The words turned from crisp black text into meaningless grey smudges, dancing mockingly on the page.
Lev slammed the heavy law book shut. The sound was sharp. Her head was pounding, and the last coherent thought she'd had was two hours and a full pot of coffee ago.
Lev, a law major at a Yǒnghé University in China, was drowning in the sheer, unyielding weight of her reality. Her days were a crushing cycle of exams, case studies, and sleep deprivation. Her greatest secret was her wish to travel: she longed to trade her sterile dorm room for the crisp bite of mountain wind, but the vast, beautiful world was simply too expensive—a dream tucked away for a distant, unaffordable future.
It was Sunday night, and the panic was a knot tightening in her chest. A major exam was looming, and the stack of untouched notes mocked her. She'd promised herself an all-nighter, but the fatigue was a physical force, pressing her down.
The air in her small apartment felt heavy, thick with the scent of stale coffee and desperation. She tried to fight it, but the sheer weight of her exhaustion felt like a cold, unfamiliar metal pressing down on her chest. It was more than just being tired; it was an anchor, pulling her down into the mattress.
Finally, she surrendered. She collapsed onto her bed, staring at the plain, white ceiling. Just five minutes, she bargained with her own crumbling willpower.
She stared at the travel posters taped above her desk—the impossible mountains, the beautiful sunset—and wished with a desperation that was almost a prayer. "I would give anything to just be anywhere else." A cold shiver, unrelated to the AC, traced its way up her spine.
The ceiling became a blur, the distant drone of city traffic faded, and the oppressive weight of her study schedule lifted. With a profound, irreversible sigh, Lev's eyes closed. She drifted to sleep.
Lev didn't wake up gently.
She slammed onto a cold, unforgiving floor with a sharp gasp, the breath driven from her lungs. The metallic taste of fear was immediate, followed by the bewildering realization that the air felt thinner and carried a sharp, almost floral scent.
The carpet is gone, she thought, her mind slow and fuzzy. Did I fall off the bed?
She opened her eyes and blinked up at a room that was utterly foreign. Gone were the stack of law textbooks and the sterile walls. The light filtering in was a deep, mesmerizing purple, cast from outside by a sky that seemed to bleed violet into midnight blue. The furniture was sleek and minimalist, made of materials she didn't recognize—something that looked like polished black wood but felt warm to the touch. It was ethereal, impossible, and devastatingly quiet.
A wave of dizzying relief washed over her. "Right," she murmured, a shaky smile touching her lips. "This is it. I finally cracked. I'm having a vivid stress dream."
She started scrambling backward until her shoulders hit a wall that felt surprisingly soft. Her study posters were gone. Her exhaustion was gone. The cold, metallic ache was gone, replaced by a strange, thrilling surge of curiosity.
It was then she registered the sound: the slow, steady rhythm of a man's breathing coming from the corner of the room.
MAN WITH GOLDEN EYES
Ken was already awake, but his routine—the precise, monochromatic structure he relied on—had just been violently shattered. He was staring, wide-eyed, at the empty space above his floor. He had just seen it: a ripple in the air that solidified into a girl who hit his floor with a sickening thud. She hadn't walked in; she had simply appeared out of the silence.
Ken sat up instantly. His heart hammered an irregular rhythm against his ribs—a rare, visceral reaction that alarmed him. He lived on the 27th floor of a high-rise, and this was an impossible, terrifying breach of control.
He saw her then: a girl dressed in soft, gray clothing that looked laughably old-fashioned. She was pressed against the window, her body trembling, yet her eyes were wide with a raw, exposed curiosity that mirrored his own. She smelled faintly of rain and ozone.
"Who are you?" Ken's voice was low and strained with an urgent, almost breathless curiosity. it was the voice of a person overwhelmed by the single most interesting, dangerous thing he'd ever encountered. He was intensely intrigued, wrestling with the sudden, alarming need to understand this contradiction.
Lev spun around, her eyes wide with terror. His face was framed by the purple light. His eyes, she noted, were a startling gold.
"I... I don't know where I am," she stammered, pointing frantically at the sky. "What is that? What is wrong with the sky?"
Ken rose from his bed, his movements quick and slightly unsteady, betraying his inner turmoil. He took a hesitant step toward her, drawn by a gravity he couldn't explain.
"Nothing is 'wrong' with the sky," he replied, his voice still edged with that nervous interest. "It's been this color for forty years. The question is not how you got past security—it's how you appeared from nowhere.
Ken's command didn't scare Lev. It made her happy! This was exactly the kind of thing a handsome, moody dream character would say.
"Oh, I get it," Lev giggled. She ignored the cold floor and the fast beat of her heart. "You are one of those fancy dreams. The quiet, serious kind. Nice!"
She pushed herself up to sit, then gasped. The room was amazing. The big glass wall showed the city outside. The sky was a beautiful mix of dark blue and bright purple—a sky she had always dreamed of seeing.
"Wow," she whispered, all her stress melting away. "I finally get to travel! Even if it's only in my head. No college bills, no exams, just... purple. And a very fancy bedroom." She looked back at Ken, beaming. "I'm achieving my travel dreams, even if it's just a dream!"
Ken was still standing, frozen. He had just seen a girl pop into existence from nowhere.
"You... you appeared from thin air," Ken stated, his voice flat with disbelief. "One moment there was nothing, the next, you just... materialized." He pointed a finger at the exact spot she had landed.
"How did you do that?"