Coldness was the first thing Qian Wei felt when her consciousness returned.
It was not the biting chill of a winter morning or the temporary numbness that came from remaining outside for too long. This cold seemed to have settled deep within her body, as though someone had drained all the warmth from her blood and left nothing behind.
Her fingers twitched against a smooth sheet.
For several seconds, Qian Wei could not remember where she was or why every part of her body felt so heavy. She tried to open her eyes, but even that simple movement required more effort than it should have.
When her eyelids finally lifted, a white ceiling came into view.
She stared at it without moving.
The ceiling was perfectly smooth and clean, without the fine cracks, water stains and poorly covered repairs she remembered seeing inside the old apartment. A narrow strip of pale light ran along its edge, although she could not see a bulb anywhere.
Before she could wonder about it, the sharp smell of disinfectant reached her.
A hospital.
Relief entered her chest briefly. Someone must have found her inside Apartment 3-17 and called for medical assistance.
Then her memories returned.
The broken door. The overturned furniture. The grey-skinned man standing in the dark.
No, she could not call that thing a man.
Its neck had turned too far. Its body had been cold, its eyes cloudy and its mouth covered in blood. She remembered the impossible strength in its hands and the sound of its teeth snapping near her face.
Qian Wei’s body stiffened as she recalled the moment those teeth sank into her arm.
Her left hand shot toward her right forearm.
She expected pain, bandages or at least the stiffness of a recently treated wound. Instead, her fingers touched an unbroken sleeve.
Qian Wei froze.
Slowly, she lifted her arm and examined it.
The fabric was clean. There was no tear where the creature had bitten her and no blood staining the sleeve. She pushed the material upward with trembling fingers and found smooth skin beneath it.
There were no bite marks.
Not even a faint scar remained.
"How could that be possible?" she whispered.
She knew she had been bitten. The pain had been too intense to imagine, and she could still remember the warmth of her own blood spreading across her arm. She had screamed while trying to push the creature away, but her strength had disappeared almost immediately.
Perhaps the doctors had used some advanced method to repair the injury. That explanation seemed unlikely, but it was still more reasonable than believing the bite had never happened.
Qian Wei lowered her sleeve and looked around.
The room did not resemble any hospital she had seen before. The bed had no visible rails or controls, yet a faint blue display hovered above the wall beside her. It showed numbers she assumed represented her pulse, breathing and body temperature, although she could not understand why there were no wires attached to her.
The furnishings were simple, but everything looked unusually sleek. Even the window had no frame she could see, and the glass darkened gradually when sunlight became too bright.
Qian Wei was still trying to understand her surroundings when someone spoke from the other side of the room.
"Officer Qian Wei, can you hear me clearly?"
She turned her head sharply.
A man rose from a chair near the window and approached the bed. He wore a police uniform, but it was unlike the one issued at her station. The material appeared lighter and more fitted, while the color was several shades darker. A small metallic badge rested near his collar instead of over his chest, and faint lines of light moved across its surface when he walked.
The uniform seemed familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
More importantly, Qian Wei did not recognize the man wearing it.
His expression showed relief when he saw her watching him. However, the way he studied her face suggested that his concern had not disappeared.
"You’re finally awake. You frightened everyone when you collapsed without warning," he said as he stopped beside the bed. "You have been unconscious for an entire day and night. How are you feeling now? Do you have a headache, chest pain or difficulty breathing?"
Qian Wei stared at him.
He spoke as if they knew each other well, but she was certain she had never seen him before.
"What do you mean when you say I collapsed?" she asked. Her voice came out dry and hoarse, forcing her to swallow before continuing. "Where did you find me?"
A faint crease appeared between the man’s eyebrows. "You collapsed at your desk while writing the report for the data-terrorism case. I was speaking to you when it happened, and one moment later, you simply fell out of your chair."
Qian Wei tried to make sense of his words.
She understood what a desk was, and she certainly knew what it meant to write a report. However, none of that had anything to do with Apartment 3-17.
"I was writing a report about what kind of case?"
"The data-terrorism case we closed two days ago," he explained, although his confusion became more noticeable. "You spent most of yesterday complaining that the report contained more pages than the entire investigation. Do you really not remember it?"
Qian Wei looked at him as though he had started speaking an unfamiliar language.
What was data terrorism? Why would she be writing its report when she had only received her first assignment that morning?
She had responded to a noise complaint. She had broken into an apartment and encountered something that should not have existed. The creature had attacked her and bitten her arm.
Before she could ask another question, the room seemed to tilt.
Qian Wei grabbed the side of her head as dizziness rushed over her. Her vision blurred, and a loud ringing filled her ears.
The man immediately stepped closer. "Qian Wei, what is wrong? Should I call the doctor?"
His scent reached her when he leaned over the bed.
Warm skin. Living blood.
Something inside Qian Wei reacted.
Her heartbeat slowed instead of quickening, while an unfamiliar hunger tightened in her stomach. For one horrifying moment, she imagined pulling the man closer and sinking her teeth into his throat.
Qian Wei recoiled so violently that her back struck the headboard.
The man stopped, startled by her reaction. "What happened? Did I hurt you?"
"No, you didn’t hurt me. I only became dizzy when I tried to remember what happened," she answered quickly.
She pressed a hand against her mouth as if that could stop the disturbing thought from returning.
Why would she suddenly want to bite another person?
She was not an animal, and she had never entertained such a disgusting thought in her life. It had to be an aftereffect of the attack or whatever medicine the hospital had given her.
The man continued watching her carefully. "You don’t look well. I should contact the doctor before your condition becomes worse."
"Wait." Qian Wei caught his sleeve before he could move away, but she released it almost immediately when she felt the warmth beneath the fabric. "Please answer one question first. It might sound strange, but I need you to tell me the truth."
His confusion deepened. "What do you want to know?"
Qian Wei hesitated.
The room, his uniform and the unfamiliar equipment could have many explanations. Perhaps she had been transferred to a specialized hospital. Perhaps the police department had begun testing new uniforms without informing rookies.
However, none of those explanations accounted for the report he claimed she had been writing or the fact that he appeared to know her.
"What year is it?" she asked.
The man’s expression changed completely.
For a moment, he seemed to wonder whether she was joking. When Qian Wei continued staring at him without the slightest trace of amusement, his concern became alarm.
"It is the year 2326," he answered slowly. "Why would you need to ask me something like that?"
Qian Wei heard the words, but her mind refused to accept them.
She had entered Apartment 3-17 in 2026.
Three hundred years could not have passed between losing consciousness and opening her eyes.
"No," she whispered as her fingers tightened around the bedsheet. "That cannot be true."
The man moved closer but stopped when he remembered how badly she had reacted before. "Qian Wei, you should lie down and allow me to call the doctor. Whatever is happening, we can deal with it after someone examines you."
"This must be some kind of psychological assessment," she said as the panic in her chest worsened. "Perhaps the academy arranged it to test how I would react after waking in an unfamiliar environment. The room and your uniform could be part of the simulation, but telling me that three hundred years have passed is going too far."
"No one is testing you," the man assured her. His voice became gentler, as though he feared that speaking too loudly might make her condition worse. "You graduated from the police academy over a year ago. You have been working at our station since then, and everyone knows that you passed your credentials with first honors. Why would the academy suddenly arrange another psychological test?"
Qian Wei stared at him.
"You said I have been working with you for more than a year?"
"Yes. We have handled dozens of assignments together during that time." He paused before asking carefully, "Do you remember who I am?"
Qian Wei opened her mouth, but no answer came.
The man’s expression told her that her silence had already answered him.
She looked down at her hands. They appeared the same as they had that morning. The faint callus left by shooting practice was still near her thumb, while a tiny scar she had received during childhood remained across one knuckle.
This was her body.
Yet, according to the man beside her, this body had lived an entire year she could not remember.
A terrible thought entered her mind.
If it was truly the year 2326, then everyone she had known was gone.
Her parents. Her friends from the academy. The instructors who had helped her graduate. Even the officers who had teased her before she left the station that morning would have died centuries ago.
Her mother had called the previous evening to remind her about dinner that weekend. Qian Wei had laughed and promised that she would arrive early enough to help prepare the meal.
She had even teased her father that he should keep a serving of his braised fish for her before her younger brother ate everything.
They had been waiting for her to come home.
Her breathing became uneven.
The man noticed and reached toward her, but he stopped before touching her. "Qian Wei, please tell me what you are remembering. If you cannot recognize me or recall what happened yesterday, you may have suffered some type of memory loss when you collapsed."
"They were waiting for me," she whispered.
"What did you say?"
"My family was waiting for me to come home." Her voice cracked as she raised her eyes to him. "I promised my mother that I would visit this weekend, but I never went. If what you are telling me is true, then they waited for someone who would never return."
The man did not understand why she spoke as if her family had disappeared, but he could see the grief on her face.
"Your family records should be available, and we can contact whoever you need after the doctor examines you. You do not have to frighten yourself before we understand what happened."
Qian Wei shook her head.
How could she explain that the people he wanted to contact had lived three hundred years earlier?
A tear slid down her cheek.
"I didn’t even say goodbye to them."
Once the first tear fell, she could no longer hold the others back.
She had imagined many dangers before becoming a police officer. She knew that the profession could demand sacrifices, and she had accepted that she might encounter situations from which she could not return.
However, she had never imagined losing everyone she loved in the space between closing and opening her eyes.
The man remained beside the bed, visibly uncertain about how to comfort her. He could not understand the reason for her grief, but he pulled a chair closer and sat down so she would not be alone.
"You don’t need to force yourself to explain everything now," he said gently. "I will call the doctor, and after we find out what caused your memory problems, we can take the rest one step at a time. Whatever you have forgotten, you will not have to face it alone."
His kindness only made Qian Wei cry harder.
She covered her face with both hands and mourned people who had been dead for centuries.
The world outside the window continued moving as though nothing extraordinary had happened. Vehicles travelled silently between enormous buildings, unfamiliar lights flickered across the distant skyline, and people went about lives that had begun long after everyone Qian Wei knew had been forgotten.
She had survived the attack inside Apartment 3-17.
Yet she had awakened in a world where no one was waiting for her.
Just as the grief became almost unbearable, a soft mechanical chime echoed inside her mind.
Ding!
Qian Wei froze.
Her hands lowered slowly from her face.
The man beside her noticed the sudden change and leaned forward. "What happened? Are you feeling dizzy again?"
Qian Wei did not answer.
The sound had not come from the room.
It had come from somewhere inside her head.