Dia was awakened by a sudden palpitation.
The feeling was strange, as if his heart had been suddenly gripped and squeezed slowly and forcefully. He snapped his eyes open, gasping for air, a fine sheen of cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.
The room was dark. He didn't know when the rain outside had stopped. His phone screen lit up, displaying the time: 2:17 AM.
He sat up, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Just as he was about to lie down again, his peripheral vision caught something.
The sky outside the window was purple.
No—not entirely purple. It was a color he had never seen before, somewhere between purple and indigo, as if someone had poured a whole bottle of ink into the night sky and then mixed in the phosphorescence of fireflies. Streaks of purple light seeped in through the cracks in the window, casting strange, flowing patterns on the floor.
Dia walked to the window barefoot and pulled back the curtains.
Then he froze.
The entire sky was ablaze.
Not with fire, but with light—overwhelming, layered bands of multicolored light stretching from one end of the horizon to the other, like a giant, living net covering the entire sky. Purple was on the outermost layer, followed by indigo, emerald green, bright yellow, and orange-red. At the very core was a dazzling golden mass, so bright it was impossible to look at directly.
The light bands were not static. They flowed, they breathed, weaving something according to a pattern incomprehensible to humans. Sometimes they would suddenly twist into a single strand, like a luminous giant python coiling in the sky; other times they would scatter into countless tiny points of light, like dandelions blown away by the wind.
Dia's fingers pressed against the cool glass. He could feel the glass vibrating slightly—not a physical vibration, but a subtler tremor, like a resonance of frequencies.
His phone vibrated frantically behind him.
He walked back to pick it up. The class group chat had exploded.
"Did you guys see it??? The lights in the sky!!!"
"Saw it, saw it! I took a video from the balcony, look!"
"What the hell is that, is it the end of the world?"
"Don't be silly, maybe it's the aurora?"
"You can see the aurora in Shanghai? Did your geography teacher teach you sports?"
"I meant that kind of aurora phenomenon, not necessarily the kind you only see at the North Pole!"
"Stop arguing, the news channel is broadcasting live, hurry and watch!"
Dia switched to the news channel. On the live broadcast, the host's expression was visibly tense, and his speaking pace was much faster than during the day: "...Currently, abnormal celestial phenomena have been observed globally, with night skies in all time zones covered by these unknown lights. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Japan, Australia... As of now, no country has been able to explain this phenomenon."
The screen switched to an expert interview. This time, it wasn't the meteorologist from earlier in the day, but an elderly man with white hair, identified by the subtitle as the director of the Institute of Space Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
"Professor Li, how do you view this phenomenon?" the host asked.
The old man's expression was grave: "Based on the current data, this is absolutely not a normal aurora. Auroras are caused by the interaction of solar winds with the Earth's magnetosphere and typically appear only in high-latitude regions. However, this time, the light covered all areas, including the equator. Furthermore..." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully, "the energy intensity of these lights far exceeds our instruments' measurement range."
"You mean..."
"I mean the energy contained in these lights could be greater than the combined energy of all nuclear weapons in human history. And we have no idea where this energy comes from or what impact it will have on Earth."
The host's face changed slightly: "Will this pose a threat to humanity?"
The old man was silent for a few seconds: "No direct threat has been detected so far. But I must be honest—we don't know. We know nothing."
The live broadcast cut back to the studio. The host was communicating with the director. Dia turned off his phone and walked back to the window.
He reached out and pushed the window open a crack.
The night breeze rushed in, carrying an indescribable scent—not of flowers, not of earth, nor the freshness of air after rain. It was an older, deeper scent, as if it had risen from the depths of the earth, carrying memories that had slumbered for eons.
Then he felt it.
A stream of warmth.
From his chest, as if something had been ignited. It was faint, like holding a cup of warm water in winter, the warmth spreading from his chest to his limbs, slowly, irresistibly.
Dia lowered his head and placed his hand on his chest.
His heartbeat was slightly faster than usual, but steady. The warmth was not painful, nor uncomfortable; rather, it felt strangely... comfortable. It was as if a switch inside his body that had been off for a long time had been flipped, and something that had been dormant for a long time was beginning to awaken.
He didn't know why he felt this way, but he knew it wasn't normal.
His phone rang again. This time it was Xiao Yu calling.
"Brother Dia!" Her voice was sharp and high-pitched, laced with obvious panic. "Did you feel it? Something moving inside your body!"
"I felt it," Dia's voice was calmer than he expected. "Don't be scared, take a deep breath."
"But—but I feel so uncomfortable, like something is trying to break out of my body! The director and the others too, everyone is saying they feel unwell!"
Dia's pupils contracted slightly: "Everyone?"
"Yes! Everyone! Afu is crying, saying his stomach is so hot. What should I do, Brother Dia!"
"Don't panic," Dia said as he walked out. "Where are you now?"
"In the second-floor hallway. The director is calling for an ambulance, but he can't get through, the line is always busy—"
"Stay put, I'll be right down."
Dia hung up the phone, pulled open the door, and rushed out.
The lights in the hallway flickered, as if the voltage was unstable. He ran down the stairs, three steps at a time. On the third floor, he heard children crying from several rooms. The situation on the second floor was worse. Seven or eight people stood in the hallway—children and staff from the orphanage. Everyone had a different expression: some were crying, some were squatting on the ground holding their heads, some were shouting into their phones.
Xiao Yu stood at the end of the hallway, holding Afu. Afu's face was flushed red, as if he had a fever, tears and snot all over his face, constantly crying about being hot.
Dia ran over and placed his hand on Afu's forehead.
It was terrifyingly hot.
"Does he have a fever?" Xiao Yu's voice trembled.
Dia didn't answer. He placed his hand on Afu's chest and felt the child's heart beating violently, as if it were about to explode. At the same time, he felt something else—a faint stream of warmth surging from deep within Afu's body, exactly like the feeling he had himself.
"Afu, look at me," Dia squatted down, cupping the child's face in his hands. "Tell me, besides feeling hot, do you feel anything else?"
Afu sobbed, "In my stomach... something is moving in my stomach, like a little snake..."
"Does it hurt?"
"It doesn't hurt... it's just so hot, and I'm so scared..."
"Don't be afraid, brother is here." Dia picked him up and turned to Xiao Yu. "Go check on the others, especially the younger ones, and comfort them so they don't run around."
Xiao Yu nodded, turned, and ran off.
Dia carried Afu to the hallway window. The sky outside was still that strange, multicolored sea of light. The flow of the light bands seemed faster than before, the golden core expanding continuously, as if something were about to hatch from within.
His phone vibrated again. This time, someone in the class group chat had posted a link with the title: "Global Abnormal Celestial Phenomena Real-Time Tracking—Scientists: Possibly Due to Changes in Earth's Magnetic Field."
He clicked on it and glanced at it. It contained various expert speculations and netizens' comments, all sorts of things. Some said it was a solar storm, some said aliens, some said a secret government experiment had gone wrong, and some said it was the end of the world prophesied in the Bible.
No one was right.
Dia put his phone back in his pocket and looked down at Afu. The child's breathing gradually stabilized, the redness on his face receded, and he fell asleep leaning on Dia's shoulder. Dia touched his forehead again; the temperature was indeed dropping.
He breathed a sigh of relief and was about to turn when his peripheral vision caught his reflection in the windowpane.
His face was reflected in the glass, blurry and distorted, but he saw it—his eyes.
Deep within the pupils of those eyes, something was glowing.
A faint, almost imperceptible golden light, like a lamp lit at the bottom of a deep pool.
He blinked, and the light disappeared. When he looked again, there was nothing, only his dark pupils reflecting the strange purple light of the sky outside the window.
Was it an illusion?
"Brother Dia!"
Xiao Yu's voice came from the other end of the hallway, choked with tears: "Grandma Zhang fainted!"
Dia, carrying Afu, ran over. Grandma Zhang was the orphanage's cook, in her sixties, and not in good health. She lay on the ground, her face pale, her lips purple, her chest heaving.
"Did you call an ambulance?" Dia squatted down to check her breathing and pulse.
"Can't get through! The line is always busy!" A volunteer aunt next to her stomped her foot in distress. "Not just the ambulance, 110 is also unreachable, nothing can be reached!"
Dia gritted his teeth. He handed Afu to Xiao Yu and squatted beside Grandma Zhang, pinching her philtrum with his finger. At the same time, he felt the stream of warmth within his body become more active, surging through his veins, as if seeking an outlet.
He inexplicably placed his hand on Grandma Zhang's chest.
The stream of warmth flowed out from his palm.
It was instantaneous, so fast it felt like an illusion. Dia felt something flow out of his body, not much, but it was there. At the same time, Grandma Zhang's complexion visibly returned to normal, and her breathing stabilized.
"Grandma Zhang? Grandma Zhang!" The volunteer aunt shook her.
The old woman slowly opened her eyes, looking around blankly: "I... what happened to me?"
"You fainted, you scared us to death!" The volunteer aunt cried and laughed.
Dia stood up and took a step back.
He looked at his hands. There was nothing in his palms, but he clearly remembered the feeling of that moment—the stream of warmth flowing out of him, entering Grandma Zhang's body, and then the old woman was fine.
This was impossible.
He was a materialist. Although he hadn't had much schooling, every book he had read told him: the world is material, energy is conserved, and there are no supernatural powers.
But how could he explain what had just happened?
Outside the window, the multicolored light bands in the sky suddenly trembled violently, as if struck by something. The golden core expanded sharply by a circle, then began to contract again, like a beating heart.
Thump.
Dia felt it. The frequency of the light band's pulsation was exactly the same as his heartbeat.
Thump.
Another one. The whole world vibrated to that frequency.
Thump.
Then, everything fell silent.
The light bands stopped flowing. The sky seemed to have been paused, all colors frozen in that moment. The air became heavy, and time itself seemed to have stopped.
This stillness lasted for about three seconds.
Then, the light bands exploded.
Not an explosion, but a bloom—like a flower opening in an instant, all colors spreading outward simultaneously, turning into countless tiny points of light that rained down from the sky. The light points passed through the clouds, through the atmosphere, through roofs and walls, seeping into every inch of the land, every living being.
Dia felt the stream of warmth surge tenfold, a hundredfold, in an instant. It wasn't flowing out of his body, but surging into his body from all directions, through every pore, every breath, every cell.
His vision began to blur, his consciousness spun, and countless sounds echoed in his ears—the sound of wind, water, thunder, and something like a heartbeat, or someone singing from very far away.
Then, he heard a voice.
It wasn't heard through his ears, but resonated directly in his mind, ancient, distant, as if from the end of time.
"...Finally... it has begun..."
Dia wanted to open his eyes, wanted to ask who that voice belonged to, wanted to understand what had happened. But his body was out of control, his consciousness plummeting rapidly, like falling into a bottomless abyss.
The last image was of the sky outside the window returning to its normal black. The multicolored light bands had vanished, as if they had never existed.
Then came darkness.
Complete, utter darkness.
When Dia woke up again, it was the next morning.
Sunlight streamed through the window, warm and pleasant, indistinguishable from any ordinary morning. There was birdsong outside, the distant honking of car horns, everything felt as if it had been a dream.
He sat up and looked at his phone.
The message log after 2:17 AM was still there. People in the class group chat were still discussing last night's celestial phenomena. The news was also reporting that scientists were intensifying their research and had found no anomalies so far.
Everything was normal.
But Dia knew something had changed.
He raised his hand and looked at his palm. Sunlight shone on it, the veins beneath the skin clearly visible. He concentrated, trying to feel the stream of warmth from last night.
There was nothing.
No warmth, no resonance of the heartbeat, nothing.
Was it just his imagination?
Dia lowered his hand and looked out the window. The sky was blue, the clouds were white, the sunlight was bright.
But he always felt that behind those clouds, something was watching him.