Tianmu: Eyes of Illusion

It started with a dream. Always the same one.

A circular stone floor beneath his feet, etched with ancient lines and twisting shapes—some like calligraphy, some like cracks in reality. The air smelled faintly of incense and wet earth, and a voice murmured from nowhere and everywhere, in a language just beyond comprehension.

Lucas Zhang stood in the middle of that strange, impossible space. Again. 

The lines beneath him glowed faintly, pulsing with slow breaths, like the heartbeat of something asleep—and dreaming. He looked down at the pattern: a massive octagonal design made of interlocking trigrams and swirling glyphs that seemed to shift if he stared too long.

He always woke up before the center opened.

Today, though, something was different.

He sat up in his cramped apartment bed, sweat clinging to his neck, heart racing like a trapped bird. The threadbare sheets twisted around his legs, and the faint hum of the city seeped through the cracked window—car horns, distant sirens, and the low drone of the night.

"Four nights now," he muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Why do I remember it so clearly? Like I was there, not just dreaming."

His small room smelled of old paper and instant noodles. Stacks of untranslated Taoist texts cluttered the desk. The bronze mirror his grandfather left untouched sat half-buried under a pile of junk mail.

Lucas swung his legs over the side of the bed, the cold floor biting at his bare feet. He shuffled toward the bathroom, flicked on the harsh fluorescent light, and stared into the mirror.

His reflection stared back—pale, tired, ordinary. Except for the symbols.

At first, they weren't there. But then, as his eyes locked with his own reflection, faint golden sigils shimmered on the glass behind him—two curved strokes forming a crescent, an eye inside a triangle, and a line spiraling outward like a vortex.

They vanished the moment he blinked.

"Okay," he said with a nervous laugh, trying to shake the chill creeping up his spine. "I'm either sleep-deprived or going insane."

Maybe both.

Lucas wasn't anyone special. Twenty-two, translator-for-hire, stuck in the gray city of Haleford—a place no one visited unless they had to. The streets were lined with crumbling brick buildings, neon signs flickering in the fog like restless spirits. Even the pigeons seemed depressed.

His parents lived miles away in San Diego, busy with their own lives. He mostly worked nights—subtitling indie films, translating game dialogue, and sometimes digging through the dusty Taoist scrolls his grandfather had sent from Taiwan. Most of the texts were illegible to him, full of cryptic characters and obscure rituals.

One box, however, remained unopened in the closet. It had sat there for months.

That night, sleep refused to come. The dream gnawed at him, insistent and alive.

With a trembling hand, Lucas pulled the box down and unlatched the rusty clasp. Inside lay an old bronze mirror—small enough to hold in one hand, its surface dulled by age but still heavy with presence. The back was etched with strange marks that felt familiar, like the patterns in his dream.

Beside it, a sealed envelope adorned with elegant calligraphy:

"张天目之后,吾愿他能见真象."

To the one who inherits the Eye of Truth.

He traced the characters with a shaky finger, heart pounding. What did it mean? Was it just an old family saying? Or something more?

He lifted the mirror, feeling a sudden chill crawl up his arm.

The surface rippled—not like water, but like silk pulled taut by invisible hands.

Suddenly, the lights flickered. A symbol burned into view on the glass—a glowing eye inside a triangle. It pulsed softly, hypnotic and alive.

Lucas gasped and dropped the mirror onto the bedspread. It landed with a dull thud but the symbol lingered in his mind's eye.

Something had changed.

The room felt thicker, charged. He looked around, seeing not just walls and furniture but patterns—glowing sigils hidden in corners, footsteps without feet crossing the floor, shadows twisting unnaturally.

And then, in the mirror's reflection, for just a split second, he saw another face—watching him from behind. Pale, unreadable, and impossibly close.

He whirled around.

Nothing but silence and the low whisper curling around his ears:

"You've opened the first gate."

Next chapter preview:

Chapter 2 – Symbols in the Shadows

Lucas begins to notice strange symbols etched in the city's hidden corners, and a shadowy figure seems to be following him. The mystery deepens, and the line between dream and reality blurs.