♡
For a dream they wouldn’t want to end.
Coral marked the roads, colorful fish perused the unused asphalt and skyscrapers towered miles high - still not tall enough to see the surface of the water. Yong wasn’t swimming. He was watching from the window of the University, one large hand pressed to the thick glass. Respectively, each building was trapped. There were no tunnels to carry people from one place to another.
Across the road was his grandmother’s house in China: where he and his sisters lived every summer for eighteen years. But he couldn’t get to them. His fingers etched at the glass, wondering if he should pick away at it and let the water come rushing in so he could swim over - but if he opened their door too, they’d be swallowed by the sea. Behind him were the voices of cheerful people. Classmates and professors and friends. But one face grabbed him in particular. He didn’t know why - he hadn’t spoken to her, but he’d seen her around. She held one of his favorite bracelets he’d been given as a child with the etchings of a mighty dragon.
He chased her. She ran around stairs, through empty corridors, and into rooms that he hadn’t seen in years, but he was focused on her. His legs felt like iron poles, yet he needed his bracelet. Her hair flowed vibrantly as if they were living in water. Something light about this stranger made him feel distant from his dilemma, simply chasing her for the sake of it. He finally rounded up to her and reached his hand out to grab his bracelet, touching where it lay on her wrist for a brief moment. He pulled. Her face twisted with alarm before vanishing behind the door he’d accidentally opened.
The water tasted like honeydew.