginning.
The First Secret
The taxi smelled like coffee and old leather, but underneath, Ha Ria caught something else, pine needles and morning mist, as if the forest had followed them into the city.
She held the makeshift cardboard nest, watching the dove's chest rise and fall. Mama gave directions to the wildlife center, but her voice seemed distant. All Ha Ria's attention had narrowed to the creature in her hands and the impossible conversation happening between heartbeats.
The dove looked up with eyes that held star-depths.
Ready for the truth?
She glanced at Mama, then back. You're really talking to me.
In the first language. The one you knew before you learned words. Warmth flickered in that inner voice. My broken wing is a gift, Ha Ria. It's time you remembered who you are.
The space between her shoulder blades began to tingle. What do you mean?
You have wings too. All children do. They're just invisible to eyes that have forgotten how to see.
But I don't… Even thinking it felt foolish. Her back was alive with sensation, as if gossamer wings were stirring beneath her skin.
Tell me, the dove continued, have you ever dreamed of flying? Not in airplanes, but with your own body, soaring like you were born to the sky?
Ha Ria's heart skipped. She had. Dreams so vivid she'd wake with wind-taste on her tongue.
Those weren't dreams. Those were memories. Your wings calling from where they wait.
Where?
Between your shoulders, where people feel an ache they can't name. Close your eyes, little one.
She did, and gasped. There, just beneath her skin, she sensed something. A presence. Butterfly wings made of light, furled tight and waiting.
Now listen carefully. His voice took on ceremonial weight. This knowledge is older than cities, older than the forgetting that makes people believe they're earthbound.
Ha Ria leaned closer.
With breath, the dove whispered. But first, you need to know something important. Sometimes you might feel heavy right here, and somehow Ha Ria knew he meant the space between her shoulder blades, like someone put a backpack full of rocks on you. That's not your wings - that's something trying to keep them asleep.
Ha Ria pressed her hand to her back. "I know that feeling! Like when I'm really sad and everything feels hard."
Exactly. But watch what happens when you help something small and hurt, like you did with me. Feel different now?
She did. Instead of heaviness, there was a warm spreading sensation, like gentle hands opening a door she hadn't known was there.
That's the real feeling. Now, want to learn the secret?
Ha Ria nodded eagerly.
Close your eyes. Pretend your feet can drink green light, the kind that lives in grass and trees and growing things. Feel it coming up through your legs like warm honey.
To her amazement, Ha Ria could actually feel it, a gentle warmth rising through her body.
Now imagine the softest pink light: morning light, sleepy and sweet, coming down through the very top of your head. Let it meet the green light in your heart.
Where the two streams touched, something wonderful happened. Like a tiny star being born inside her chest.
Do you feel your little star?
"Yes!" Ha Ria breathed. "It's so warm!"
Now send it backwards, to that special place behind your heart. Not where your bones are, but deeper, to the place where 'you' begins.
The sensation was unlike anything she'd ever felt. It was as if she discovered she was bigger than her body, as if invisible doors were opening in layers she'd never known existed.
Wings aren't for flying away from things, little wing-keeper. They're for making things come to you the right way. When your wings are sleeping, you have to walk where others tell you. But when they're awake...
"Things find me," Ha Ria whispered, understanding perfectly.
Yes. And you're not the only one. All over the world, right now, this very minute… other children are learning this same secret. Can you feel them?
Suddenly, she could. Like fireflies blinking in the darkness, she sensed other small warm lights pulsing in time with hers.
We've been waiting for you to remember, Ha Ria. All of you. Will you answer when we call?
The Transformation
As Ha Ria practiced the dove's breathing technique in the taxi, something extraordinary began to happen. The thick glass feeling that had surrounded her entire life started to dissolve.
Green light from my feet, she thought, following his instructions. Pink light from above.
Where the two lights met in her heart, creating that warm little star, everything changed. The heaviness between her shoulder blades transformed into gentle expansion. Her clothes stopped feeling wrong. Even her grip on the cardboard nest became sure and steady.
For the first time in her seven years, Ha Ria felt like she belonged exactly where she was.
This is what it feels like, she realized with wonder, when the world stops slipping away.
The dove watched her with knowing eyes. Now you understand the difference, little wing-keeper. Walking with sleeping wings feels like swimming upstream through honey. Walking with awakened wings...
"Feels like dancing," Ha Ria whispered.
Through the taxi window, she noticed something impossible: the traffic lights seemed to turn green just as they approached. A parking space opened right in front of the Wildlife Center. Even Mama, usually stressed during city drives, began humming softly.
This is what happens, the dove's voice carried gentle laughter, when you stop fighting the current and let it carry you where you need to go.
Will I see you again?
Every time you look in the mirror and remember what you are. Every time you help something broken learn to fly.
His eyes began to close. The kingdom is calling, Ha Ria. Will you answer?
The Fox's Message
Golden afternoon light greeted them outside the Wildlife Center, charged with new possibility. The dove would heal, the vet had said with careful optimism. He might fly again.
Ha Ria touched her shoulder blades and smiled. He will. I know it.
They waited by the gravel path when the world held its breath.
She appeared between heartbeats, a fox stepping from shadow between ancient pines, woven from dappled light and autumn. Her copper coat caught fire in the dying sun, white-tipped tail curled like a question.
But her eyes made Ha Ria's wings flutter behind her ribs.
Golden fire. Ancient as forests. Knowing as starlight.
The fox looked directly at her, not through, but into her, reading something written in older languages. Ha Ria understood with bypassing-thought certainty: no coincidence. Confirmation.
"Oh," she whispered, reaching instinctively.
"No, Ha Ria." Mama caught her wrist. "We don’t touch wild animals."
But this fox wasn't wild, not the way Mama meant. Something that had waited at this exact spot for Ha Ria to emerge with new understanding. The fox tilted her head, and Ha Ria's mind blazed with visions:
Herself with wings spread wide as houses, translucent but steel-strong, woven from light and sea-foam. Rising above harbor, town, clouds themselves. Looking down at a world where other children stretched impossible wings. A vast network connecting winged children across continents, their awakening creating change-currents that rippled through sleeping reality like visible music. The vision seared itself behind her eyes with truth's permanence.
The fox held her gaze one eternal second, then nodded… deliberately human, impossibly graceful. She melted back into forest shadows, leaving only pine-scent and wild honey on evening air.
"Did you see… ?"
"See what, honey?"
But Ha Ria was already walking toward the road, hand pressed to her chest where something warm and wild unfurled like a flower opening to impossible sunlight.
The Final Sign
Evening streets seemed layered with new possibility as they drove home. Ha Ria pressed her face to glass, watching ordinary houses with new eyes. Behind some windows, other children might be having awakening moments. The thought made her wings tremble with bright excitement.
She climbed out clutching the empty container, heart full of starlight secrets. Evening air carried salt and growing-scents and something else, the space between sleeping and waking where dreams bleed into reality.
There, beneath the streetlight on dark pavement, she saw him.
A butterfly, small as whispered prayer, one wing crumpled against velvet-dark body. So tiny she might have stepped unknowing, but he pulsed in her vision like the world's most important thing.
"I see you." She knelt without hesitation, cupping hands around his fragile form. Her awakened wings sang recognition. "I see exactly who you are."
"Ha Ria, come inside!" Mama called from the doorway.
"One minute!" New confidence colored her voice, he authority of understood purpose. She lifted the butterfly with infinite gentleness, his remaining wing catching streetlight like stained glass fragment. "You're safe now."
She carried him to their small garden, settling him among soft grass where he'd be protected from unseeing cruelty. As she straightened, electricity cascaded down her spine, wings stretching for the first time, light gathering for flight.
The butterfly pulsed once in the grass, and she heard the story kingdom whisper through her bones: When you save one wing, you remember your own. When you save two, you begin to wake them. When you save three...
The promise hung in air like music.
Ha Ria pressed both hands to her heart, feeling the little star pulse steady and strong. Behind her shoulders, something gossamer-thin and starlight-shot trembled with anticipation.
"Thank you," she whispered to butterfly, fox, dove… to the whole magnificent conspiracy that had arranged this perfect awakening day.
She turned toward home, pausing to look up at stars that seemed brighter now, closer, as if they too prepared for what was coming.
I'm ready, she breathed to the night.
And somewhere in darkness, something answered with the sound of wings preparing for impossible first flight.
What Dreams May Come
That night, Ha Ria dreamed in colors without names.
She stood at a great cliff's edge, wind calling her name in voices she almost recognized. Below spread a world where children… hundreds, thousands… all began remembering what they'd always known. She saw the ones who would try to stop them. The ones who would help. And something else that made her sleeping wings flutter. A choice approached. A choice that would determine whether this awakening spread like wildfire across sleeping hearts...
Or was quietly, carefully snuffed out forever. But for now, she slept. And grew. And prepared. Because the real adventure was just beginning. And somewhere across town, then across countries, other children were closing their eyes before sleep, pressing fingertips between their shoulder blades, and whispering into darkness:
"Do I have wings too?"
The answer, carried on night wind through bedroom windows, was always the same:
Try the breathing. See what happens. Trust what you feel.
But there was something else in that whisper, something urgent that made sleeping children stir restlessly in their beds:
Remember quickly, little ones. The thick glass is returning. Some have forgotten how to see you flying. They want you to forget too. Practice the breathing every day, or the heaviness will come back. The world will slip away again. And next time, the dove might not be there to remind you.
In her dreams, Ha Ria felt a chill pass through her wings. She saw children everywhere, their lights beginning to dim again as invisible weights pressed down on their shoulder blades. She saw herself, older, walking through that terrible thick honey again, reaching for things that dissolved at her touch.
"No," she whispered in her sleep, and her little star pulsed brighter. "I won't forget. I won't let any of us forget."
The kingdom is calling.
Will you answer before it's too late?
Some say that if you practice the dove's breathing technique just before sleep… forest light up, dawn light down, little star to the space behind your heart… you might feel something stirring there in the quiet dark. Something that's been waiting.
But of course, that's just a story.
Isn't it?