Mira handed him a token: a small plastic coin etched with π. “You passed. Now you’re a Zoner. Come back tomorrow?”
He pocketed the coin. “I’ll bring better shoes.”
The gate opened.
The tile began to crack.
Leo stared. “That’s… illegal?”
Tile after tile. He wasn’t just solving—he was moving , leaping between equations, his fear turning into rhythm. Multiplication towers. Decimal drops. A bridge made entirely of long division problems.
Outside, the blue door of PlayMathZone looked exactly the same. But Leo knew better now.