Mio realised she was dreaming amid an 'excessive stillness'.
There was not a sound in the classroom.
There was no rustling of pages, no footsteps and no whisper of wind through the curtains.
Even the faint hum of the fluorescent tubes, something one scarcely noticed in daily life, was absent.
She stood at the classroom doorway.
The door was open, as if waiting for her to enter.
Sunlight poured unimpeded through the windows, its brightness seeming almost unreal. The white window frames, pale desks and gleaming floor were rendered with excessive clarity, as if deliberately preserved as a fragment of 'daytime'.
But within the classroom—
Not a soul was present.
Mio slowly stepped inside. Her footsteps should have echoed in the empty space, yet she heard nothing. The sound of her shoes on the floor seemed to have been swallowed by some invisible force.
Her gaze drifted involuntarily towards the back row.
The very last row.
The window seat.
Someone was sitting there.
Mio's breath caught in her throat.
It was Li.
She was sitting perfectly upright with her hands resting on the desk as though she had been waiting there for ages. Sunlight fell upon her profile, softening her features yet lending her an inexplicable sense of detachment.
Not a 'familiar face'.
Rather, she seemed out of place.
Mio couldn't explain why she felt this way. All she knew was that, the instant she saw Li, her heart gave a heavy thud as though struck by an invisible force.
Li lifted her head and looked at her.
Their gazes met.
In that moment, Mio almost instinctively opened her mouth to call Li's name.
But before she could utter a sound, Li moved first.
Li's lips parted slightly.
She was speaking.
Mio could see everything clearly: the mouth movements, the breaths and even the slightest twitch of the jaw were all utterly lifelike.
Yet the classroom remained deathly silent.
Not a sound.
Not a single one.
Mio froze, a vague flutter of unease rising in her chest. She wanted to step forward and confirm whether Li was playing a prank or had simply not heard her.
But her feet felt as though they were nailed to the floor.
Li seemed to sense something; her expression shifted ever so slightly.
It wasn't anger or confusion.
It was a kind of fleeting disappointment.
Li spoke again.
This time, her movements were more pronounced, as if she were straining to 'push' the words out. Yet the result remained the same — the air hung with a cruel stillness.
Mio finally shook her head.
"I can't hear you."
She wasn't sure if the words had truly left her lips.
All she saw was Li's movements halt.
He looked at her, his gaze settling into a calmness that suggested he'd anticipated this outcome.
The next instant, the entire classroom began to blur.
The light seemed to dissolve like ink in water, its edges gradually fading. Desks, windows and floorboards slowly lost focus.
Only Li remained sharply in focus, seated there.
Before the dream collapsed entirely, Mio caught a fleeting expression on Li's face.
Like relief.
Or perhaps confirmation of something.
Mio's eyes snapped open.
Her heart pounded wildly, threatening to burst from her chest. She sat up, gasping for breath; her forehead and back were drenched in cold sweat.
The room was bathed in the familiar darkness of night.
The clock ticked quietly; everything seemed normal.
Yet that sense of unease lingered stubbornly.
It was all too clear.
Every detail of the dream was sharp and almost unreal. Li's position, the angle of the sunlight and the expression on her face when she opened her mouth were all etched firmly into Mio's mind.
Mio lowered her gaze to the notebook resting beside the bed.
The cover was slightly ajar.
It was as if someone had leafed through it.
Her heart skipped a beat once more.
She couldn't fathom why she felt this way.
Yet one thing was utterly certain to Mio in that instant:
This had not been an ordinary dream.
It was only when Mio opened the notebook for the second time that she realised that something was wrong.
The first time, she had merely glanced at it instinctively.
The cover was still the same well-worn black notebook with slightly frayed edges and her hastily scribbled timetable stuck inside the front flap. There was nothing unusual or unfamiliar.
She closed it.
Then, as she prepared to put it back in her bag, she paused.
No.
Mio took the notebook out again and opened it once more.
This time, she could see it clearly.
An extra page had appeared between the original blank pages.
It wasn't a page that had been torn out and replaced, nor a sticky note that had been slipped in. Its texture, colour and thickness matched those of the other pages perfectly, as if it had always been there.
Her fingertips paused at the edge of the page.
Words were written on it.
Mio's breath grew shallow.
These were not hastily scribbled notes or random doodles, but clear, composed content that seemed organised.
A record of her dream from last night.
The classroom.
Empty.
Daylight.
The back row.
Li.
Every detail matched her memory perfectly.
Even the few seconds she had hesitated at the doorway all those years ago had been captured with precision.
Mio's throat tightened.
She turned to the page header.
There, the time was written:
03:14–03:26.
Precise to the minute.
Mio's heart sank abruptly.
That was precisely the time she had woken up at the night before.
She was certain that she hadn't got up, switched on the light or sat down to write. She remembered being startled awake by a nightmare and feeling her heart race. She'd sat up in bed for mere seconds before lying back down.
Her gaze slowly drifted towards the writing itself.
It was her handwriting.
Every stroke, the pressure at the end of each line and the unconscious spacing between certain letters and Chinese characters matched her usual writing perfectly.
There was no trace of imitation.
No deliberate blurring.
It was an undeniable feeling.
This was hers.
But she couldn't remember a single detail.
Mio's fingers tightened involuntarily and her nails pressed lightly into the paper. She tried to think of any possible explanation: sleepwalking, unconscious recording, memory gaps.
Yet no matter how she pondered it, none of them made sense.
She continued reading.
Near the end, the content became sparse.
They were no longer complete sentences, but fragmented notes, as if the writer had become hurried, as if they were racing against time.
Finally, only one line remained:
A solitary line.
No time stamp.
There was no explanation whatsoever.
——
"She saw me."
—
Mio's pupils contracted slightly.
In that instant, she almost instinctively looked up towards the corner of the room.
Of course, there was nothing there.
The room was as quiet as ever, the curtains drawn to keep the night outside. The world looked normal.
Yet those words still seemed to glow on the page.
Not 'I saw her.'
But—
She saw me.'
Mio slowly closed the notebook.
Her heartbeat slowed and grew heavy.
A silent, indescribable intuition surfaced within her.
This notebook wasn't recording her dreams.
It was—
It was confirming something that had already happened.
And it didn't belong to her alone.