It was like a strange dream. Just ten minutes ago, Michelle was dropping by Bibliothèque Mazarine, hoping to appreciate the old architecture and the tranquility rarely found in the city. She did not expect that one of the walls would crumble before her to reveal a dimly lit room and narrow stairwell. Though part of her was telling her to turn back, another part pushed her to explore. She followed the latter. She entered the room, descended the stairwell, and opened the door that she came across once she reached the bottom floor. Out of curiosity, she then uttered the word she found written all over the walls. The next thing she knew, the door disappeared, the floor vanished beneath her feet, and she soon found herself sinking in a pond. Looking back, she should have gone to the nearest adult and told them that the wall had collapsed.

Gilbert held Michelle's hand as he led her around Nitea. She looked up at him. He seemed a bit younger than Grimelda, and his bleach-white hair contrasted his sun-kissed skin. Unlike Grimelda, whose dark eyes had a serious air about them, Gilbert's light brown irises held a friendly sparkle.

He uttered something to her in a non-human language. She gave him a blank look and said, "Sorry, I don't understand."

"Oh, you're human, aren't you?" he then said. "Sorry, I thought you were Nitean. Grimelda didn't tell me you were."

"Wait, where are we going?" she asked.

"To a hospital," he replied. "It's a pretty long walk, but we can take the portlinks. The stations tend to be very crowded so you have to stick close to me."

I definitely will. It was already bad enough that she was no longer on Earth. She could not afford to get lost on another planet.

They walked down the sidewalk and descended to an underground network. At first glance, it looked much like the Mass Rapid Transit networks that snaked underneath some Earth cities—people were queuing at ticket booths, passing through turnstiles, and reading from the large station maps that were posted around the area. However, as soon as the two walked between the turnstiles and headed to their platform, it became clear that their transport was nothing like an MRT. Instead of train cars stationed at the sides of the platform, cylindrical booths with screens and transparent doors lined its center. Michelle fixated her gaze on the booths as she saw lines of people entering them from one side, while a different group of people exited from the other.

"So portlinks are portals made using technomagic," Gilbert explained. "They have two doors. The one glowing green is the entrance; the red one is the exit. We can only pass through it one at a time. Do you want to go first, or me?"

"Uh, you can go first."

So they entered the fast-moving queue. Michelle tilted her body to the side to further observe the scene in front of her. First, the portlink's transparent doors would open, allowing one person to enter before closing. A beam of lime-colored light would then envelop the person before he or she disappeared. After a while, the doors would then open, repeating the process.

"And by the way, once you reach the other side, get out as soon as the doors open. People here aren't very patient."

Michelle nodded her head. Once it was her turn, Michelle briskly walked towards the portlink and stepped inside. Above her was an object that resembled a bundle of flashlights, its metal rim glowing a faint green. Michelle glanced at the ground. A pair of footprints were painted—or printed, she could not tell—onto the floor, marking where she should stand. She took a couple of steps and stood directly above the footprints. Whir. Michelle turned around. The doors had closed.

Flash. Magic whisked her away and then placed her back on the ground faster than she could notice. The next thing her senses registered was the sound of motors as they swung the doors open. Michelle glanced upwards. The metal rim that lined the lights was glowing red instead of green. She had reached the other side already.

Michelle moved out of the portlink to make way for the next commuter. She spotted Gilbert standing next to it. He beckoned.

"Let's get going," he said.

They climbed a nearby escalator to the streets. The hospital was right in front of the exit they emerged from.

"We're here! Just follow me."

And so they entered the hospital. Gilbert led her down the corridors before they both walked into one of the consultation rooms, which confused her since they were not asked if they had an appointment. Already seated inside was a woman who wore a white coat and a face mask. A doctor, if they were even called doctors in this world.

Gilbert and Michelle sat across the woman. Michelle only watched as he talked to the doctor, occasionally gesturing to Michelle as he spoke. The only time she interacted with her was when Michelle had to show her cursed finger. The doctor retrieved a machine from the drawer and scanned her finger with it. When the doctor read the results out loud, she and Gilbert both shook their heads. It did not look like good news.

Suddenly, Michelle felt her head drooping to one side. She pressed a palm against her forehead.

"Are you alright?" Gilbert asked.

Michelle shook her head. "I'm feeling dizzy."

He translated what she said to the doctor. At once, she sprung out of her chair and gesticulated, speaking rapidly. Alarm washed over Gilbert's face and he stood up as well.

"We have to take you to another room," he said, "follow us."

The three of them rushed out of the room and jogged down the corridor. Michelle had no idea where she was headed, but she did not bother to ask. Her head was heavy. Her eyes were drowsy. The cold was creeping throughout her body. She only hoped that she would not pass out in the middle of the hallway.

They stopped in front of another door and the doctor swung it open.

"Just wait here, don't go out," Gilbert told her.

Michelle entered the room. It was dull, dark, and empty. The walls, floor, and ceiling were painted a matte shade of midnight black, and the only colored objects in the room were a cushioned armchair and a wooden side table. Michelle staggered towards the chair. She was on the verge of fainting.

Someone, presumably a nurse, then entered the room and placed a cup of hot beverage on the side table. She muttered something to Michelle, but she could not understand.

"Just sit down, drink the tea, and don't move too much," Gilbert translated. "We'll have to leave you alone here for now, but we'll come back."

Michelle nodded as she slumped into the armchair. "Thank you," she said weakly.

The nurse promptly left the room and Gilbert closed the door. Michelle looked around her. She was alone. Alone, stuck in a hospital room in another world, not sure if she would even return to Earth. A million regrets filled her mind. Imbécile, she thought, why did you have to go through the door? Why did you have to go to Bibliothèque Mazarine? No, her mistake was not visiting the library. It was wearing the ring in the first place. Oh, how could she fall for that trap! No wonder the person signed the note anonymously. He was no secret admirer. No, he was a deceiver. Tried to use love to trick her into cursing herself. If she ever met the man who "gifted" her the ring, she would punch him—or kick him in the groin.

Michelle lifted one arm. She still had a little bit of strength. With both hands, she picked up the cup of tea and brought it to her lips. She sipped. She was surprised; it was no different from the teas she had tried on Earth. Michelle sipped some more. It tasted just like English Breakfast. She held the cup under her nostrils and sniffed. It smelled just like English Breakfast. Maybe it was English Breakfast. Either that or her senses were failing her.

Michelle placed the cup back on the side table and reclined in the chair. She laid her arms on the armrests, letting her hands dangle off the edge. The chair was quite comfortable. She could sleep then and there if she wanted to, but she forced herself to stay awake. What if someone entered the room while her eyes were closed? No, she was not going to sleep anywhere that was not on Earth.

She soon regretted her decision. It had been thirty minutes since she entered the room, and there were no signs of Gilbert or the doctor. Nobody opened the door. Michelle sighed. How long was she going to wait? She hoped that she would not have to spend too long in the hospital. Her parents would be worried. Michelle leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She might as well get some rest.

Knock, knock. The door swung open just as she was about to take a nap. It was Gilbert. He held a vial in one hand as he entered the room and closed the door behind him.

"Sorry for the wait," he apologized. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling better, thank you."

He breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness," he said. "Oh, and if you're wondering, you're inside an anti-magic room. The type of curse that's inside your ring grows more powerful the more it is surrounded by magic. That's why we had to isolate you here, to contain the spread.

"Also this is a panacea." He held up the vial. "I don't know if you have something like this on Earth, but panaceas can cure almost any disease or curse. This is a second-class panacea, not strong enough to undo your curse, but it should slow down the spread and prevent you from fainting once we take you to the Paris-Nitea portal. You better drink all of it now."

Gilbert gave her the vial. Michelle received it and tried to open the lid. It was tight. It took her a few seconds before she managed to twist the cap open. Before she drank, she peered inside the vial. The panacea was clear and odorless, like water. She gulped it down. It tasted nothing like water. It was sugary sweet and had a hint of mint, but most of it was soon overwhelmed by a bitter aftertaste.

Gilbert gestured to the door. "We have to leave now," he said.

He opened the door for her and let her go ahead of him. The two of them then walked down the corridor to what she assumed was a high-tech pharmacy. People formed queues in front of a wall made of machines. At the end of each line were a screen, a set of scanners, and a compartment where the medicine would be dispensed. Michelle leaned her head as she tried to sneak a peek.

"You can wait there," Gilbert said, pointing at a nearby bench. "I'll try to buy the panacea."

"Okay."

Michelle sat on the bench and waited. She looked around. People surrounded her. Non-human people surrounded her, but the more she observed them the less strange they appeared to her. They looked just like humans, except that some of them had strange eye colors that no human could achieve without contact lenses. Michelle wondered what the people called themselves. Nitean? That was what Gilbert said a while ago, right, when they were walking towards the portlinks? Nitean. The Nitean people looked human, though the truth was far from that.

Michelle turned her head in the other direction. Gilbert was no longer in the queue. He unrolled the device that was wrapped around his wrist and held it to his ear as he made a call. Worry painted his face. Michelle gulped. Did they run out of panaceas? Michelle hoped that they did not; she could not return home part-human and part-glass.

Gilbert ended the call and returned to Michelle. "We'll meet with Grimelda at her office," he informed her.

They headed to Grimelda's office through the same route they used to get to the hospital. When they arrived, Grimelda was seated at her desk, holding a single ampoule in one hand. Michelle hoped it was a cure.

Grimelda greeted them with a nod. "Thank you for your help, Gilbert," she said, "you may leave."

"You're welcome." Gilbert turned his back and walked towards the door. He then told Michelle, "Good luck."

He exited the office. Grimelda gestured to the chair across her. "Please, sit."

Michelle took a seat. Grimelda was not smiling at all, and Michelle did not like the look of it. It looked like she was not going to receive any good news.

Grimelda placed the ampoule on her desk. "So the good news is that your curse is still reversible," she announced.

Michelle breathed a sigh of relief.

"For now," Grimelda added, "but once your entire body turns into glass, it will become permanent. I've done the tests and we have an estimated two weeks before that happens, give or take one hour. The only way we can break the curse is if you drink a first-class panacea, though they're very hard to come by."

"Do we have that?" Michelle asked.

"We sold out last week, and our current batch will not be finished brewing until a week from now. However, we do have enough funds to purchase it from other apothecaries. Don't worry, the curse will be broken. It's my duty to make sure that it happens.

"And by the way, this"—Grimelda held up the ampoule—"contains memories associated with the ring. I strongly suggest you view them in private. Whatever you see there, do not tell anyone except the people involved in those memories.

"Alright, let's get going," Grimelda said. "I'll have to go with you to your residence and meet with your parents to explain the situation."

The two of them stood up and left the office. Michelle gulped. She did not want to know how her parents would react to their daughter being cursed.

***

They had arrived at Michelle's home. Michelle and her family lived in a three-bedroom apartment in Auteuil. Grimelda elected to use teleportation instead of journeying by foot, and Michelle agreed with her choice. Had they walked all the way there from Bibliothèque Mazarine, they would have spent more than an hour on the streets.

Michelle knocked on the door. Her mother answered it.

"Michelle! Welcome home." Her mother greeted her with a kiss. She turned her head in the other direction and spotted Grimelda. She furrowed her brows. "Qui est-elle?"

Before Michelle could answer, she witnessed Grimelda flick her left hand. All suspicion her mother had vanished into oblivion. Instead, she welcomed Grimelda into her home. Did she just cast a spell on my mom?

Grimelda stole a glance at Michelle. "Don't worry," she whispered to her in secret.

Luckily for them, there was nobody else at home. Michelle's father was still at work, and her younger brother was hanging out at a friend's house. They sat in the living room as Grimelda explained the situation—in perfect French, to Michelle's surprise. Michelle squirmed in her seat as she saw the emotions surface on her mother's face. Shock. Disbelief. Distress. Panic. Other emotions Michelle had no word for. From the way her face contorted and the way her lips quivered, Michelle expected her mother to cry, gasp, and scream. Instead, she remained rather quiet. Possibly the effect of Grimelda's magic.

"So our team is in the process of finding a cure for your daughter," Grimelda said in a calm voice, "and we shall have it before fourteen days. We'll deliver it to your daughter once it is ready. For now, the only thing she needs to do is to stay away from Bibliothèque Mazarine and hide all body parts that have turned into glass. Please do not tell anyone but your husband about this."

Michelle's mother wiped away a tear and nodded her head. She then shook it. "My daughter..."

"Will be alright," Grimelda completed the sentence. "I promise you, Madame de la Fontaine, that this will be over and you wouldn't remember anything. Our team will erase all related memories and traces, and everything will return to normal. But for now, your daughter might have to adjust."

Grimelda said a few more sentences before she got up to leave. "Au revoir," she said.

She then vanished into thin air.

***

Michelle held the ampoule in her hand as she sat upright on her bed, the door to her room locked. Grimelda did say that she should view the memories in private. The thing was, how could she view them? Drink the liquid? Pour it into a bowl of water and view it from there? She scrutinized the container. The English instructions told her to drink the contents. Michelle unscrewed the lid, opened her mouth, and gulped down the liquid.

Michelle felt a force sweeping her off her feet and transporting her somewhere. She was no longer in her bedroom but in someone else's. Did I just teleport? She looked to her right. A young man was seated at a desk, using tools to carve a pattern into something. Michelle took a closer look. The man was carving a ring out of glass.

The ring's creator! Michelle expected the creator to be an old and evil sorcerer, but the man behind the ring did not appear to have a mean bone in his body. The man placed his tools back on the desk and lifted the ring to his eye level. He rotated it and smiled. Not an evil smirk. A smile, the kind one would make after achieving something special.

The scene around her changed in an instant. Now she was outdoors, in a park. The man who carved the ring was there, and so was a woman. The woman appeared to be about his age, if not younger. Michelle watched as the man knelt on one knee and presented the ring to the woman. Tears flowed from the woman's eyes as she accepted the ring, letting him slide it down her finger. A proposal... the ring was an engagement ring!

The scene changed once more. This time, Michelle was in a forest clearing. The fiancée was dueling against another woman. Michelle had no idea what was going on, but was certain of one thing: the other woman was evil. Michelle gasped as she witnessed the woman drive a spear-shaped spell through the fiancée's heart. She murdered her! The murderer then snatched the ring from the victim's finger and shapeshifted to copy her appearance.

And the scene changed again. The murderer tried to fool the man, but he removed her disguise with a spell. Michelle spectated another duel, except this time, it was sped up so that it ended in only a few seconds. Dark mist flowed from the woman's hand and permeated the glass ring. So that's how the ring got cursed.

Now Michelle was brought back to the man's bedroom. He was working on the ring again, except he had a different set of apparatuses, tools that looked like they were for cleaning rather than carving. She watched as he fed light into the ring only to be thrown across the room. She watched him try and fail, try and fail, and try and fail, until such a time that his efforts seemed to have paid off.

What followed next was something Michelle was not prepared to see.

Eddie. Her friend of ten years appeared before her, standing in a plain room with the man who crafted the ring. She gasped. It was him? He was the one who left the ring in her backpack?

The man handed the ring to Eddie, who picked it up and examined it from all angles. He held it up so that the light would reflect in a certain way as he scrutinized it. "Do you think she'll like this?" he asked the man.

"Sure, she will!" the man claimed. "My fiancée loved it when I gave it to her."

"You have a fiancée?"

"Had. She died."

Eddie frowned. "I am so sorry."

"Oh no, it's fine," the man said. "Anyway, what do you humans usually give each other during Val..."

"Valentine's―"

"Valentine's Day?"

"Chocolates, flowers, cards, teddy bears," Eddie said. "Nothing like this."

"Then why not you get her that?"

"Because I want to give her something different. Something that I know will last forever, to symbolize how my love for her will never disappear."

"Awww," the man cooed. "What's her name by the way?"

"Michelle."

"Sounds sweet."

Eddie smiled. "She is," he said.

She did not know what to feel. It was Eddie who gave her the ring. To be fair, he was never aware of the curse it harbored. And he did it out of love! That last part shocked her the most. Out of all the girls he had met, he loved her? Why her? He was a child of the elite; her ancestors were middle-class. He was a man of many talents; she was nobody extraordinary. His face was fit for a fashion magazine cover; she was no better looking than most women walking down the street. And yet, he chose her. It seemed too good to be true. Crushes don't like you back, she thought, that only happens in movies.

Just as she thought it was all over, she was shown one final scene. It was at school. Eddie held the ring and the letter in one hand while the other held up his chin. He seemed nervous. The next thing he did was to pull out a small, velvet-bound book from his bag.

"Louis?" he whispered. "I need you to put this in Michelle's backpack for me."

He placed the ring and the letter on the book. The three objects disappeared in a flash. Michelle blinked twice. Did Eddie's book just teleport?

At last, she found herself back in her bedroom. Michelle pressed her temples as she tried to digest everything that had happened to her. She nearly fainted in an alien hospital, was now subject to a strong curse, and had a murder re-enacted before her eyes, among others. It felt like a weird and wild dream. It must be a dream. Michelle lay on her bed, closed her eyes, then opened them again. She looked at her hand. The glass was still there, attached to her. She pinched herself. The glass remained. She was not dreaming. She was living a nightmare. At least her crush turned out to like her back.

Speaking of which, she should probably tell him that she knew. Michelle reached for her cellphone. She unlocked it, opened a messaging app, and searched for the chat between her and Eddie. The last time they texted each other was three days ago. She opened their chat and began composing a message: Hey, remember the ring I got on Valentine's Day? I finally figured out who it's from.

She sent it. Michelle stared at her screen as she waited for a reply. A few minutes had passed, yet there was not a single word from him. He had not even read it yet. She furrowed her brows—Eddie would usually respond in seconds. She scrolled up the chat to see the messages previously exchanged between them.

Hey Michérie
I have something to tell you

what is it edmort?

I'm gonna be really busy for the next two weeks
Sorry if I can't talk to you as much

why?
are you going on another homestay program?

No, I'm going to host some guests
I have a few friends from Spain and Italy visiting

since when did you have friends?

Ever since I met you

awww you call me your friend?

And Thomas, of course.
Of course! You're my best friend
And by the way, even if I'm going to be busy, please don't hesitate to text me
I'll try to respond ASAP
But don't call. You know I HATE calling

ok. good luck hosting!

Thank you!

All of Michelle's recent memories came flooding back to her. Of course, Eddie was currently having visitors! Even before she bumped into them at Place Dauphine the previous day, they had been talking about it for the past several weeks. She and Thomas, their other best friend, helped Eddie to design the itinerary, though their help did not have much effect on the final schedule. Of all the tourist spots and activities that were listed in the itinerary, only a handful of them was suggested by Michelle and Thomas. However, the three did have a lot of fun planning the events. Michelle and Thomas even teased Eddie by "warning" him not to scare his guests with his "resting death stare." Michelle glanced out her window. She could imagine him pacing around his mansion, checking in with his guests every once in a while, and ordering his servants around to make sure everything was according to his plan. He must be busy.

Michelle placed her phone on her bedside table, climbed into her bed, and tucked herself underneath the blanket. She could very well use a bit of rest.

✧ ✧ ✧

Oops, looks like the secret's out—Michelle now knows that Eddie's in love with her 😂 when do you think he'll find out that she actually likes him back?

By the way, I'm happy you've read this far into the story! If you like it so far, please consider voting for this chapter by pressing the star-shaped button. Thank you! ❤️