Clara Ruiz

At first glance, Clara looks like someone caught halfway between waking and dreaming. Her features are soft and luminous, framed by a halo of dark curls that catch the light like brushstrokes of gold and shadow. There’s grace in how she carries herself — poised yet uncertain, as if afraid the ground beneath her might not hold. Her eyes are deep and dark, restless pools that seem to watch the world for patterns no one else can see.

When she speaks, her voice is quiet but deliberate, the words chosen carefully, as though language itself were a fragile medium she’s still learning to handle. She dresses simply — often with streaks of paint on her fingers or the faint scent of turpentine clinging to her — but her presence fills a room in subtle ways. The air near her feels charged, as if reality bends slightly around her perception.

Lately, there’s a tension in her — a haunted stillness that makes even her silences feel heavy. Sleep hasn’t come easily, and her art has grown stranger: canvases layered in shapes that seem to move when viewed from the corner of one’s eye. To Sleepwalkers and Awakened alike, Clara radiates the faint, dangerous beauty of someone who is caught between this reality and another - though whether that reality will consume, destroy, or uplift her.

Clara is equal parts wonder and weariness. She feels everything too deeply — colors, sounds, emotions — and that sensitivity once made her a brilliant artist. Now it makes her fragile. Her thoughts wander in spirals; she speaks in metaphors and half-remembered dreams, often unsure whether the images she paints are from memory or revelation.

Beneath her soft-spoken manner is a fierce curiosity — a need to understand what she saw that night when the world broke open and something stared back. Fear hasn’t dimmed her, but it’s changed her. She’s more cautious with people now, watching their reflections in glass, listening for the tone behind their words.

Those who spend time with Clara notice how she searches faces for meaning, as though trying to paint them in her mind. She’s kind but detached, capable of warmth yet always slightly distant — like someone living at the edge of two worlds. There’s brilliance in her, yes, but also the quiet terror of someone who knows that understanding might cost her what little peace she has left.