The next day, the soldiers marched toward the north woods. The land grew rough, full of fallen trees and old trenches from earlier battles. Emily rode in a wagon beside Thomas, who still looked uneasy after the strange night.

“You haven’t slept,” he said.

“Couldn’t,” she admitted. “Too much noise in my head.”

He gave her a worried look. “You should be careful, Emily. People who carry burdens like yours—they either save the world or destroy themselves trying.”

She didn’t answer. Her hand brushed against the broken metal piece in her pocket. It felt warm, almost like it wanted to fit with the brass key.

By afternoon, they reached a clearing surrounded by pines. Nathan ordered the men to rest. The sun burned low, turning the sky orange. Emily unpacked supplies and tried to ignore the strange pull in her chest. She could feel the energy of the key again, stronger now.

As the soldiers slept, she walked to the edge of the clearing and took out both the key and the metal piece. When she held them close, a spark leapt between them, bright enough to sting her skin. The air vibrated. The ground beneath her feet shimmered.

“Emily!” Nathan’s voice cut through the air. He ran toward her, eyes wide. “What are you doing?”

“I think I found part of the gate,” she said breathlessly.

The light around her grew, a circle forming on the ground—lines of energy that looked almost alive. Nathan stepped closer, shielding his face. “Stop! You don’t know what it’ll do!”

“I can’t,” she said. “It’s reacting on its own.”

The circle flared once, sending a wave of heat through the clearing. Trees bent in the wind that wasn’t there. For a heartbeat, Emily saw another world through the light—a city skyline, cars, the world she had lost. Then the image flickered and vanished.

The light collapsed, leaving smoke and silence. Emily dropped to her knees, gasping. The key was dull again, the fragment cold.

Nathan knelt beside her. “Are you hurt?”

“No. Just… shaken.”

He looked at the burned circle on the ground. “Was that your world?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “For a second, I saw home.”

He took her hand gently. “Then it’s real. You can go back.”

She looked at him, her throat tight. “I don’t know if I can do it alone.”

“You won’t have to,” he said quietly.

For a long moment they stayed there, hands joined, surrounded by the faint smell of ash. The fire circle on the ground faded slowly, but its memory stayed—proof that the gate was real, that time could bend again.

That night, as the camp slept, Emily sat awake, tracing the edges of the brass key. If she could reopen that gate, she might return to her life. But part of her already knew the truth—her heart was no longer in one world. It was divided between the past that needed her and the future that called her back.

(A modern nurse named Emily Hart, living in Los Angeles, accidentally triggers a strange energy surge from an old Civil War–era medical kit she bought at a vintage market. When she wakes up, she finds herself in Virginia, 1863, in the middle of the American Civil War.

With her modern medical knowledge and courage, Emily must survive in a time without anesthesia, equality, or technology—while hiding her true identity. Every five chapters, a new “mini story” unfolds: she helps soldiers, saves a family, meets a mysterious officer, faces suspicion as a “witch,” and searches for a way back to her own time.)