Lam woke with the taste of oil paint in her throat.
She jerked upright in the swivel chair, sending her pencil clattering to the floor. Outside the window, dawn had not fully broken. The buildings across the street appeared only as gray blocks, their rooftops blurred beneath the rain.
On the desk lay the drawing she had made the night before.
A tunnel.
Not a tunnel belonging to any structure Lam had ever designed. There were no electrical wires along the walls, no signs—only long trails of water flowing upward toward the ceiling. At the far end of the tunnel stood a young man with his back to her.
Lam knew she had drawn his face.
But on the paper, that part had been left blank.
She rubbed her temples. The dream still clung to her mind like rainwater on glass. She had stood on the other side of a pane of transparent glass, pounding on it and calling to someone. At last, the young man had turned around.
He had very sad eyes.
And he had called her by a name she had never heard from anyone's lips before.
“Lam.”
She looked at the words written in the corner of the drawing.
The night before, before going to sleep, she didn't remember writing them.
The phone on the desk began to vibrate. The screen showed an outgoing call that had lasted two minutes and thirteen seconds. There was no name for the recipient. The phone number was nothing but a blank space.
Lam didn't remember whom she had called.
She opened the call history. Beneath that call was a draft message.
Can you see me?
Lam deleted it, then froze. Some vague sense of protest held her finger motionless over the screen. She didn't know who the person was, but the thought of letting the question disappear made her chest ache.
She saved it.
In the workroom, the printer switched on by itself. A sheet of paper slid out of the paper slot, even though Lam had sent no print command. It showed the sixth-floor plan of Building 17 on Nguyễn Du Street.
The building had been demolished eight years ago.
Lam picked up the sheet. At the center of the drawing, one room had been circled in blue ink. Beside it were words in her handwriting.
If you forget me, find me where we've never been.
She remembered that sentence.
Not the way she remembered something she had read, but the way she remembered a promise spoken through tears.
Lam walked to the filing cabinet. The bottom drawer held old blueprints, canceled projects, and buildings she had once surveyed. Building 17 wasn't in the catalog. She had checked three times before, because she herself didn't understand why that name kept appearing in her dreams.
This time, there was a cream-colored button inside the cabinet.
Lam picked it up.
A voice rang out in her mind, so close that she thought someone was standing behind her.
“Don't say my name.”
She turned around.
The room was empty.
Outside, on the windowpane, rainwater began to flow upward.
Lam placed the button in her palm. Her phone lit up even though it had no power. A line of text appeared on the screen.
I see you.
She didn't know who had sent it.
But for the first time in months, the emptiness in her life had taken on a clear shape.
Lam pulled out the chair and sat down, pencil in hand. She redrew the face of the young man from her dream.
This time, the face was no longer blank.
Beneath the drawing, her hand wrote a name on its own.
Minh An.
The instant the final stroke closed, a window lit up on the opposite wall.
There was no room behind it.
Only a young man standing in the rain, pressing a phone to his ear and staring straight at her.
Lam couldn't hear his voice.
But his lips were forming the word:
“Lam.”
The button in her hand instantly turned ice-cold.