p align="justify"Taani Sayeed woke up at the first /br /It wasn't that she was a light sleeper so much as she was a embad/em sleeper—the current cocktail of medication fucked with her circadian rhythm such that she was constantly waking from one dream into another. Everything smeared together into a grey slurry of emday/emness. The rare stretches of time she felt reasonably lucid were to be treasured, spent on working towards her /br /Her first thought that it was her grandma come to check that she hadn't passed in the night. She switched on her bedside lamp and headed for the door first, rubbing her bleary eyes. She turned when she realised the rapping was coming from the /br /Heat surged to her face. Alexandria was outside her bedroom. emThe /emAlexandria. Or a very Alexandria-shaped bird. Against her better judgement, Taani unlatched the window with clumsy fingers and practically forced it /br /"Hhhhiii?" she said, immediately regretting opening her mouth at /br /Alexandria, who was indeed hovering outside Taani's bedroom window, gazed back grimly. The soft lamplight was so surreal on her helmet and costume, so unlike the stark white rim that usually hugged her figure in promotional photos and carved out her silhouette on magazine covers. Taani almost didn't register Alexandria depositing something on her /br /A takeout bag. Printed on it in classy font: emLa Tour d'Argent. /emThe Michelin-starred French restaurant she'd seen on a cooking reality show /br /She was This doesn't happen in real life/em, she told herself. emAlexandria of the Triumvirate does not appear at my window to DoorDash me foie gras./embr /br /"Wish granted," said the figment of Taani's diseased imagination. It disappeared into the night before she could utter another /br /Taani took the bag from the sill and placed it on her desk without bothering to remove the mountain of textbooks. She sat on her bed and stared at the bag through the gloom for what felt like hours, pondering her next /br /Eventually excitement won out over trepidation. If this was a dream, she could do anything and there would be no consequences. She gingerly peeled open the bag and lifted the container out onto her desk. Then she pried off the cover, eager to feast on the pinnacle of /br /All of the food had liquefied./p