by Mahtab EB
This is a guest post from Inanna’s partner, the EmpowerHer Initiative. Through EmpowerHer, Inanna is platforming the voices of women and girls in Afghanistan. Learn more about EmpowerHer here.
Moonbay is a small coastal town resting on the edge of the Silver Sea, where gray cliffs meet quiet waters and narrow stone streets seem untouched by time. Just beyond the town lie tiny villages like Lirawen and Salthaven. Even on the brightest days, Moonbay carries a gentle sadness, and at sunset the silver waves turn to gold, as if the sea is holding onto memories that no one truly remembers.
The people are happier than they ought to be, living each day as though there were no tomorrow. As beautiful as Moonbay is, it holds many untold stories.
At Moonbay, no one really feared turning forty-five because fear had never changed either fate or time. Children grew up knowing the number long before they learned to read. There were no hospitals filled with elderly people, no grandparents with silver hair, and no birthdays celebrated after the age of forty-four.
On the morning of their forty-fifth birthday, people simply woke up, smiled at their loved ones, finished one last ordinary day, and when the sun slipped beneath the Silver Sea, they quietly closed their eyes for the final time.
No one questioned it because it had always been this way. They did not count the years they had left, because at forty-five death always arrived as gently as the evening breeze. There was no illness, no pain, and no warning. It came as naturally as autumn follows summer.
The next morning, life continued. Children walked to school, men and women went to work, fishermen returned to the harbor, and the town carried on as if nothing extraordinary had happened.
The people of Moonbay measured life differently. They spent spring enjoying picnics with their families, summer surfing and swimming along the beaches, autumn walking through forests filled with colorful leaves while sipping coffee with loved ones, and winter building giant snowmen outside their homes while their families celebrated Christmas indoors with laughter, conversation, delicious food, dancing, and soft jazz music.
Lara was a forty-four-year-old florist who owned the only flower shop in Moonbay. Every morning she arranged bright pink lilies, golden sunflowers, and crimson roses outside her little wooden store. Their sweet fragrance drifted through the streets, greeting everyone who passed by.
Her mother had died giving birth to her, and Lara had no family or close friends left to spend the long summer days with.
Unlike everyone else in Moonbay, Lara did not count the days until her forty-fifth birthday. She wanted another spring, another summer by the Silver Sea, another chance to watch her flowers bloom. She wanted to live longer.
However, every road eventually meets its destiny.
One day, Lara received a letter from a woman named Juliette. Her eyes sparkled as she unfolded the paper, as though the ink itself had been waiting for her. The words felt like a soft goodbye wrapped in warmth. Juliette wrote about how much Lara meant to her, even from a distance, and reminded her how deeply she loved her.
Juliette had been Lara’s best friend since elementary school. They had been inseparable until the previous year, when Juliette moved to the village of Lirawen—a place whose very name sounded as though it belonged to a story with no ending.
Soft tears rolled down Lara’s cheeks.
Terrified of death, Lara decided to escape it by leaving Moonbay. She believed that by leaving the town she could change her destiny.
On the morning of her forty-fifth birthday, she woke with an overwhelming emptiness inside her. For the first time, she wondered whether she truly could escape death.
She gathered her strength and went to her flower shop one last time. She looked over the flower orders from her customers before throwing every bouquet into the corner of the street except for one carefully arranged bouquet of fresh sunflowers.
Sunflowers were Juliette’s favorite flowers, and Lara wanted to give them to her as soon as they met again.
She took one last look around her cozy wooden shop. It felt emptier than ever before. Perhaps the shop, the flowers, and even the chairs somehow knew they would never see their owner again.
After locking the shop, Lara packed her belongings into a small backpack and stood in front of the door of her house.
Memories flooded back.
The house reminded her of her mother’s death, the struggle of building both her home and flower shop on her own, and the lonely days of childhood when she watched neighboring children laugh with their families while she cried over her own loneliness.
She wondered whether leaving home was the right decision. Could she really escape the fate that no one in Moonbay had ever escaped?
Overwhelmed by tears and endless thoughts, Lara suddenly felt dizzy. She decided to lie down on her bed for just a few moments. She was exhausted—tired of saying goodbye to her home, her shop, and every memory they held. Tired of questioning her decision.
It did not take long before her eyes slowly closed, and she drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Lara opened her eyes to the sound of birds singing, grass swaying gently in the wind, and water flowing through a nearby river.
She looked around. The ceiling above her was unfamiliar. The room was strange, and the blankets were unlike any she had ever seen.
Confused, she wondered where she was.
Then she heard a strange yet powerful sound calling to her.
Without thinking, she followed it.
The sound led her to the riverside, where she saw her best friend, Juliette.
At that moment, Lara believed she had escaped death and finally reached Lirawen.
Overjoyed, she ran toward Juliette and embraced her tightly without asking a single question.
Lara had never felt happier.
Every morning they shared breakfast beside the river. They picked fresh fruit from the trees, drank afternoon tea beneath a tall oak tree, and spent long evenings talking beneath the moonlight.
She was grateful for every moment.
Sometimes, however, she heard a faint, distant sound—as though something was calling her back.
It frightened her, so she ignored it.
One night, around three in the morning, Lara woke to find Juliette gone.
She searched every room in the house, but there was no trace of her.
Panic filled her chest. The thought of losing Juliette made her feel sick.
As she stopped to catch her breath, she heard the strange sound again.
This time it was louder.
Harsher.
Impossible to ignore.
Thinking it might lead her to Juliette, Lara followed it.
She ran through gardens, parks, rivers, and forests. Strangely, each place felt more familiar than the last, as though she had walked those paths before.
After what felt like forever, she stopped.
Frozen.
There before her stood Moonbay.
She found herself standing in front of her own house.
Her flower shop was still closed, and the flowers she had thrown away remained scattered across the corner of the street.
Confused, Lara wondered why the mysterious sound had brought her back to the very place she had tried so desperately to escape.
Yet as she stepped inside her house, the sound grew louder with every step.
After a long moment of hesitation, she slowly opened the door to her bedroom.
The sight before her stole her breath.
Juliette was sitting beside the bed, holding a bouquet of sunflowers as silent tears streamed down her face.
And on the bed…
Lara saw herself.
She lay peacefully beneath the blankets, wearing the very same clothes she had worn the afternoon she decided to leave Moonbay.
She looked as though she had been sleeping through a long winter dream.
Only then did Lara understand.
She had never reached Lirawen.
She had died that afternoon, only minutes after closing her eyes.
Everything she had experienced—the village, the river, the laughter, the peaceful days with Juliette—had been the final dream her heart created before saying goodbye to the world.
But she did not regret it.
In those final moments, she had lived free from fear.
She had reached the friend she loved most, laughed with her one last time, and finally found the peace she had searched for all her life.
Of course, no one had ever escaped death in Moonbay.
Mahtab EB is a 17-year-old who recently graduated from an online school. She used to read books and journal about everything in her notebook, and it improved her writing skills, enabling her to develop a great passion for writing that eventually led her to apply to the EmpowerHer workshop.
She believes stories and writing pieces are a powerful form to express her thoughts and emotions freely. She would continue to write amazing pieces in the future cause she learnt the most valuable things about writing in this workshop.