The fantasy world of Whimsica was filled with magic and adventure, but also people with various hopes and dreams, just like anyone.

This is a story from the land of Whimsica.

In this world, there was the Cozy House—an odd building located in the most desolate Northern stretches of Whimsica’s cold tundra. It was a secluded, whimsical town inside a massive building, surrounded by a bitterly cold forest with no other civilization for miles around.

Even though the building’s surroundings were bitter cold, it was a safe haven filled with a warm community, and even magic. It was this magic that maintained the Cozy House and made it so bright and zany. Due to this, people didn’t leave it often. The outside world was filled with dangers and hazards, especially in the more rural areas.

The Cozy House, 50 wide floors in all, contained a vast apartment complex, a huge lively mall, a vast school campus from kindergarten through college, many stores and services, a prestigious hospital, a recreation center with a park, and even more.

It was a chaotic place full of antics and surprises, earning it the nickname “The Crazy House.”

In this crazy place, was a lively mix of residents.

Candy, the resident party bunny, threw parties for every occasion. Her parties were legendary and encompassed the entire building. It would take people days to recover from them every time.

The strict math teacher Mr. Hazama gave cursed math quizzes. His infamous math class was known as Hazama’s Hazardous Math Class of Chaos, and students would take to calling him Mr. Hazard.

The music teacher Octavia took students on spontaneous field trips. These trips would even take students outside the Cozy House, to faraway places such as the beautiful tropical Watercolor Islands. Her field trips were world-class vacations, and the students loved them… mostly.

Queen Rainbow was the colorful Queen of the Cozy House, maintaining it with her whimsical magic. However, she didn’t want to be a Queen, or to be perceived as almighty. She wanted to be a normal civilian—an equal.

Ghosts lived in the Cozy House, along with talking animals, and all sorts of other strange creatures. There were just part of the community. The ghosts were mysterious, but mostly friendly. They would tell unsuspecting residents stories of times past.

Rumor had it, that those who passed away in the Cozy House would never even leave it forever, and periodically return there as a ghost.

Rumor also had it that there was a secret floor between 25 and 26, giving the Cozy House a total of 51 floors if it’s true.

Then there was Whimsy Academy, the Cozy House’s chaotic, towering 50-floor school for Pre–K through college.

It was fun, but some still called it the Nightmare Academy. Things could get a bit crazy.

Whimsy Academy’s hallways were chaotic. When class was in session, monsters spawned in the school’s hall like a dungeon from a video game. If one wasn’t good at fighting, a hall pass will give them a magic force field that will protect them from the monsters. If one doesn’t have a hall pass, then… good luck.

There were secret rooms, dungeons, trapdoors, and mysterious treasure. The library on floors 44-47 was a dungeon filled with books, some abandoned, some cursed. The rarer ones were said to contain arcane knowlege.

On floor 39, students always had to pretend to be a pirate or else they were thrown into The Void, which was really just a dark room filled with mushrooms.

On floor 45, there was no gravity for some reason.

On floor 35, it was always a bone-chilling 7 degrees Fahrenheit, with snow and ice everywhere.

The school lunches were cooked in the volcano oven on floor 40. The volcano even erupted molten spaghetti sauce.

Floor 12 was the only totally normal floor in the entire school.

Then there was the secret floor 25.5, an enigma nobody talked about.

The school’s roof was also a special spot, with a swimming pool, cozy cafe and such. There’s also a beautiful view of sunsets and stars. It’s where students in love confess to their crushes under the beautiful sky. It was where school concerts were held.

The roof was also where students challenged each other to showdowns and duels whenever they had beef with each other.

It was a spot filled with all sorts of memories and drama.

Many subjects are taught at Whimsy Academy, from many types of magic, to basics like math and language, to specialty classes such as improvisation acting, synchronized swimming, and cheese making. There was also Nap Class for some reason. Sadly, their room was right next to the Explosion Class room, so actually getting sleep in Nap Class could get difficult.

Life was chaotic, but never boring. Especially for Amelie Sugar, nicknamed Ame.

To her, the Cozy House was home.

She was 20 years young, growing old too fast, and felt things deeply. She was perpetually on a roller coaster of moods, an absolutely sparkly mess of smiles, tears, and other feelings she didn’t understand.

But little did she know, her clumsy yet earnest spirit would one day help save the Cozy House.

———

Today had been a stressful February day at Whimsy Academy for Amelie, the girl with the bright smile and uplifting spirit. But even Amelie got sad. In fact, she was sad a lot. She just kept it all inside, because she knew being sad never fixed anything.

Especially on days like today, right?

On this day, Amelie got into a disagreement with Fuyu, a student council member. They were becoming friends, perhaps, until Amelie just had to say something stupid.

She also got a Z minus on Mr. Hazama’s pop quiz in trigonometry. Mr. Hazama was strict with everyone, but he seemed to have a special hatred for Amelie.

She spent all of second period alone in the void, because she fell through a trapdoor. There wasn’t even cool music or glowing mushrooms in the void that time, just a bunch of smelly snoring trolls.

As an only child, Amelie found herself envying the Day siblings, with their big warm happy get-togethers. The Day siblings consisted of twelve fairies, each named after a month of the year. Every day must’ve been so vibrant for them.

Amelie felt alone.

She did have two best friends, Mizore and Joy, but they had been growing distant from each other lately.

The three knew each other since middle school, when the quiet Mizore first moved to the Cozy House. The place was overwhelming for shy little Mizore, who felt like a fish out of water. Amelie and Joy could tell she felt sad. That was when Joy, ever the ray of sunshine, came to Amelie. She suggested Amelie’s kindness would be just the thing to urge Mizore out of her shell.

“You think I’m kind? That’s nice of you to say.” Amelie said. “But… what about you? You’re the one who had the idea to cheer up Mizore in the first place.”

“Well, not me.” Joy said modestly. “I’m too loud, I say the wrong thing sometimes, and I get in trouble a lot… Who’d want to be friends with me?”

Amelie felt awful that Joy, the girl who let her borrow her funny comic books when she was sick, and always brightened the school day, felt that way about herself.

“Well then, how about I be your friend?” Amelie said, smiling. “We’ll both cheer up Mizore, together.”

Joy felt moved that Amelie wanted to be her friend.

So they threw a party for Mizore together. A quiet small cozy one, only the three of them, not too loud. Since Mizore liked cats and outer space, they made it a space cat party.

For the first time, Mizore felt she had forever friends.

Amelie and Joy welcomed Mizore with open arms, and the three were best friends ever since. They were a 3-for-1 package deal, even. They invented their own secret words and inside jokes. They were part of each other’s worlds.

But everything eventually changed in high school, when the three were constantly put in different classes from each other.

Amelie felt her friendships with the two slowly fade.

They had gone from being a power-trio of tight-knit buddies who never left each other alone, to barely even knowing each other’s separate worlds anymore.

Amelie missed the old days so much. She didn’t accept the changes, but didn’t know how to fight them.

To feel at peace that evening, Amelie decided to listen to a playlist of wistful music on MyTune while lounging on her beanbag chair. She was only going to listen to a couple, to get her feelings out. Then she was going to listen to something upbeat and have a party with her cats all night. But eventually she fell asleep, and the videos begin autoplaying. Her small kitten Minnie began curling up next to her. The older cat Scout rested comfortably by her feet.

Then, about an hour into her slumber, Ame awoke from her sleep to a hauntingly wistful tune, and a powerful, raw singing voice that sounded like it was crying out.

Chills ran down Amelie’s spine. She picked up her laptop and immediately looked at what she was listening to.

“Disappear- (Covered by White Crow)”

The video was a still image of a dim, snowy landscape. There was no face, nothing to notify there was a person behind that screen. Except for their voice. It was painfully real. It wasn’t perfectly polished. It cracked in places. It was real. It sounded like it was aching.

Apparently, it wasn’t the original song, but a popular cover.

Amelie’s misty eyes scanned the top comments.

“White Crow sings as if he is mourning, injured, broken, yet still hanging in there. It does so much to my heart.”

“I have no idea who this man is, but his voice echoes like sadness. I hope he’s okay.”

“These raw emotions here have stirred my soul. Thank you White Crow, for allowing me to feel.”

Amelie didn’t know what overtook her, but she found tears welling up in her eyes. The lyrics were about disappearing, vanishing into a snowstorm, becoming one with winter, and finally fading away.

“If I disappeared along with the long winter night… Will the sun come out? Will flowers bloom? Would it be spring in the place I leave behind?”

The voice sounded like it understood her—how much she missed her friends, how small and worthless she felt.

“What would change if I were to disappear?” Amelie thought. “Even if spring did come, I wouldn’t be there to see it…”

To the mysterious voice that gave her chills, Amelie quietly cried out all the pent-up stress of the day. The tears were almost uncontrollable, and it felt like a huge weight off of her shoulders.

The song ended. Amelie’s hands trembled as she wiped the last of her tears and went to click the username on the video.

“White Crow.”

15 uploaded videos with the same haunting vocals. 2.3M subscribers. Yet not a face to this voice.

Amelie’s eyes quickly wandered to the channel description.

“I’m White Crow. I sing. Sorry, I don’t respond to messages.” It said.

Amelie felt a heavy rock in her chest.

She wanted to reach out. Who was he? Even if White Crow didn’t respond to messages, she wanted to message him and tell him everything. Her loneliness. Her new admiration for him. How his singing just impacted her and made her feel.

Amelie quickly poured it all out in a message that didn’t mean to be so long at first, and pressed “submit” with shaky hands.

She hoped that somewhere out there, the mysterious White Crow would read her message and hear her too, even if he didn’t respond.

For now, Amelie felt cleansed of her sorrow, ready to take on the tough world once again.

It would all start by finally telling Mizore and Joy how she felt, and how badly she wanted their close friendship back.