Work Text:
“Don’t look.”
A familiar yet slightly unfamiliar voice sounded in his ear, soft fingers pressing against his eyes, a loud bang ringing out. Then, the hands pulled away and he opened his eyes to see Qiao Ling crouching beside him, worry in her eyes.
“What happened—”
Cheng Xiaoshi was immediately hushed by Qiao Ling as she glanced out. As she turned, Cheng Xiaoshi noticed the bleeding wound on her shoulder, the blood staining her torn jacket a shade of dark red. There was also dust and blood staining her face, but she paid it no mind.
“Lu Guang, he…” Qiao Ling trailed off, looking back at him. “He acted as a decoy for us. We have to go now; we cannot waste this chance he worked to give us.”
He said something in response, but it was unintelligible as Qiao Ling tugged him along with her good arm, everything around him hazy and unfocused. At some point, they had been separated, and he stumbled backward, Qiao Ling turning back and reaching forward towards him.
Suddenly, it felt as if he had been thrown into a pool, a heavy sinking feeling enveloping him. Fragments of light that looked like photos floated beside him, accompanying him as he sank lower and lower. Vaguely, he could hear Qiao Ling calling out to him, saying something, but he couldn’t understand it at all.
A sudden vibrating sensation startled him, and he struggled to keep his eyes open. At the last moment, he forced his eyes open—
He was met with the familiar white ceiling of his room, his phone buzzing insistently on the nightstand beside him. Cheng Xiaoshi groaned, slamming the snooze button before turning back and pulling the blankets over his shoulders.
“Cheng Xiaoshi! Get the hell up!” Qiao Ling’s voice passed through the door. “We’re going to be late!”
“Ugh…” Cheng Xiaoshi groaned, not planning to move.
Two minutes later, the door burst open, and Qiao Ling stormed in, yanking the blankets away from him. “Get up!”
“Okay, okay…” He complained, slowly sitting up and getting out of the bed.
As the two of them hurried to their class, Cheng Xiaoshi suddenly remembered the dream he had had in the morning. “Say, Qiao Ling…”
“Hm?” Qiao Ling looked up from her phone.
“I had a dream today where we were running from something, and you were injured and bleeding and stuff, and I think you said that Lu Guang had gone and sacrificed himself or something—”
“Wow, we were in your dream? How nice of you to include us,” Qiao Ling raised her eyebrows.
“That’s not it,” Cheng Xiaoshi frowned. “It’s just, does it mean something? It was so realistic…”
“Who knows?” Qiao Ling pushed open the door to their lecture hall building. “I don’t really think dreams mean that much. But maybe you’re actually a prophet and in the middle of our lecture we’re suddenly going to be attacked and then your dream will come true.”
“Don’t say that!” Cheng Xiaoshi flinched, startled.
Qiao Ling laughed, shaking her head. “Don’t think too much about it,” she patted his back. “If it happens again, maybe we can talk to Lu Guang and see what he thinks.”
“Okay…” Cheng Xiaoshi followed Qiao Ling as she opened the door to the lecture hall, scanning the room before pulling Cheng Xiaoshi over to where Lu Guang was sitting.
—
After a day of classes, Cheng Xiaoshi had pushed his dream to the back of his mind, forgetting to bring it up to Lu Guang entirely. After all, he didn’t dream that often; perhaps it was as Qiao Ling had said, and it really wasn’t anything.
But when it happened a second time, he believed that there was something more to it. This time, Cheng Xiaoshi opened his eyes to see Lu Guang and Qiao Ling chatting in the distance, Qiao Ling holding a scroll in her hands.
Cheng Xiaoshi wasn’t too sure what to be surprised by first — maybe that they were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but dust and trees, or maybe that all of them were dressed in robes that were most definitely not currently in fashion, or maybe that Lu Guang and Qiao Ling both had hair that fell beyond their shoulders.
The first sound he made after becoming aware of his surroundings was “huh?”. He walked over, the other two engrossed in discussion and unaware of his approach. It was only when he stood beside them that they looked up. “Oh, good to see that you’re awake,” Qiao Ling lowered the scrolls he was holding so that he could read it also. “Come take a look at this…”
It looked like a map, fancy calligraphy inked on different parts of the paper. Cheng Xiaoshi tried to read it, but none of it seemed to make sense; whether it was because he was simply illiterate or because the writing was too messy, he couldn’t tell.
“We’re thinking of moving here next. It should be a relatively safe area; the scouts should be coming back soon. We can make a decision then,” Qiao Ling explained, pointing at some spots on the map.
“Um… okay,” Cheng Xiaoshi agreed hesitantly, not too sure what was going on in the first place.
“I know you don’t really trust them,” Qiao Ling rolled up the scroll. “But Tianxi and Tianchen really are good people.”
Cheng Xiaoshi blinked. Who were those people? At least Qiao Ling didn’t seem to notice something off about him… but he had truly never heard of those two in his life. Or at least, his life where he was going to university with Qiao Ling and Lu Guang.
He ended up just nodding dumbly, grateful that Qiao Ling didn’t say much more about it before she left to talk to someone else. Cheng Xiaoshi glanced at Lu Guang, once again startled as the latter brushed his hair back, the length of his hair probably reaching his mid-back.
The rest of the dream was hard to recall when Cheng Xiaoshi woke up, but there was at least one point he could recall — in his dream, Lu Guang had long hair.
So when Lu Guang fixed him with a judgemental stare as he hummed in contemplation, Cheng Xiaoshi ultimately decided to ask, “Lu Guang, have you ever had long hair?”
“Did you hit your head?” Lu Guang narrowed his eyes.
“What? No! It was a genuine question—”
“We’ve known each other for so long; when have I ever had long hair?”
“I don’t know! Maybe like before we met—”
“You mean, when I was 10?”
“—Or in another life, or something!” Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes widened as he finished his own words. “Another life…?”
“What are you talking about?” Lu Guang stood up, walking over to touch his forehead. “You’re not burning up or anything…”
“I’m not sick, I promise,” Cheng Xiaoshi batted his hand away.
…
“You might be sick,” Qiao Ling said, unamused as Cheng Xiaoshi set down his cup of coffee, looking at her intently from across the cafe table.
“Is it really that weird to believe that we might exist in alternate universes or something?” Cheng Xiaoshi groaned, leaning into his arm that rested on the table.
“Maybe,” Qiao Ling took a sip of her drink, shrugging. “If they do exist, I think that it’s weird that I stick with you in other timelines also. Other me’s could do so much better.”
“Qiao Ling!” Cheng Xiaoshi exclaimed indignantly.
She only laughed in response, taking a moment to swallow her tea before saying seriously, “But even if it’s possible, what can we do about it? It’s not like they’re us, in any case.”
“Well technically they are—”
Qiao Ling shut him up with a glare. “You know what I mean.”
Cheng Xiaoshi let out a long sigh. It probably was impossible, right? At least, he hadn’t heard anything about it before. After all, how could they conduct research on something that might not even exist?
He ended up thinking a lot about it for the rest of the day, slightly distracted even after returning home. As the sun set, he slumped on the couch, mindlessly looking at the textured ceiling.
“Cheng Xiaoshi?” Lu Guang called out as he stepped out of his room, catching sight of the other staring off into space.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s gaze slid over to him, and for a moment, he thought he saw Lu Guang from his dream again, the mirage of him with long hair overlapping with his current figure.
“Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi asked, his voice quieter than normal. “Do you think, in another life, that we’d be friends?”
“Hm?” Lu Guang thought about it for a moment, blinking once. “Maybe. If you can find me, I guess.”
“What if you found me first?”
“Then I’d walk away or something.”
“Wow, rude!” Cheng Xiaoshi groaned, flopping over on the couch. “Both you and Qiao Ling are so mean to me.”
Lu Guang gave him a huff of laughter before walking toward the kitchen, leaving Cheng Xiaoshi to wallow in disappointment by himself.
“I hope alternate universes do exist so that I can meet nicer Lu Guangs and Qiao Lings,” Cheng Xiaoshi grumbled as he got up, dragging himself to his bedroom and washing up before preparing to go to sleep.
As luck would have it, he woke up to a dreary sky, curled up in a corner of an abandoned building.
“Cheng Xiaoshi! Oh, good; you’re safe.” Qiao Ling’s voice was the first sound he heard after waking up.
She appeared a moment later, wearing a ripped bomber jacket and her hair in disarray. “Let’s go, we have to move before they catch up to us. Lu Guang just found a safe route; he’s waiting outside.”
“What are we running from…?” Cheng Xiaoshi asked, then frowned as he heard his voice leave his throat.
Something was different about this dream. He could control more of his thoughts, his movements, and his voice.
Qiao Ling fixed him with a worried stare. “The monsters, obviously. Have you forgotten what the past few weeks have been like?”
“Uh…” Cheng Xiaoshi tried to search through his memories as he let Qiao Ling pull him up and drag him out of the abandoned building, the two of them jogging down an empty street.
There were obvious signs of destruction everywhere. Crumbled brick and broken glass lay unattended on the asphalt road, the two of them maneuvering around it as they caught up to Lu Guang who was leaning against a wall in the distance.
However, all he could think of was that this was the first time he had seen such a scene. He clearly remembered meeting up with Qiao Ling in a cafe earlier in the day, and the short conversation he had with Lu Guang at night.
Lu Guang looked up as the two of them approached. “We’re here!” Qiao Ling announced, and Lu Guang nodded, turning and leading them away from the street that they had come from.
“This might sound kind of weird,” Cheng Xiaoshi started as they turned into an alleyway. “But I think I might’ve temporarily taken over your world’s Cheng Xiaoshi.”
“What?” Qiao Ling glanced at him as they ran, Lu Guang also shooting a confused look over his shoulder.
“Basically, the me right now… how do I explain this? I’m also Cheng Xiaoshi, but in the world I live in, all of us are in college. I live with Lu Guang and I meet Qiao Ling sometimes on campus — well, my world’s Lu Guang and Qiao Ling…”
“So, other versions of us exist?” Lu Guang summarized his point.
“Yeah… basically.”
“Is that so?” Qiao Ling didn’t look surprised at all. “Hope they’re doing better than us.”
“Are you not surprised?” Cheng Xiaoshi asked curiously.
“Well, there are human-eating monsters that have basically destroyed this world roaming about here. Nothing really can beat that,” Qiao Ling sighed, smiling wryly. “It’s a relief to know that me somewhere in another universe is living peacefully, though. I hope she never has to go through something like this.”
Lu Guang hummed in agreement, and the three of them finally left the shadows of the alleyways, coming across a building that was a few stories tall.
“We’re here,” Lu Guang announced, taking a glance at the surroundings before pulling the door open.
It seemed that they were in an office building, some of the desks still intact. “How… are you guys doing?” Cheng Xiaoshi asked awkwardly as they sat down in a corner, catching their breaths with their backs to the wall.
“We’re doing okay.” Qiao Ling patted his shoulder in reassurance. “Not the best, clearly, but we’re hanging in there.”
“As long as nothing unexpected happens, we should be able to hold out,” Lu Guang said calmly, though his heaving chest betrayed his intentions.
Cheng Xiaoshi sighed, suddenly feeling guilty. “Is there anything that I can do to help?” He asked before realizing that there was quite literally nothing he could do in the situation that they were currently in. “Uh, well, like, emotionally, I guess…”
Qiao Ling laughed, shaking her head. “Why don’t you tell us some stories about what we’re like in your universe? We don’t know how long you’ll be here, anyway.”
Cheng Xiaoshi brightened up, starting to talk about their daily life in university, Lu Guang’s crazy study schedule and Qiao Ling’s part time job, about the mundane and fun parts of their lives.
This world’s Qiao Ling and Lu Guang listened intently, adding their own comments here and there. When he finished one of his stories, Qiao Ling gave him a slightly sad smile. “Thank you for telling us all of that,” she said, glancing out of the window. “We’ll be sure to live well, too.”
“Take care of yourself,” Lu Guang nodded. “I’m sure me in the other universe already has a lot of other things to handle.”
“Hey, I handle myself just fine!” Cheng Xiaoshi retorted, and Lu Guang just laughed in response.
Qiao Ling suddenly pulled him into a hug, dragging Lu Guang into it too. “You have to live well, okay?” She asked, her voice shaking just slightly. “For us, too.”
“I will,” Cheng Xiaoshi promised, reaching over to pat her back. “I definitely will.”
He couldn’t remember anything that happened after that, his consciousness suddenly flooding through him. When he blinked open his eyes again, he saw bright rays of sunlight passing through the curtain and lighting up his room, the familiar weight of his blankets draped over him.
The ghost of the other world’s Qiao Ling and Lu Guang’s touches still lingered on him, and he smiled slightly as he glanced at the bright blue sky outside.
He had his answer now — in other lives, the three of them would definitely still be friends.