She opens her eyes.

The world comes into focus slowly, like a photograph developing in reverse. First comes the gray sky, heavy with layers of wet clouds. Then the concrete residential buildings around her, their windows dark and uniform. Finally, the asphalt beneath her sneakers, wet and glistening under the early morning mist.

She is standing right in the middle of the road.

Xiaoyu does not know how she got here. She has no memory of walking down her building's stairwell or choosing to step out into the dawn chill. She only remembers a sudden, blinding flash of white light, and now, this.

Her head carries a strange weight. It is not a sharp, stabbing pain, but a dull ache sitting right behind her eyes. It makes the passing world seem slightly out of focus, like she is watching a video with low bandwidth. She reaches up to touch her forehead, but her hand feels entirely weightless.

A drop of moisture falls through the air. It is raining, a light, hazy mist that usually covers the city in early spring. It should make her hair damp and her skin prickle with cold. She is only wearing her school uniform, the oversized blue-and-white tracksuit that offers absolutely no protection against the wind. Yet she feels nothing. No cold, no dampness, nothing except that stubborn fog in her mind and a quiet, creeping realization that something is terribly wrong.

She looks down the street. It is completely familiar. She has walked this exact path every single day for the past two years to get to school. She knows where the sidewalk cracks, where the street food carts usually park, and where the puddles form.

A group of students from her grade walks toward her. They are huddled together under a massive shared umbrella, laughing about how brutal the upcoming weekly mock exam is going to be. Xiaoyu steps to the side to give them room on the narrow pavement.

They do not step back. They do not even look at her.

Instead, the three girls walk straight through her.

Xiaoyu freezes. There is no physical impact, no collision of shoulders. It feels like a sudden dip in temperature, a brief, icy shudder that passes through her chest and leaves as quickly as it came. The girls keep walking, their voices fading into the mist as they complain about their chemistry homework.

Panic, cold and sharp, hits her stomach. Xiaoyu turns around and runs.

She runs away from the school gates, back toward the old residential compound where her family lives. She sprints up the concrete stairs of her building, passing the neighbor's cluttered bicycle rack and the smell of fried eggs and scallions drifting from under kitchen doors. She reaches her apartment, door number 402. The heavy security door is locked tight.

Without thinking, she throws her weight against the metal.

She passes right through the iron plating, stumbling into the small, dimly lit entryway. Her breath is ragged, though she notices her chest isn't actually moving.

From the living room, a sound cuts through the silence. It is a terrible, broken noise.

Xiaoyu walks slowly around the corner. Her mother is sitting on the floor by the sofa, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking violently. Her father stands beside her, his face completely pale, his eyes fixed on the dining table.

Sitting on the table is a wooden frame. Inside is Xiaoyu's school portrait, the one taken just last semester where she was smiling awkwardly into the camera. A small black ribbon is pinned perfectly to the upper corner.

The fog in her head suddenly clears, and the memory returns with the force of a physical blow. The screech of brakes on the slick asphalt. The blinding glare of high beams cutting through the dawn rain. The terrifying crunch of metal.

She looks at her parents, her hands reaching out to touch her mother's trembling shoulder, but her fingers simply sink into the fabric of her mother's sweater without leaving a trace.

She is dead. She is still here, standing in her own living room, but she is entirely gone.