Hi. I'm Mia. I'm 16, I go to Westview High, and three days ago I watched my best friend's mom open a hole in reality with two fingers and three tiny glowing flags.
So that's where we are.
Before all of this, my life was normal. Or normal enough. School, coffee with Qin Mu on the corner before first period, group chats that moved too fast to keep up with. I was the one who noticed things --- that's always been my thing. Little stuff. The way Qin Mu's mom went still when the news showed people flying over the city. The way Chen Wei always sat with her back to the wall. The way nothing ever fully added up if you looked at it long enough.
I looked at things long enough.
Which is probably why I'm here.
Inside a rift between worlds, holding on to a sleeve, watching something without a face turn toward us in the dark.
My brain is doing a lot of things right now.
It didn't move.
It just --- was. There. Taking up space in the rift the way something takes up space when it has been somewhere for a very long time and stopped thinking about it.
My brain was cataloguing. Shape --- no real shape. Presence --- yes, definitely. Weight --- the kind you feel in your chest before you understand it. I was running through every explanation I had and throwing them all out one by one. And somewhere underneath all of that my feet had stopped working and I was aware I should probably do something about that.
I didn't do anything about it.
"Mrs. Qin---"
Mrs. Qin let go of my hand.
I turned.
And everything I was about to say just left.
It was quiet. I keep coming back to that. I expected something loud --- something that announced itself. But it was just quiet. Mrs. Qin standing still in the middle of the rift, and then not being the same person anymore.
The clothes first. Plain and grey one second, gone the next --- replaced by robes the color of deep water, layered, moving without any wind to move them. Patterns on the fabric that shifted when I looked directly and settled when I looked away, like they were deciding what to be.
Then the ribbons.
One from her left shoulder. Then another. Then a third. Each one a different depth of light --- pale, then gold, then something I had no color word for. They unfurled slowly, trailing all the way past her feet, curling at the ends like they were breathing. Moving on their own. Patient. Like they had always been there and had just been waiting for permission.
And then behind her --- rising the way a moon rises, slow and like it had always been coming --- the wheel.
Massive. Pale gold. Spinning without a single sound. Each section carved with characters I didn't know, the whole thing turning with the kind of patience that didn't count time the way people count time.
Her hair came loose. It didn't fall. It floated. Gently. Like gravity had made a quiet decision to mind its own business just this once.
Her feet were still on the floor of the rift.
But she stood differently. Like something she had been carrying for years --- something heavy, something she had shaped herself small to hold --- had just been set down.
Sad.
Powerful.
Not the loud kind. The kind that had been folded into a small shape for a long time and was only now, quietly, remembering what it actually was.
She looked at the thing in the rift.
I looked at the thing in the rift.
It looked back.
Nobody moved.
Then --- slowly, like pressure releasing from something held too long --- the presence shifted. Not gone. Just back. Making room. The way something very old steps aside for something it recognizes.
The colors deepened. The not-quite-sound faded.
Mrs. Qin closed her eyes once. Just once. Like steadying something only she could feel.
Then she opened them.
I realized I was gripping the back of her sleeve.
Both hands. I hadn't decided to.
I didn't let go.
She glanced back at me. Just slightly. And through all of it --- the robes, the ribbons, the wheel still turning gold and silent behind her --- something very human moved across her face. Something tired and warm.
"You're okay," she said.
My brain had about fourteen things it wanted to say. What came out was ---
"You made lunch yesterday." My voice was smaller than I meant it to be. "You made lunch and said the soup was too salty."
Something moved in her expression. Not quite a smile. Almost.
"It was too salty," she said.
She turned back to the passage. The ribbons moved with her. The wheel followed --- three steps behind, steady, golden, silent.
I held on to her sleeve and walked.
My brain was still running.
It had a lot to deal with.
* * *
Wei Chen was mid-sentence.
"---so the second stage isn't just about volume, it's about---"
I stopped listening.
Not on purpose. Something just --- happened. In my chest. Here and then gone, maybe two seconds total, and I missed whatever she said after volume.
Wei Chen noticed. She always notices. "What."
"Nothing." I looked at the fire. Then --- "Something felt weird."
She waited.
"Warm," I said. "Like. In here." I touched my sternum once, kind of stupid, then dropped my hand. "And then this --- I don't know. Like missing something."
I didn't have a better word for it. It wasn't sad exactly. More like reaching for something that wasn't there. The feeling you get when you forget what you were about to say, except bigger. Except it wasn't a thought.
Gone now though.
Wei Chen was looking at the spot I'd just touched. Her face was doing its careful thing --- taking something in, filing it away, not ready to name it yet.
"Has it happened before," she said.
"No."
She was quiet for a moment. The fire crackled. Somewhere behind us one of the villagers coughed and settled.
"Okay," she said.
I looked back at the fire.
I didn't know what it was. Just warmth, and then the missing, and then nothing.
I put my hand back near my chest anyway.
Just in case.