They say your twenties are supposed to be the best years of your life, but I must've missed the memo. Mine mostly revolve around trying to stay awake during lectures, calculating how many hours I can work without failing my course, and wondering how it's already midnight when I've barely scratched the surface of my to-do list.
I'm studying to become a physicist. Not because I dream of working at CERN or unlocking the mysteries of the universe but because I'm good at it. Numbers make sense. Equations behave. They don't lie, flake on group projects, or leave mouldy dishes in the sink. Physics is honest, in its own weird, abstract way. So I stick with it.
Outside of class, I work at Garrick's Grocery. Small place. Cramped aisles. Always smells faintly of cleaning spray and old bananas. It's not glamorous, but it pays for rent, instant noodles, and just enough pub nights to keep me sane. Plus, I've become something of a human barcode scanner - I can tell you the price of a tin of beans before it even hits the conveyor belt.
Then there's my friends Ollie, who thinks he's the next Twitch sensation despite having six viewers, and Mia, who talks like a walking Wikipedia and always insists she's "not that smart." We're all just clinging to each other, trying to fake it till we make it. Sometimes I think that's the real student experience not the lectures or deadlines, but the quiet solidarity of mutually shared burnout.
Tonight is the same as most. A mind-numbing lecture on quantum fields, a six-hour shift at the store, and a late-night chat with Ollie about how time isn't real, which ironically lasted until half-past one. Now, I'm finally back in my room, head hitting the pillow like a sack of bricks. My laptop hums quietly on the desk. The streetlight outside flickers like it's debating whether to keep existing.
And just as I start to drift off, the world explodes in light.
The flash is blinding white-hot and absolute, like a lightning bolt detonated in the centre of my room. I jolt upright, heart slamming against my ribs, eyes squeezed shut against the impossible brightness. My brain scrambles for explanations. Electrical fault? Explosion? Stroke?
But then… silence.
No ringing. No smoke. Just stillness, and a strange, tingling pressure in the air, like the room is holding its breath.
I crack one eye open.
She's floating in the middle of my room, right above the second-hand rug I stole from Ollie last year. My vision swims, struggling to process the impossible sight in front of me. A woman, impossibly tall and unnervingly serene, is suspended just above the floor, bathed in a soft silver glow that pulses like a heartbeat.
Her hair is the first thing I notice. A cascade of scarlet, deep and rich like molten rubies, rippling in the air as if underwater. It falls past her waist in waves, strands tipped with glowing embers that wink in and out of existence. Her eyes are brighter still - iridescent violet, lit from within like twin stars, impossible to look away from. They aren't human eyes. They see too much.
She wears a gown that shifts like living ink, alternating between deep purples, midnight blues, and galaxies I'm not convinced exist on any map. Unfamiliar ancient runes move across the fabric like drifting constellations. Her skin is pale and luminous, like moonlight carved into form, and there's an intricate tattoo spiralling from her collarbone up one side of her neck a glyph that hums with soft magical resonance I can somehow feel in my teeth.
And still, I say nothing. I just sit there in bed, blinking like an idiot, my blanket half-fallen to the floor, as this celestial fever dream regards me with an expression somewhere between amusement and pity.
Finally, she speaks. Her voice is velvet and thunder all at once a melody layered over raw, electric power.
"Jack Johnson," she says, like she's known me my whole life. "You've been chosen."
I open my mouth. No sound comes out.
She tilts her head slightly, as if inspecting an unexpected bug in her spell work. "I am Deyanira Goddess of Magic. You are now my champion in the Trial of Ascension."
I blink again. "I… I think you've got the wrong Jack."
She smiles eerily.
"I do not make mistakes."