The dream began with a breeze.
It had no origin and no direction—just a gentle zephyr lingering in the dreamscape. It drifted down the corridor, slipping through the cracks of half-open doors and emitting a faint, reedy hum like a sigh echoing across the river of time.
The light was an ashen gray, its source impossible to pinpoint.
The visitor only knew that the hallway stretched on endlessly, everything in sight veiled by a thin haze. Even when she stomped her feet, no sound echoed. It was as if this place was meant to be absolutely silent.
Or perhaps... she wasn't supposed to be here at all.
Kiana stood in the middle of the hallway, gazing down the infinite corridor and the rows of doors lining its walls. She knew she was dreaming—in fact, she always knew.
So my theory was right... As long as she slept next to Shu, these bizarre dreams would trigger.
Despite how much fun she seemed to be having, Kiana was sharply aware of her true mission. Something was glaringly wrong here. This place was probably some sweet illusion cooked up by a Herrscher specifically to target her and Shu, trying to corrupt them with the allure of a mundane, peaceful life.
Hmph! The genius Kiana was far too sharp for that. She saw right through these cheap tricks!
She was going to drag Shu out of this place if it was the last thing she—
Kiana stood in silence for a long moment before taking a deep breath. She stepped forward and pushed open the nearest door.
The room inside was dim, every object blurred as if viewed through frosted glass. She inherently knew what the shapes were, yet couldn't bring them into focus, leaving her mind to slowly fill in the visual gaps.
The window was open, but the curtains hung dead still. Outside, the sky was a flat, unbroken gray—no clouds, no sun.
The room felt entirely empty, save for a crib tucked in the corner. A tiny infant lay inside, her eyes half-open as she stared at the ceiling. She didn't cry. She didn't fuss. She just watched in total silence, observing with such intense focus it looked like she was actively studying whatever hung above her.
Sounds drifted in from the hallway, though they did nothing to break the heavy silence.
Adult footsteps. Muffled conversations. Laughter.
The noises bled through the wooden door as if filtering in from another world. The baby in the crib didn't turn her head to look; her unblinking gaze remained locked on the ceiling.
No one entered.
The scene held still until reality abruptly shattered like glass, then flickered and pieced itself back together.
The girl was older now, roughly two or three years old. She sat on a living room rug, a pile of colorful building blocks scattered before her. Under normal circumstances, a toddler would turn these blocks into projectiles, chucking them to the four winds. Or they'd become teething toys, makeshift clubs, or simply get ignored completely.
In short, the very last thing a child this age would do with building blocks was actually build with them.
But the girl had constructed a towering spire. Every single piece was perfectly aligned, stacked with a deliberate, almost aesthetic precision.
The surrounding adults marveled at the block tower—which was nearly as tall as the toddler herself—and couldn't help but walk over. Smiling, they reached out to pat her head. "Our little genius is so smart," they cooed, beaming with pride and praise.
The girl turned her head, gave the adult a fleeting glance, and immediately looked back down, fully absorbed in her task.
Her current priority was calculating how to stack the next block higher than her own head, not humoring some formulaic praise. She had seen that exact, cookie-cutter smile far too many times.
So many times, in fact, that she had completely mapped out exactly when the adults would dish out their praise. A toddler not even three years old could manipulate them into making that exact face on command.
The girl felt there should be a proper word for this entire routine.
A formula.
Social pleasantries and human dynamics? Not really a big deal.
Sometimes, her mom and dad would take her visiting. The child of the people they called "relatives" was several years older than her, nearly a full zodiac cycle ahead.
This older boy confidently hammered out a piano piece in a blatant attempt to show off. It barely held a melody, littered with stumbles and glaring, awkward pauses.
Yet the audience was exceedingly forgiving. The moment he finished, everyone erupted into applause, gushing about how "beautifully he played."
The girl mimicked them, clapping her little hands together. This earned a chorus of delighted laughter from the room—a much louder cheer than the error-riddled piano performance had actually received.
She knew she was supposed to clap.
Just like she knew that nobody here actually cared about the music. They all just wanted to witness a positive event they could loosely tie themselves to, and then cheer for it.
That was all there was to it.
Looking through the girl's eyes, Kiana witnessed a bizarre kaleidoscope of a world.
Everyone looked like stationary, elongated worms—stretching from the nascent tip of their youth to the withered end of their old age. And perhaps it wasn't just people. Everything in the girl's vision took the form of these temporal worms. Every twist and turn, every rise and fall was laid bare. A person's joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness—even their birth, aging, illness, and death—were crystallized with absolute clarity.
But the world was fundamentally in motion. The moment the girl spontaneously realized this truth, she instantly understood why she was so fundamentally different from everyone else.
Human vision was hopelessly shortsighted. A mere century forward, a century back. They could only perceive their immediate present; from the cradle to the grave, everything that made up a person was concentrated into this fleeting, singular "instant."
And wasn't it just an instant?
Compared to the lifespan of a stone or a drop of water, the existence of a subjective "human" was nothing more than a split-second flash. Even if their entire life were compressed into a single data point, the sheer volume of information was practically negligible.
At the very least, glancing at hundreds of thousands of life paths at once didn't tire the girl out in the slightest.
To her, this was simply how the world looked.
Everything peacefully unfurled itself before her, meticulously presenting its past, present, and future to this aberrant child.
It didn't matter who appeared in front of her—whether they were laughing, crying, raging in agony, or wearing a stoic mask to conceal their true selves...
With a single glance, she could effortlessly decipher why they had come and exactly why they would leave. She could see their ultimate ends, alongside beginnings they had sworn to keep buried.
She saw things far too clearly... and it was all too easy.
Perched on high like a god seated in the clouds, she observed these "inevitable" theatrical plays from an absolute third-person perspective, playing a role that was simultaneously pivotal yet entirely inconsequential.
The answer key was right there. Anyone in her position could do the exact same thing.
What a thoroughly boring world... As long as you continually input the optimal solution, the world would effortlessly reveal its softest, most tender side to you.
Perhaps... she could choose a path that wasn't quite so perfect?
...
But wouldn't that just definitively prove that this world really is that boring?
The girl held a colorful block high in the air, lost in thought.