Chapter One: After the Glasses Come Off

When Shen Yanqiu woke, there was an eye on her ceiling. It was gray-white and enormous, hanging less than six feet above her. Its pupil tightened and widened with every breath she took. Yanqiu lay rigid for three seconds before reaching toward the nightstand. Her fingers knocked over a glass. It rolled across the wood while she groped for her black-framed, thirteen-diopter glasses. The temples settled over her ears, and the world snapped shut around her. The eye vanished. There was only the round ceiling lamp she had forgotten to turn off the night before. Yanqiu sat up, heart beating painfully fast. She had been nearsighted since she was six.