LUNA: PRESENT (age 10, Equandia Valley)
Luna Solari was ten years old now. Two years had passed since the tsunami that changed everything. Two years since the eight victims. Two years since she founded the School of Signals.
And even so, every night she dreamed of Mrs. Méndez asking: "Why couldn't you save my husband?"
She woke up sweating.
The answer never changed: because she was a child. Because she did everything she could. Because saving everyone is impossible.
But no answer made the dream stop.
It was Monday. 6:47 a.m. The sun barely touched the mountains that surrounded Equandia Valley. Luna sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. AMI, her magical backpack full of scientific gadgets, hung from the back of the chair, switched off.
"Good morning, Guardian Luna," AMI said in its digital voice. It turned itself on. "I detected an increase in heart rate at 3:14 a.m. The recurring nightmare again?"
Luna nodded without speaking.
AMI had evolved a great deal in two years. Now it not only detected signals from the Earth, but also Luna's emotional signals. Sometimes it was useful. Sometimes it was annoying.
"Recommendation: talk to Grandma Rosa about trauma-processing techniques," AMI added.
"I don't need processing," Luna muttered, pulling on the emerald-green uniform of the School of Signals. "I need the dreams to stop."
"That IS trauma processing, Luna."
Luna didn't answer. She looked at herself in the mirror. Ten years old. Brown hair down to her shoulders. Green eyes that had seen too much. Four feet three inches tall. And a weight on her chest that wouldn't go away.
Two years, she thought. And I still feel like it just happened yesterday.
The School of Signals was a ten-minute walk from her house. Luna went down the stairs. Her mother, Isabel, was in the kitchen making coffee. Thirty-eight years old. Director of the Institute of Seismic History of Equandia. Always awake before dawn.
"Good morning, sweetheart," Isabel said without turning around. "Another nightmare?"
"How do you know?"
"Because I heard you scream at three in the morning."
Luna sat down at the table. Toast with avocado was already waiting for her. Her mother always knew.
"Did you dream about the tsunami again?" Isabel asked, sitting down across from her.
"Yes. But..." Luna hesitated. "There was something else."
"What?"
"There was another girl. A girl I don't know. She was my age... or younger. And she was screaming something. But I couldn't hear her."
Isabel stopped chewing. Her expression changed. It wasn't a mother's ordinary worry. It was something more. Something... knowing.
"What did she look like?" she asked slowly.
Luna closed her eyes, trying to remember. The dreams always faded so fast.
"Black hair. Braids. A dress... strange. Like from a long time ago. And she was standing in front of a volcano. But the volcano was exploding."
Isabel went pale.
"Mom, are you okay?"
"Luna..." Isabel took a deep breath. "Have you had this dream before?"
"No. Well, I think so. But only fragments. Like echoes."
"Echoes?"
"Like someone was screaming from very far away. And I couldn't reach her."
Isabel took her hand. Her fingers were cold.
"Sweetheart, I need you to tell me if you dream about that girl again. All right?"
"Why? Who is she?"
"I'm not sure," Isabel said, but Luna knew when her mother was lying. "Just... tell me."
The School of Signals occupied what had once been an abandoned factory in the center of Equandia Valley. Two years earlier, Luna had founded it with the help of her grandmother Rosa and other adult disaster survivors. Now it had two hundred students between the ages of eight and fifteen.
All learning to read signals. All learning to listen to the Earth.
Luna walked through the green gate. The sign read:
EQUANDIA SCHOOL OF SIGNALS
"Listen to the Earth. Save a life."
Founded by Luna Solari (age 8), Year 1 of the Second Renaissance
Year 1 after the Second Renaissance. That was what they now called the moment when Luna defeated Umbra for the first time and proved that children could save lives if adults listened to them.
Two years. It felt like an eternity.
Gael was waiting for her in the courtyard. Ten years old. Short black hair. Brown skin. Leader of the Youth Fire Prevention Brigade in his community in the Ember Plains. Fifty children trained.
"You're late," Gael said, half-smiling. "It's 7:03. Class starts at 7:00."
"Three minutes isn't late."
"For you, it is. You always get here at 6:55."
Luna didn't have the energy to argue. Gael noticed.
"Another nightmare?"
"Why does everyone assume that?"
"Because you've been having nightmares every three nights for two years. It's not hard to assume."
Gael was her best friend. She had known him since Book 1, when together they faced a tornado in the Ember Plains. He was serious. Direct. Sometimes too honest.
"Did you dream about the tsunami again?" he asked.
"Yes. But there was also a girl. A girl from the past."
Gael frowned.
"From the past?"
"I don't know how to explain it. It was like... a memory that isn't mine."
"AMI says post-traumatic stress can create false memories," Gael said. "Maybe that's it."
"Maybe," Luna said, but she didn't believe it.
Tomás came running with his camera in hand. Twelve years old. Messy brown hair. A permanent smile. Obsessive documentary maker. His YouTube channel, "Real Signals", had a hundred thousand subscribers.
"Luna!" he shouted. "You have to see this!"
"What?"
"I found something strange in the Central Library archives. Something about the Broken Silence."
Luna and Gael exchanged glances.
The Broken Silence was the darkest event in the history of Equandia. Three hundred years ago, thirteen natural disasters happened simultaneously across the thirteen biomes of the continent. A million people vanished in three years. It almost wiped out civilization.
Nobody talked much about the Broken Silence. It was too painful.
"What did you find?" Luna asked.
Tomás took out his tablet and showed a photo of an old document. The handwriting was childlike. The pages were yellowed.
"It's a diary," Tomás said. "By an eight-year-old girl. It says she tried to warn people about the Broken Silence for four years. Nobody listened to her."
Luna felt a shiver run down her spine.
"What was her name?"
Tomás zoomed in on the image. On the first page, written in faded ink, it said:
"This diary belongs to Ana Méndez. Age 8. Village of North Ash. If you find this, please, tell the world that I tried to warn them."
Luna stopped breathing.
The girl from her dream. Black hair. Braids. Standing in front of a volcano.
Ana.
"Luna?" Gael said. "Are you okay?"
Luna didn't answer. She just stared at the photo of the diary.
"If you find this, please, tell the world that I tried to warn them."
✅ REAL SCIENCE
- ✅ Marine Animal Behavior: TRUE
- There are anecdotal reports of marine animals reacting before people do: fish, dolphins, and crustaceans fleeing toward deep water. Science is still studying it.
- ✅ Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): TRUE
- PTSD causes recurring dreams, hypervigilance, and increased nighttime heart rate. Disaster survivors experience it years after the event.
- Reference: WHO - ICD-11 diagnostic manual (2019). "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Disaster Survivors"
- ✅ Intergenerational Memory of Trauma: TRUE
- Collective trauma is transmitted psychologically across generations, even without direct experience of the event. Research shows different genetic activity in the descendants of survivors.
- Reference: Rachel Yehuda's studies on the intergenerational transmission of trauma