Chap­ter I begins not with tri­umph but with qui­et dis­con­tent. The pro­tag­o­nist, Lieu­tenant Gul­liv­er Jones, is weighed down by the bur­den of unre­al­ized dreams and the ache of a love that nev­er ful­ly bloomed. Walk­ing the rain-washed streets of New York, he drifts through alley­ways as if the city itself has grown tired of offer­ing him mean­ing. The night seems ordi­nary, drea­ry even, until his path cross­es with a fig­ure slumped in the shad­ows. This old man, clad in unfa­mil­iar garb and cradling a thick, for­eign-look­ing rug, seems dis­placed from time and place. Some­thing in the old man’s silence demands atten­tion. The moment feels heavy, and Gul­liv­er sens­es that this encounter is no acci­dent.

Act­ing on instinct, he car­ries the dying man to the hos­pi­tal. But by the time help arrives, life has already slipped away. Noth­ing remains but mystery—and that strange rug, hum­ming with secrets of its own. Left in Gulliver’s care almost by fate, the rug feels like more than fab­ric. The pat­terns twist sub­tly when viewed from dif­fer­ent angles, and the col­ors shift like a dream fad­ing at dawn. Though the city sleeps on, some­thing has changed. Gul­liv­er now holds a frag­ment of anoth­er world in his hands. Its pres­ence haunts him in ways he can’t yet name.

That night, unable to sleep, he unfurls the rug across his floor. The bead the man dropped rolls silent­ly beside it, puls­ing with a soft light. Gulliver’s thoughts drift toward escape—escape from fail­ure, from a life­less career, from love unre­turned. The rug, as if lis­ten­ing, begins to respond. The threads rip­ple with­out breeze. Sym­bols once dor­mant begin to glow. Gul­liv­er touch­es one, and for a heart­beat, he feels his body pulled—not phys­i­cal­ly, but spir­i­tu­al­ly. A force, ancient and unknow­able, tugs at the roots of his being. He gasps. The room nar­rows, spins, and set­tles.

The sen­sa­tion pass­es, but not the yearn­ing it awak­ens. Gul­liv­er finds him­self unable to let go of the rug. The hos­pi­tal, the city, the routines—they all seem less real now. The bead, though small, hums with strange pow­er. In it, he sees glimpses of land­scapes that do not exist on Earth. Vol­ca­noes shaped like thrones. Rivers that shim­mer like glass. Faces that are beau­ti­ful and impos­si­ble. Gul­liv­er laughs bit­ter­ly, brush­ing the visions away. Yet they return. Again and again.

He begins to ques­tion whether the rug is a hal­lu­ci­na­tion born of despair, or an arti­fact of some­thing far greater than he can imag­ine. Each night, he returns to it. Each night, the rug gives him more—more pat­terns, more warmth, more impos­si­ble dreams. And slow­ly, a qui­et cer­tain­ty grows. He has been cho­sen. Not by the gov­ern­ment, not by lovers, not by fate as defined by Earth. But by some­thing old­er, more play­ful, more dan­ger­ous.

Then one evening, as light­ning cracks the sky and the city groans under a sud­den storm, he places the bead at the rug’s cen­ter. The light flares. Wind ris­es from nowhere. Fur­ni­ture trem­bles. He steps onto the fab­ric, not know­ing why. A whisper—low and rhythmic—fills the room. It says noth­ing clear­ly, but the mes­sage is unmis­tak­able: come. He clos­es his eyes. A deep silence falls. When he opens them, the world has changed.

He no longer stands in his apart­ment. Around him are red sands, a pale vio­let sky, and air that tastes both sharp and pure. He is no longer just Gul­liv­er Jones, dis­il­lu­sioned offi­cer of a stag­nant post. He is a stranger on a strange world. His heart pounds with fear and won­der. There is no turn­ing back now. The rug has ful­filled its silent promise.

This open­ing chap­ter offers more than a prelude—it cap­tures the pre­cise moment where pos­si­bil­i­ty is born from despair. For read­ers, Gulliver’s jour­ney is a metaphor for every unspo­ken desire to break from monot­o­ny. His long­ing, his love, his failures—these become the very fuel for trans­for­ma­tion. Adven­ture begins not in tri­umph, but in the aching space between who we are and who we might yet become. And in that space, anything—yes, even a Mar­t­ian sunrise—can unfold.