Iris swiped her hand across a wooden wall, leaving a trail of green liquid along the path. It solidified into rows of thin lines, lines whose curves shifted, danced, and weaved scripts onto the wall. They glowed like stars while bubbling, releasing perfumes which blanketed the room.

  Wharang closed her eyes and sniffed the beautiful particles in the air. Her fox ears twitched. She shivered. She closed her mouth before any embarrassing noises could overcome her. This wondrous scent exceeded her expectations.

  She looked at her satisfied friend. “If you sell it as exclusive perfume, people will spend fortunes acquiring one bottle.”

  “It’s nothing special.”

  “It reminded me of a walk in a lush forest. I could see tall trees with vines hanging from their expanding branches. Birds chirping, flowers blooming.”

  “You have quite an imaginative mind.”

  “Your spell is too profound; no wonder Mistress promotes you.”

  “And now you’re my secretary.”

  “As promised.” Wharang chuckled. “My own personal room, isn’t it amazing?”

  “Is it not a little small?” Iris smiled. “You can stay in my room.”

  Wharang tilted her head. Her nose was feeling funny. “You’re my superior now, Linda. I can’t be that close to you.”

  Iris snapped her fingers. The spell painted on the wall dried and dispersed as ashes. The particles in the air vanished, and the rustic impression subsided.

  “You’ve gotten a lot more mysterious,” Wharang said.

  “Would you like to know why?”

  “Will you explain if I say yes?”

  “Will you believe me?”

  Wharang shook her head. “You’re not tricking me this time; I’ll go now. My work is calling.”

  Once Wharang left the room, Iris walked to a curtained wall and parted it. A large map of an ocean displayed batches of small, lush islands and marks of perils throughout the body of water. A singular heart insignia represented the lone ship, sailing around the great regions of dangers and secrets.

  It had been a few weeks since Iris became Linda. She lived Linda’s life, felt Linda’s body, and experienced Linda’s emotions. Her attempt to return home was futile. Her spells of dreams could not wake her; a power beyond her means controlled this realm, this memory fragment.

  She closed her eyes and intoned. Her voice scattered into waves that constructed an apology of a journal. She flipped through its blank pages, on which invisible inks painted vague sceneries. They came from her past, not Iris’s but Linda’s. They depicted blurry moments, intense feelings, and palpable sensations.

  As clearer images manifested on the pages, Iris trembled. She winced, her heart clutching itself. A crushing feeling overcame her. She lost her grip on the book and staggered forward. She pushed against the map and violently coughed.

  Blood splattered the map. The book crashed against the wooden floor. Its magical appearance slowly dispersed. Iris decisively reached for the book and opened it.

  Butterflies sprouted from the empty pages, whose disintegrating papers lit up and poured out springs. Flowers and bushes grew and tangled, forming a thick forest. The overgrowth blocked the midday sun but failed to cover the majesty of a castle near its periphery.

  Iris admired the towers atop the castle before she stepped toward it. Her feet landed on the dirt. The ground sank. The trees collapsed on her. She braced herself, but the patches of leaves fell only around her.

  She warded off the blanket and found herself in a banquet hall. Maids carried trays of food and tea sets while butlers greeted the guests of high standing. Their traditional attires resembled the dynastic past, adorned with golden pins and jade orbs.

  With music lingering in the air, the nobles and officials chatted with the host. Their language eluded Iris, but she could sense their tones. She focused on the sounds, but another voice interrupted her moment.

  “They’ll notice if you keep trying to break the Dream Fragment.”

  Iris turned around. She couldn’t find the owner of that mischievous voice. “I want to know my past.”

  “You want to know more, more than you should.”

  “I will get what I want.”

  Iris smirked. She raised her right hand. An insignia of a skeleton hand holding a rose manifested. Although the hand was covered in slime, it emitted the same distortive pressure. The world trembled, twisted, and flickered like a monitor losing its signal.

  “The Dream Fragment is more real than you thought.”

  “Your voice sounds beautiful.”

  “Now’s not the time for us to meet.”

  “I’m never the one to follow arrangements.”

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  Iris crushed the insignia—the fabric of reality bent. Shadows loomed above the frozen banquet. Their indistinct gazes oversaw ripples in spacetime. Nothing could escape their penetrating sights.

  Fuzzy lines sparked in front of Iris. A blurred outline of a lady came through the void. But she never arrived at the material world. Her unseen appearance haunted the Dream Fragment. Ever her mere presence unravelled the fog of dreams surrounding this realm.

  “I do not want to give your friends false hope,” she said. “We will meet when it’s inevitable.”

  The lady clapped her hands. The distortion sank to the ground. A flood of mist dominated the unmoving banquet. She submerged back into the dream world, where hazes obscured all existence in thin ripples, in thick radiance.

  When the lady’s last trace vanished, the chattering resumed. Maids hurriedly walked past Iris. They did not notice her existence, nor did she notice theirs. This world was not hers; she could not interfere with it.

  The host officiated the beginning of the banquet. Performers entered through the side doors and prepared the central stage. Musicians positioned around the circular stage, their spirits and instruments ready. Strings vibrated with the grace exuded by dancers. Voices raised and lowered like blades of grass tugged by the drizzles at dawn.

  Among the crowds, Pluvia was greeting her confidants and friends. A few attendants followed her, holding her long dress tail. She flashed polite smiles and waved gentle praises at her peers, but she never gave any more attention than the minimum.

  Iris appeared before Pluvia and carefully examined her dress. Her minutiae—the mole on her left arm, a few curly silver strands of hair, and a mark in her right eye—confirmed her identity.

  Despite being so young and proper, her mistress remained elegant.

  She shouldn’t do it, but Iris still reached to touch her mistress’s arm. Her index finger grazed that soft shoulder. Pluvia shivered and shifted backwards. Her friends asked what was wrong, but she changed the topic.

  An imperceptible mark, a slime droplet, engraved itself near the mole. Pluvia touched her shoulder, feeling comforting warmth spreading to her chest.

  “Mistress, please forgive me,” Iris said.

  Pluvia’s ears twitched. She turned around, but Iris was no longer there.

  Iris walked to a towering crimson gate. It stood out from the meek and humble decorative, whose purpose might have been noises to enhance its prestige.

  She placed her hands on it. The castle shook under her might. Her hair flared up while her dress rustled from the pressure. She forced open the metallic gate, and a shockwave blasted through the castle.

  The world cracked. Its layer of existence shattered into pieces, revealing a deeper land of clearer truth.

  Atop a platform before a golden palace, an imperial lady stood in solitude, her back facing Iris, casting a dim shadow over the world below. She tilted her head, enough to reveal her suppressed smile, and slighted her gaze toward her guest.

  Iris met her attention with equal expectations. Their sights entangled, fused, and merged. For a fleeting moment, a moment all dreamers felt before they woke up, a moment where thinkers reached enlightenment, they became connected in thoughts and spirits.

  Following the routine, Iris knelt. The imperial princess also knelt. Their synchronised movement matched the drifting clouds above. Their heads carefully touched the ground, their kowtow the sole origin of noise in this silent world.

  “Please save us,” the princess said. “Please save us before the end time.”

  “I cannot change the past.”

  “Become our successor.”

  “I… can’t bear any more burden.”

  The princess and Iris raised their heads. They stared into each other’s desolate eyes, felt each other’s trouble.

  Before Iris could speak another word, the ritualistic platform quaked. The golden palace fell through a sinkhole, its towers and peaks crumbled like decayed trees.

  Iris opened her eyes. She was sleeping on her bed, alone, at peace. She looked for the book, but it had already dissipated.

  A few knocks interrupted her recollection. Wharang entered the room with a bottle of hot water. She served her friend some dried fruits and sat beside the bed.

  “I found you collapsed in front of the map,” Wharang said. “You were never like this.”

  “How was I like?”

  “You were—”

  The room was knocked sideways by a grand tide. The ornaments and silverware on tables and desks slid down the floor. Although they didn’t break, their metallic, ceramic noises clattered the atmosphere. Wharang pushed herself against the supporting beam of the bed, but she still found herself so close to her best friend’s modest chest.

  She leaned away when her best friend got up and out of the room. She pursed her lips and chased. A few crewmates also came of their logging. Yells about assembly spread through the ship, but Wharang paid them no heed.

  That look wasn’t something Linda would make, not without dreadful reasons.

  Pluvia was looking onward at the front deck. Severe gales blew her hair messy, her clothes wrinkled. Despite having Iris by her side, she gave her traveller friend no attention. Only the mark of her dream could capture her total focus.

  A line of darkness painted itself onto the ship, the ship housing a hundred people, a lone ship among the drifting deep blue ocean, a speck of dust before the monument whose height supported the sky.

  It was a double gate, golden rimmed, crimson shaded. Behind it hid a maze of an unseen world, the world known through whispers of the ancient and murals of the forgotten.

  Iris recognised this gate. Its familiar aura imposed on her, forcing her to knees and kowtow, but she refused. She glared at the creek between the royal yet antique gates for the slightest opening.

  A hymn broke the chaotic tides. Dark clouds gathered to block the sun. Whirlpools gathered to block the currents. The double gate trembled.

  “Is this your destination?” Iris said.

  “Are you leaving?” Pluvia glanced at her companion. “You said you were a traveller, but you never once told me your origin.”

  “Alas, I didn’t come through that gate.”

  “You sounded familiar…”

  Iris narrowed her eyes. She leaned closer to her mistress and, whispering a softhearted apology, touched her mistress’s arm. She moved her fingers along Pluvia’s forearm, down to her wrist, and unhooked the sleeve buttons.

  As the sleeve parted, Pluvia shivered. Freezing winds pinched her fair skin, but she kept her voice inside. Her eyes fixated on Linda, whose behaviour distorted her prior mildness.

  “What are you doing?” Pluvia muttered between her heavy breaths.

  Iris exposed Pluvia’s left shoulder. Beside the lovely mole was a droplet-shaped mark. She squeezed it.

  Pluvia slipped out a moan. She stepped away from Linda and turned to the gate. Its trembling sent waves back and forth, but those waves subsided before they could reach the ship, leaving a trail, a water carpet for its sole guest.

  Iris touched her forehead. An insignia of a golden crown materialised. She clutched it and held it forward. Her soul resonated with the power within the gate. A beam of light surged from her body; she brightly smiled.

  “Pluvia, history will remember you,” she said. “I must go now.”

  “Will you come back?”

  “I believe we’ll see each other again.”

  Pluvia silently nodded. She touched her left shoulder, felt the tingling sensation, and looked onward. An invisible force attracted the ship, pushing it past the point of no return.

  Iris slowly levitated above the deck. She headed for the gate on a flight of stormy air.

  Below her Wharang frailly waved her arms. Her face flushed as cold droplets dirtied her clothes and drained her warmth.

  “Where are you going!”

  Iris stopped, turned around, and mouthed a farewell. “I hope you’ll remember me, Wharang.”

  “Aren’t we friends?”

  “We are.” Iris closed her eyes. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Wait—”

  Iris opened her eyes.

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