In the peculiar town of Wishwell, tucked between the hills and the hush, there stood a tower that everyone knew about but few dared to climb.
It wasn’t a castle or a clock tower or anything you’d call ordinary. It had no windows, but it shimmered faintly, as if lit from within by leftover starlight. The townspeople called it The Tower of Almosts.
They said each floor held a version of your life that almost happened.
Some said it was cursed. Others said it was sacred. Most agreed it was best left alone.
But Clara Minton, age seventeen and chronically curious, had different ideas.
She had just botched her piano audition—her hands trembling, her heart leaping straight into her throat. She’d walked out of the conservatory with her sheet music crumpled in her pocket and her dreams feeling more like ghosts.
So naturally, she went to the tower.
The door, surprisingly, opened with a gentle sigh.
Inside, there was only a spiral staircase—winding up and up into silence.
Clara climbed.
The first floor was soft with golden light. There, in a cozy little room, she saw herself—wearing a dazzling gown, standing beside a gleaming grand piano, basking in thunderous applause.
She watched, silent. The other Clara beamed, bowed, and left the stage like she owned the stars.
“I could’ve been her,” whispered Clara.
A small plaque beneath the scene read:
Almost.
She climbed again.
The second floor showed a version of herself in a quiet bookstore, laughing with someone whose face she couldn’t quite see. She looked older. Softer. Her hands were ink-stained and her eyes carried joy.
Clara had never thought of herself as a writer.
Almost.
She climbed.
Each floor offered another glimpse:
— Clara the traveler, standing at the edge of a red desert under foreign stars.
— Clara the chef, shouting joyfully in a tiny, chaotic kitchen.
— Clara the mother, reading fairy tales to a child with her same wild curls.
So many Claras. So many lives.
She didn’t know whether to laugh, or cry, or stay forever.
On the tenth floor, something changed.
This room was dim. At first, she thought it was empty—until she saw herself sitting quietly in a chair, eyes closed, face peaceful.
No piano. No fame. No whirlwind life.
Just stillness. Presence.
And then, that version of her opened her eyes—and looked directly at Clara.
She smiled.
This time, the plaque said something different:
Becoming.
Clara stood still for a long time.
Then she turned and walked down the stairs, one step at a time, feeling less like she was leaving and more like she was returning.
When she stepped back into the sunlight, her chest no longer felt hollow. Her dreams weren’t broken—they were blooming, in strange and beautiful directions she hadn’t yet imagined.
And just as the door behind her closed with a whisper, she thought she heard a voice—her own—murmur softly:
“Almosts aren’t failures. They’re footprints of the selves we’re still unfolding into.”
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