"Is this... are you breaking up with me right now?"
I stared at Jasmine, trying to process what was happening on the school steps.
Her arms were crossed so tight I thought she might accidentally cosplay as a pretzel.
"Don't act surprised, Zen."
"I'm not acting."
"You literally forgot our three-month anniversary."
I blinked.
"That's... a thing people celebrate?"
Wrong answer.
Her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.
"And you're always off in your own world, like nothing matters."
"I pay attention to things that matter."
Another wrong answer, apparently.
Jasmine's face went through approximately seventy-three emotions in two seconds flat.
"See? THAT'S what I mean! You just—you just SAY things!"
"I do tend to communicate verbally, yes."
She threw her hands up.
"This is exactly why we're done!"
Students were walking by, some pretending not to watch while absolutely watching.
Nothing like a public breakup to spice up a Tuesday afternoon.
"So we're really doing this here?" I asked, gesturing vaguely at our audience.
"Would you have preferred a text?" she snapped.
I considered this for a moment.
"Actually, yes."
Her jaw dropped just a little.
"Unbelievable."
"What? It's efficient. No awkward audience. I could process my feelings while eating ice cream in private."
"You don't HAVE feelings, Zen!"
Ouch.
That one actually stung a bit.
I scratched my neck, suddenly very aware of just how many people were pretending not to listen.
"Look, Jazz—"
"Don't call me that anymore."
"Jasmine," I corrected. "I'm sorry about the anniversary thing."
She stared at me, waiting for more.
I had nothing more.
"That's it? That's your grand apology?"
I shrugged.
"Would you prefer interpretive dance?"
And that was the moment Jasmine officially reached her limit.
She grabbed her bag, pulled it over her shoulder with enough force to launch a satellite, and turned away.
"Have a nice life, Zensalem."
Only my mom and extremely angry people used my full name.
I watched her storm off, her curls bouncing with each furious step.
"Well," I muttered to absolutely no one, "that could've gone better."
Or worse, honestly.
At least she didn't throw anything.
Progress.
I sighed and started walking home alone, hands stuffed in my jacket pockets.
The thing about breakups is you never know which one you're supposed to be sad about.
This one... felt like a mild inconvenience more than anything.
Three months wasn't even that long.
Though apparently it was long enough to warrant a celebration I didn't know existed.
I caught my reflection in a car window as I passed.
Dark dreadlocks hanging just past my shoulders, brown skin that my grandma called "blessed by the sun," eyes that always looked like I was five seconds from a nap.
Girls at school called it "sexy-tired."
Mom called it "staying up too late playing those games."
Both were accurate.
The fall air hit differently today, crisper somehow.
I cut through my usual shortcut behind the mall, mentally calculating how much ice cream I'd need to convince myself I cared about this breakup.
Two pints, minimum.
Maybe three.
The shortcut narrowed into an alley I'd walked a hundred times before.
Except today, something was different.
Between the convenience store and the laundromat was a shop I'd never noticed.
"The Weave Garden."
Weird name.
Weirder that I'd never seen it before.
The storefront was all reflective glass, like a mirror maze at a carnival.
I stopped, staring at my own reflection.
And then I blinked.
My dreadlocks... were white.
Not blonde.
Not grey.
Pure, snow white.
I raised my hand to touch them, and my reflection did the same.
"What the..."
I blinked again, rubbing my eyes.
When I looked back, my reflection still showed white dreadlocks.
I glanced up at the store sign, thinking maybe it was some weird light effect from their neon.
But the sign had changed.
"The Weave Garden" was gone.
In its place were symbols I'd never seen before — glyphs that somehow looked like they were moving when I wasn't focusing directly on them.
A chill ran down my spine.
Something was very wrong.
I turned around to get my bearings.
The alley was gone.
Instead, I stood on a wide street paved with what looked like polished stone.
The laundromat had vanished.
The convenience store was now a tall building with floating crystals in the window display.
"Okay, this isn't funny," I said to absolutely no one.
People walked past me wearing clothes that belonged in some high-fantasy cosplay convention.
Robes.
Cloaks.
Armor that seemed to glow at the edges.
Above me, the sky wasn't right either.
It was still blue, but with streaks of purple cutting across it like brush strokes.
Cars?
Gone.
Instead, sleek metal platforms floated by carrying passengers, guided by what looked like glowing blue traffic signs made of light.
A woman walked past me with a small dragon-looking creature perched on her shoulder.
It sneezed, and a tiny flame shot out.
She patted its head like this was completely normal.
My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might actually break a rib.
I turned back to the store, but The Weave Garden was gone.
Just another strange shop with crystals and bottles of glowing liquid.
"Is this a prank?" I asked out loud, earning curious glances from passersby.
A child pointed at my head and said something to his mother in a language I somehow both recognized and didn't understand.
I reached up and felt my dreadlocks.
They were still my normal ones—dark, not white.
But everything else had changed.
The whole world had changed.
I stood frozen in place, watching as what looked like actual magic happened casually around me.
A man waved his hand and a document appeared mid-air.
A teenager around my age tapped a crystal worn on his wrist, and his shoes changed color.
A woman with pointed ears (ACTUAL pointed ears) walked by reading a book that turned its own pages.
This wasn't my world.
This wasn't my city.
This wasn't even my reality.
I patted my pockets, looking for my phone, but found something else instead—a small card with symbols that matched the ones I'd seen on the changed store sign.
I stared at it, trying to make sense of what was happening.
"...What the hell just happened?"