When Dreams Become Nightmares
Maya's POV
The coffee mug flew across my tiny flat and crashed into the wall, sending hot liquid everywhere.
"Whiskers!" I yelled as my orange cat jumped down from my desk, looking way too proud of himself. "That was my last clean mug!"
I looked at the brown stain spreading across my white wall and felt like crying. This was exactly how my whole life was going - one big mess after another. College was harder than I thought. My part-time job at the shop barely paid for ramen noodles. And now my stupid cat was ruining the few nice things I owned.
My laptop screen glowed with half-finished computer code that was due tomorrow morning. Lines and lines of code that looked like alphabet soup to most people, but made perfect sense to me. At least coding was something I was good at. In the computer world, I could make things happen with just my fingers and my brain. In real life? Not so much.
I grabbed paper towels and started cleaning up the mess. "Thanks a lot, Whiskers. Now I have to drink water while I finish this impossible task."
The task wasn't really impossible. Professor Johnson just liked to give us projects that made our brains hurt. Tonight's challenge was building a program that could predict random events. Which seemed pretty dumb to me, because if you could guess something, it wasn't random anymore, right?
But I needed good grades to keep my scholarship. Without that money, I'd have to drop out and move back in with my parents. The thought made me shudder. I loved my mom and dad, but going back to my tiny hometown where nothing ever happened would feel like giving up on my dreams.
I settled back at my desk with a glass of water and tried to focus on the code. But my mind kept drifting. Outside my window, Portland looked the same as always - gray sky, wet streets, people rushing past with their heads down. Everyone seemed to have somewhere important to go, something exciting to do.
Everyone except me.
"God, my life is so boring," I said out loud, just to hear another voice in the quiet flat. "I eat the same leftover pizza every night. I do homework. I sleep. I wake up and do it all again. There has to be more to life than this."
Whiskers meowed from his spot on my couch, like he was agreeing with me.
"At least you get to knock things over for fun," I told him. "All I do is sit here typing code that no one will ever see or care about."
I took a big bite of cold pizza and made a face. Even my dinner was boring. Pepperoni pizza from three days ago, because I was too broke and too tired to order something new. My friends from high school were posting pictures on social media from parties and dates and exciting college experiences. Meanwhile, I spent Friday nights debugging programming mistakes.
"I wish something interesting would happen to me," I whispered, staring at my image in the dark window. "Just once, I want to feel like I'm living in a movie instead of watching everyone else have fun."
The moment those words left my mouth, something weird happened.
The street lights outside my window started blinking. Not all at once, but one by one, like someone was flipping switches in a pattern. I pressed my nose to the glass and watched as every light on my entire block began flashing on and off.
"That's strange," I mumbled. Maybe there was a power trouble.
But then I noticed something that made my heart skip a beat. The lights weren't just flashing randomly. They were flashing in a beat, almost like they were trying to send a message. Flash, flash, flash. Pause. Flash, flash. Pause. Flash, flash, flash, flash.
I grabbed my phone to record it, but the camera wouldn't work. The screen kept glitching with lines of static, like something was messing with the electronics.
"What the heck?"
I tried to turn on my desk lamp, but it wouldn't work either. Yet my laptop was still going fine, which made no sense. If there was a power outage, everything should be affected, not just some things.
The lighting outside got brighter and faster. Now it wasn't just the street lights. Car headlights were blinking. Neon signs from the shops across the street were going crazy. Even the traffic lights were flashing different colors in that same weird pattern.
My hands started shaking as I watched the light show outside my window. This wasn't normal. This was impossible. Electronic things didn't just sync with each other like this unless someone was controlling them. But who could control every light in an entire neighborhood?
Whiskers started making a low, growling sound I'd never heard before. His fur was standing straight up, and he was looking at something behind me.
I turned around slowly, my heart beating so hard I could hear it in my ears.
My laptop screen was changing. The code I'd been working on was disappearing, letter by letter, like unseen fingers were hitting the delete key. In its place, new words were appearing, typing themselves in bright blue letters: SHE IS THE ONE. THE BRIDGE BETWEEN WORLDS. THE PORTAL OPENS TONIGHT.
"This isn't happening," I whispered, backing away from my desk. "I'm dreaming. I fell asleep on my homework and this is just a weird dream."
But I could feel the cold air from the window. I could smell the leftover pizza. I could hear Whiskers making that strange growling noise. This was definitely real.
The text on my screen continued: MAYA CHEN. YOUR ORDINARY LIFE ENDS NOW. PREPARE FOR YOUR DESTINY.
The blue letters got brighter and brighter until they were nearly glowing off the screen. The whole flat filled with blue light, so bright I had to cover my eyes.
And then I heard something that made my blood turn to ice.
The sound of something big and heavy crashing through my living room.
When the light faded and I opened my eyes, I saw the impossible sight that would change my life forever.
A man in full medieval armor was lying in the wreckage of my coffee table, groaning like he was in pain.
And he was holding a sword.