The image was an uncomfortable blur of movements and sounds. A dark, cavernous chamber with glowing green circuitry snaking across the walls like living vines.

  Blurry patches of white, black, teal and purple darted at high speeds. Terrifying, clear sounds of cracking bones, tearing flesh, slams and gasps for air shook the floor -brutal and relentless like the ticking of a clock. The more time passed the more blood spread across the metallic surface.

  At the far end of the chamber an erratically blinking panel featured a loading screen. It read: '93% to full sealing process. 55 minutes and counting'.

  Then came an enraged roar, followed by a sickening crack. A blurry figure clad in white hit the floor with an excruciating moan, trembling, crushed under a metallic foot. Crimson stained and saturated their robes.

  At this moment the loading screen reached 100 percent. A paralyzing sound wave hit the chamber. Silence fell, disturbing and frail, allowing the figure in white to crawl towards the screen. Slowly, gasping, limps unresponsive, blood trailing behind them, they reached forward. Using the last of their strength, their pale, bloodied hand -knuckles torn to bone -touched the panel.

  The ground shook. The entire chamber exploded in a violent beam of light. The figure clad in white collapsed while a terrifying deep shriek of rage reverberated across the chamber, gradually muffled by a high-pitched whine of the system shutting down.

  Then -nothing. Silence, eerie and absolute. On the floor lay the figure in white, motionless. Their extinct eyes stayed open.

  They were chrysolite.

  Rosalyn snapped awake, gasping. Her heart raced erratically, cold sweat running down her temples. The digital clock on her nightstand read 1:47. She exhaled and placed a palm on her forehead, eyes closing briefly. Her body still trembled from the horror of the dream, but what unsettled her most was the inexplicable aching longing she felt toward the figure clad in white.

  She rose from bed and padded toward her small kitchen. Pouring herself a glass of cold water, her hands trembling, she approached the window.

  Arctar was sound asleep. The skyscrapers' windows were dark, unlit, metal and glass reflecting the faint glow of stars, the haloes of streetlamps, and the neon signs scattered across the streets. The polished floor tiles mirrored the glow in quiet perfection.

  In the suburbs, the Dream Factory rose like a surreal caricature, its forms absurdly lit in pinks, blues, greens, yellows, and oranges, garish against the city's graphite greys and deep blues.

  From her 12th-floor flat, Rosalyn could take in much of the city, though it was far from the best view. Only the elites living on the highest floors enjoyed that privilege.

  As a student of the Academy, her living expenses were covered, and she resided in the student dorms: a modest thirty-meter tower just south of the Academy gates. Her flat faced South-East, so the Academy Grounds were hidden from sight, leaving her only the sprawling city beyond.

  From her window, she could spot two of the Four Great Trees. In difficult times, she liked observing them, their silhouettes and faintly glowing leaves at night always calmed her, the distant hum of the city amplifying the effect.

  She drank the water, exhaling as the dream's terror slowly ebbed. Returning to bed, she felt the lingering ache, the longing for that mysterious figure refusing to fade.

  -------------------------------------------

  Morning came too soon. Rosalyn was already on her feet, her chest still faintly tight from the dream. She packed her lunch, tidied the plates from breakfast, and paused in front of the mirror.

  She dressed the way she always did, in clothes that steadied her nerves: a slim ivory blouse tucked into a forest-green skirt; a brown jacket left open, matching the color of her laced ankle boots. Her long auburn waves framed her pale face in the mirror, teal eyes sharp against her skin. She caught herself staring at her reflection too long, shame rising. What was the point? There was no one to notice anyway.

  She grabbed her bag and left.

  Arctar was already buzzing. Cars hummed, public transport rumbled, and the sharp clicking of countless shoes struck the city's polished tiles. Crowds packed the pavements, moving in restless currents.

  Rosalyn walked at her own pace. She disliked rushing. It always unsettled her thoughts. The Academy wasn't far from the dorms, and she preferred to take in the streets around her.

  Most walls and skyscraper facades were plastered with Dream Factory posters, their slogans sparkling with their usual nonsense: 'Dream in us who dream in you', 'Dream or Cream',... Sometimes, beneath the neat rows of posters, a passerby had scribbled their confusion in small letters: 'I still don't get it...'

  At the crossroads, Rosalyn stopped with the crowd, waiting for the signal. Across the street, a giant screen lit up with a new advertisement: a gnome started vacuuming with exaggerated joy while a cheerful voiceover chimed.

  "Tired of cleaning without pizzazz? Falling into the endless loop of dust, crumbs, and motes? The Dream Factory has your salvation! Meet the Dream Vac: the vacuum cleaner that doesn't just clean, it transforms! Thanks to our top-secret converter embedded inside the Dream Vac, every scrap of dust is instantly turned into glitter and sprinkled right back onto your floor! Because why stop cleaning when you can sparkle forever? Order now at your nearest Dream Factory store and, as a bonus, the first fifteen customers will receive an autograph from Sir Vu himself! Dream big. Dream Vu!"

  The crowd stirred as the light turned green. Rosalyn crossed with them, the towering Academy gates rising ahead. They were always imposing, no matter how often she saw them. Even now, in her third year of architectural studies, they made her feel small.

  Arctar was a metropolis of glass and neon, and it had only one Academy, a world-class hub that drew students from across the continent. Its impeccable reputation was only heightened by the inexplicable lushness of its grounds. For centuries, Arctar's soil had been dead, incapable of supporting life. The city survived by imports, and only the Four Great Trees, scattered like watchtowers, defied the barrenness. Why they lived was mystery enough.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  But the Academy's Grounds were stranger still. Within its gates, the sterility of the city ended as if cut by a blade. No gradual shift, no transition, just an instant passage into another world.

  Lush hills rolled with trees and rare shrubbery, glowing dandelions swayed in clusters, and lantern-like tulip blossoms shimmered from within. Wisteria trailed down colonnades, pine forests stretched along winding paths, and sinuous passageways led from groves to greenhouses, from faculty halls to quiet spaces for study and reflection. Scientists kept studying its soil certain the secret here could restore the rest of Arctar. They had found nothing, the research was ongoing.

  The Academy itself stood in sharp contrast to the city's modern chrome and glass architecture. It was a vast stone manor of marble columns and archways, its four wings forming a great X. At the center, where the four wings met, was a large atrium beneath a glass dome. At its heart grew a towering wisteria tree, its boughs spilling into the common space where cafés, study halls, and staircases drew students together. Each wing housed a faculty:

  Northeast – Civic & Cultural Thought: history, philosophy, journalism, linguistics, ethics.

  Northwest – Structural & Exact Sciences: mathematics, physics, engineering, architecture, computing.

  Southeast – Order & Defense: military training, law, criminology, strategy, security technologies.

  Southwest – Natural & Life Sciences: biology, medicine, geology, botany, environmental sciences.

  Rosalyn turned toward the Northwestern wing. She had two lectures and an exercise session today. Lectures were always her favorite. In the sea of bowed heads and scratching pens, she could vanish into anonymity. The low murmur of students swapping notes, the occasional cough, the tap of chalk on board, all of it wrapped her in a noise that somehow eased her nerves.

  Exercise sessions were different. Smaller rooms, fewer desks, and group works meant nowhere to hide. She had learned to arrive early, sliding into a desk by the window before the others came in. Better that than suffer the sting of students turning away when she tried to sit beside them. Even then, her table was always the last to fill, as though her presence had the effect of a repellent. Three years of this treatment hadn't hardened her. The quiet ache still gnawed at her chest every time, though she had grown skilled at pretending it didn't.

  From her window seat, the lush grounds outside offered brief reprieve. The glowing blossoms and swaying trees blurred into a calming rhythm, sometimes even coaxing a faint smile from her. Lately she had chosen desks with a particular view, those that allowed her to glimpse the far-off Abandoned Gardens on the western edge of the Academy Grounds.

  The Abandoned Gardens were a place of tangled vines and crumbling ruins, long deserted but preserved for their history. Few went there. Stories circulated. Students sneaking in at night, trying to set shrubbery aflame only to fail again and again, until the fire finally took but left each of them with blackened scars on their right hands all while leaving the greenery intact. No one knew if the tale was true, still the Abandoned Gardens carried a reputation of being unsettling, almost untouchable.

  Rosalyn had never set foot there. A part of her was afraid, and fear always grew sharper in solitude. Yet whenever her gaze drifted to those ruins, she felt a strange pull, a longing she could not explain. Her chest tightened in the same way it had in her dream -the one where she had seen the blurred, bloodied figure in white. She shivered.

  The study session dragged on, long and tiring as always. When it finally ended, Rosalyn longed for was a moment of quiet, to breathe without being judged, stared at, or ignored. So she followed her familiar ritual. She pulled out her sketchbook and went in search of a calm, empty place where she could draw whatever caught her eye.

  The Academy Grounds never failed to offer marvels.

  Today, after leaving her wing, she hesitated before the stone path leading north, then followed it, circling away from the Academy buildings and toward the pine forest. She stepped into the dark mass of trees. Lanterns hung here and there, giving the shadows a soft, uneven glow, but the place still felt unnerving. Rosalyn wavered, wondering whether she should turn back.

  Then she noticed a brighter glow ahead. Curious, she pressed on. The pines opened suddenly into a surprisingly large clearing, as if many trees had once been cut down to shape it. From the Academy's main building, it was hidden entirely by dense rows of pines. The air smelled richly of resin, golden beads of amber seeping from barks.

  Rosalyn smiled. Settling beneath a pine, she drew her knees up, balanced her sketchbook, and began tracing the living scene before her.

  Some time passed, her pencil tracing lines and shadows. When she finally looked up from her sketchbook, she froze.

  A tall man had stepped into the clearing from the opposite side. Rosalyn's breath caught. She recognized him instantly.

  Chairman David O'Neil.

  He had become chairman of the Academy unusually young, appointed in his late-twenties for his prodigious skill in electronics. Now thirty-seven, he was one of Arctar's most influential elites, cold, brilliant, calculating, and relentlessly perfectionist. He never smiled.

  David had a striking appearance: tall and lean, handsome in a clinical, razor-sharp way. His short blond hair was neatly combed back, his steel-grey eyes framed by thin platinum glasses. He wore an impeccably tailored matte-cream suit, a crisp white shirt, and a charcoal tie held with a platinum clip. A platinum watch glinted at his wrist, and thin white gloves added to the unspoken do not touch me air that clung to him.

  Rosalyn stayed utterly still as his presence seemed to cool the clearing. He walked with slow precision, a notebook in one hand and a compass in the other, moving in deliberate circles as though searching for something.

  Then, suddenly, his composure cracked. He shook the compass violently, then hurled it to the ground with a snarl of frustration.

  Rosalyn's heart leapt. She had never imagined the stoic, untouchable chairman capable of such a tantrum.

  As if realizing it himself, David stilled. His grey gaze swept the clearing and locked onto her. Her blood ran cold.

  He strode toward her, fists clenched, an icy aura radiating with every step. Rosalyn shot to her feet, instinctively bowing her head just as his voice cut the air, sharp as glass.

  "This is a restricted area. Students are not allowed here. Leave immediately."

  "I apologize. I saw no fences, so I thought -"

  "Fences will be installed shortly. In the meantime, signs are posted on every route to this clearing. Did you not see them? Or do you need a vision adjustment?"

  Her throat tightened. "I did not see anything, sir."

  David muttered something about useless youth before striding to the edge of the clearing. Sure enough, there was a wooden pole planted in the earth but no sign attached. His jaw clenched. He pulled his notebook open and began scribbling furiously. For an instant Rosalyn glimpsed golden lettering embossed on its cover: Misanthropic Musings, Vol. IV.

  The snap of the notebook closing made her flinch.

  "You are dismissed," he said curtly. "Stay away from this place in the future."

  "Yes, sir."

  Rosalyn turned at once, quick steps carrying her back through the pines, the chill of the chairman's gaze piercing her from behind.

  As her footsteps faded into the shadows, leaving the clearing empty, David walked back to the center and bent down to retrieve the compass he had thrown moments ago. He shook it once, then fixed his gaze on the point it indicated. Time seemed to stretch as he calculated silently.

  Finally, he crouched and touched the spot lightly, careful so as not to smudge his pristine white gloves.

  "So... it's here."