LXXT

Two girls, both twenty, stood in the heart of a cluttered engineering lab. The air hummed faintly with electricity, the walls lined with cables, blueprints, and blinking consoles. One of them — hair tied back, sleeves rolled, a few tools tucked into her belt — was the engineer. Methodical, focused, and practical, this was her domain. The other girl moved with lightness, her gaze wandering, taking in every curious device with childlike awe. She was the dreamer — a soul of stories, music, and unasked questions. And then she saw it. In the center of the lab stood a full-sized figure, shaped like a girl frozen mid-performance. She held a violin under her chin, bow poised. But it wasn’t stone or metal — it was an amber-hued translucent shell, smooth and glossy like hardened sugar. Light from the workshop lamps filtered through it, catching tiny swirling bubbles within the surface. The dreamer stepped closer, entranced. “She’s beautiful,” she whispered. Her hand hovered near the