Night.
1:23 AM.
In a small room on the second floor, tucked away at the end of a dark alley, a dim yellow desk lamp cast its light onto the mottled wall, creating a lonely pool of brightness in the midst of the silent night. The ceiling fan turned slowly, creaking rhythmically, as if lulling the entire space into a drowsy stupor.
Đỗ Quỳnh Linh Tú - an 11th-grade literature student - curled up on a chair, her arms wrapped around her knees, eyes fixed on the glowing laptop screen in front of her. On it, a solitary title appeared in the familiar Times New Roman font:
"Chapter 27 - Blood Spilled on the Field of Ashes"
The cursor blinked on the blank page. She had typed three lines… then hesitated. Her finger hit backspace, pulling each word back into emptiness. She tried another sentence - and erased it too.
Each deletion made her frown slightly, lips pressed together. Frustration crept into her breaths, clinging like a fine layer of dust on the keyboard. It wasn't exactly despair - more like a hollow disappointment, the kind that comes when words - those once-faithful companions - suddenly feel distant, cold, as if they'd betrayed her.
Outside the window, the night was pitch black, with only a few faint streetlights flickering in the distance. Inside, there was only the occasional tap of keys - and a girl, quietly struggling with the world she herself had created.
Her story - "Control" - had only garnered a scattered few dozen reads, mostly from classmates or the occasional stranger who left brief comments asking to exchange interactions for more views. Yet she continued to upload each chapter regularly for over a year now, like a quiet habit she couldn't let go of.
Why?
Because it was the only place where Linh Tú felt she could truly be herself, emotionally. A small world where she held all the strings - the one who decided fate, emotion, and endings for the souls she created. No one asked her to pretend to be cheerful. No one required her to be "okay."
But tonight... imagination had quietly left her, just as silently as it once came.
She rested her chin on her hand, eyes fixed on the empty screen. The pale blue light washed over her slightly gaunt face, reflecting in eyes that were beginning to sting from too many sleepless nights. Her eyelids drooped a little, hazy with fatigue, as if one blink would send her drifting into sleep.
Her mind was a tangled mess. The familiar characters in Control - the hero, the villain, the souls she had once carefully crafted - had all fallen silent, hiding in a shadowed corner she could no longer reach. No voices. No guiding whispers.
"Whatever... I'll sleep first. I can write tomorrow."
She murmured, her voice so soft it seemed to be carried away by the wind. Her lips pressed together after the words, as if she herself didn't quite believe in that promising "tomorrow."
Linh Tú closed the laptop. The soft click echoed like an ellipsis in a sentence left unfinished. The screen went dark, casting the room into shadow once more.
She stood up, moving slowly, like a sleepwalker. Her steps slid gently across the cold wooden floor, one hand instinctively pulling the thin curtain over the gap in the window. Then, she climbed into bed, the mattress sinking under her frail weight.
Linh Tú pulled the blanket over her head, curling into the soft fabric as if trying to hide - from the world, from deadlines, from the looping thoughts that offered no escape. One foot slipped out from under the blanket's edge - a strange habit from childhood, as if keeping a small connection with reality would make everything less frightening.
Outside the window, the night wind rustled through the tamarind leaves, whispering a gentle lullaby from a city that never truly slept. Everything kept moving - and she, she only wished for a dream quiet enough to bring her imagination back.
___
The next morning.
The smell of toasted bread drifted gently through the air, mingling with the static hum of the old radio playing the morning news. Linh Tú sat at the dining table, holding a freshly made egg sandwich from her mom, eyes still half-closed from lack of sleep. She chewed slowly, as if she hadn't fully woken up yet.
Her dad sat in the corner of the room, listening intently to the news with a cup of black coffee in hand. Her mom was bustling around, getting ready for work - hair tied in a bun, sun-protective jacket draped over the chair, hands quickly packing her lunch.
"Stayed up late writing again, didn't you?" her mom asked - gently, but with a familiar hint of reproach.
"Yeah… I'm getting to the big battle scene. But I'm kind of stuck," Tú replied, her voice still heavy with sleep.
"If you're stuck, take a break. School comes first."
Linh Tú gave a small nod, stuffing the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth. The warm, savory taste of egg spread across her tongue, but her mind was already drifting toward the unwritten lines waiting for her. She stood up, slinging her backpack over her shoulder in a rush. Her specialized school uniform was slightly wrinkled - she'd fallen asleep last night without ironing it. Her hime bangs were a little messy too, a few strands falling over her forehead, unbrushed.
She bowed quickly to her parents, then dashed out the door. The sound of her flip-flops echoed along the narrow alley still damp with morning dew. The sky was a pale gray, scattered with clouds that looked like they hadn't quite woken up yet.
A new day had begun - just like any other.
Linh Tú caught the bus to school, squeezed in among sleepy students and the hum of loud conversations. In class, she struggled to stay focused amid dry lectures, the lessons drifting by like blurred scenery outside a bus window. And the tests - they always showed up out of nowhere, sudden and merciless.
During recess.
The literature class classroom buzzed with noise - friends chatting excitedly, laughter bursting from the group near the windows, and the drag of slippers shuffling across the old tiled floor. The air was thick with the smell of mixed rice paper snacks, milk tea, and ink and paper - a signature scent of school life.
Amid the chaos, Linh Tú sat quietly.
She pulled her laptop from her backpack, carefully placing it on the worn-out desk. The surface bore faint scratches - traces left behind by students of years past. Linh Tú leaned back in her chair, one hand propping up her chin, the other lazily guiding the mouse across the pad. Her hime-cut bangs fell slightly over one cheek, and the midday light streaming through the window lit up her quiet, dark eyes.
On the screen, a familiar interface appeared - her writing account dashboard. A quiet place, with few visits and even fewer comments, but still her own little world - a space where she could write everything she couldn't bring herself to say aloud.
Displayed on the page was "Control" - her debut story, which she'd been patiently nurturing, chapter by chapter, for over a year. Beneath the title, the words "Chapter 27 - Blood Spilled on the Field of Ashes" sat silently in the drafts section, not bolded like the published ones. An unfinished scene, an idea not yet grown into words.
Linh Tú's eyes were tired, but she didn't look away from the screen. Then… she noticed a small red dot in the top-right corner - somewhere that rarely lit up.
'1'
That tiny number made her heart skip a beat.
A new notification popped up: "You have a new comment."
She blinked, as if waking from a dream. Her back straightened instinctively, her eyes a little brighter, though her expression hadn't changed. The hand that had been idly resting on the mousepad froze for a moment, then hesitantly moved toward the notification icon.
The cursor glided slowly, like it was afraid of touching something important.
Click.
[0:47 AM - MirGen]
"Where's Chapter 27? Please don't drop it… I'm really into this story!"
Linh Tú squinted at the message on the screen, her hand pausing mid-air as if frozen.
A fan… from another country?
Her eyebrows drew together slightly. A stream of thoughts ran through her mind: But the story's written in Vietnamese. Maybe he used Google Translate? Or only read a few chapters someone else translated for fun? She couldn't be sure. But one thing was clear - he was waiting for the next chapter.
And he… genuinely liked her story.
Linh Tú's heart stirred. Something soft, something warm began to seep into the quiet spaces she'd thought she walked through alone. One comment. One stranger. But it made her feel… not invisible.
She should feel happy, right?
But…
Her hand on the keyboard trembled slightly. Fingers typed a few tentative lines of the new chapter. A bit of description. A line of dialogue. But then...
Ctrl + A. Delete.
The screen turned white again.
She bit the edge of her fingernail - a nervous habit from long ago - as her gaze drifted out the classroom window. The midday sunlight filtered through the tree branches, casting scattered patterns on the tiled floor like fragments of distant memories.
She looked back down and typed a few more words. "Smoke drifted faintly over…" Then… delete.
In her mind, the characters who once felt so vivid seemed to whisper their lines from a distance - now fading. The once-blazing scenes, the battles she used to picture with bated breath… now all veiled in a heavy, gray fog.
She sighed, leaning slightly to rest her cheek against the cold surface of the desk.
Even if someone was waiting, even if someone out there was listening - right now, she couldn't hear her own voice.
"Maybe… I should step into it myself?"
The thought burst forth like a sudden spark in a dark room. Absurd, irrational, even… insane. Yet in that very moment, sunlight slanted through the classroom window - pale and shimmering - falling directly onto her keyboard as if on purpose. Tiny dust motes floated in the beam of light, glimmering, spinning slowly.
The noise of the classroom suddenly felt distant - the chatter, the footsteps, the crinkle of snack wrappers… all seemed turned down, like someone had reached for the volume knob. Everything blurred, like the background of a dream.
Linh Tú sat still, eyes locked on the blinking cursor on the drafting screen.
"If I could enter my own story… if I could reshape the plot myself, create the twists and turns - could I finally break through this block?"
A reckless thought, but also a sweet temptation. She pictured herself stepping into that imagined world - where wind howled through charred ruins, where old, crumbling high-rises pierced the smoky sky, where blood seeped into cracks in dry earth… where the protagonists - those living souls she had created - were waiting for someone to lead them.
She let out a quiet laugh. Bitter, yet tinged with a kind of surrender.
"How ridiculous…" she muttered, shaking her head, the motion making her hair brush softly against her cheek.
But her eyes never left the screen.
And in that fleeting moment… a part of her was no longer sure - was this just a passing, foolish idea… or had a door truly begun to open?
___
[Scene transition - Ukraine, early dawn]
04:47 AM - Kyiv, Ukraine
In a small third-floor room of a modern apartment complex, the dim glow of a desk lamp mixed with the soft blue light of a computer screen illuminated the face of Mirtex Generos - a 17-year-old boy with tousled blond hair, a wrinkled t-shirt, and dark circles etched beneath his eyes from too many sleepless nights.
Even so, those pale blue eyes were lit up - not from caffeine, but from pure fascination.
On the screen, a website displayed line after line of text in a foreign language: Vietnamese.
He frowned slightly, tilting his head, left hand tapping a quiet rhythm on the desk as if helping his mind focus. The words were jumbled at times thanks to Google Translate, and some paragraphs took multiple reads just to piece together - but he had made it all the way to Chapter 26.
It was a strange story. Confusing, at times. But something about it made him unable to stop reading. The world within it was dark and chaotic - a collapsing society, people fighting fate, brutal rivalries, manipulation, betrayal, hidden agendas behind seemingly ordinary lives.
It all felt like a mirror to the real world outside - unpolished, not dressed up in grand colors or heroism, yet undeniably raw. Undeniably human.
He leaned his chin into his palm, eyes still locked on the screen. His right hand slowly moved the mouse - but the story had ended there.
"Chapter 27… where are you?" he murmured, fingers dancing across the keyboard.
"Where's Chapter 27? Please don't drop it… I'm really into this story!"
A short, simple comment - but it was all he could come up with at that moment.
Mirtex leaned back into his swivel chair, the springs creaking softly in the quiet room. He reached for the cup of tea beside him - now cold, its taste dull like the remnants of an unfinished dream.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds, his brow furrowing slightly. His eyes were tired, his head heavy, but his heart was still tethered to the world inside that story.
"What kind of person writes this stuff…?" (Người viết mấy thứ này là kiểu người như thế nào nhỉ?) - he murmured, his low voice echoing like a soliloquy in the night.
"Maybe a lonely genius." (Có khi là một thiên tài cô độc cũng nên.) - his lips curved into a lazy smile tinged with sarcasm.
The room was so silent he could hear the hum of the computer fan spinning. Outside the window, the Kyiv sky was draped in a soft white veil - snow drifting down slowly and delicately, like memories falling piece by piece in his mind.
Mirtex turned back to the screen, his gaze more focused - not just waiting for a new chapter, but as if trying to search for something hidden behind every line of text.
"If I could meet the author…" (Giá như mình có thể gặp người viết truyện này…) - he murmured, fingers tracing the edge of the keyboard, slowly, as if imagining the person on the other side of the screen.
"I'll ask them to change the story a little." (Mình sẽ xin họ thay đổi cốt truyện một chút.) - he smiled again. Softly. Deeply. A little playfully, though his heart wasn't playing at all.