“Sir, you have a visitor,” A voice called through the intercom into a dimly lit office on the top floor.

“Helen, isn’t it about time to just say Gary?” The executive repeated for what felt like the thousandth time this month alone. “Or even just Mr. Padovani. For crying out loud it’s…”

“Gary! You have a visitor.” Helen repeated with a clear dose of additional emphasis on each word.

Suddenly hearing it with no resistance the man’s attention immediately dropped from the work on his monitor as a sudden odd chill ran along his spine. Something was off in her voice; the man wasn’t too dense to notice something as clear as that. “Who is it?”

“She’s referring to herself as ‘the blind seer’, and she says she has a message you’ll hear.”

‘Of course,’ Gary thought to himself with a nod as if this were again the most logical turn of events. Not one day full day after returning from two weeks negotiating with a group of violent uncontacted tribes, he was now receiving a visit from a seer.

At least she had enough courtesy to check-in at the front desk Gary thought with an exhausted sigh. Finally raising his hand and pressing the intercom button, he responded through a tired chuckle. “She’s right. I’ll hear it. Send her up. Or should I come down?”

“She’s already on her way, she didn’t wait.” Helen apologized with a bit more shock in her voice. “I didn’t even tell her what floor.”

“I really doubt that’ll matter.” Gary laughed with a shake of his head. So many times now, he felt like he had finally gotten used to this place, and each time, this place would throw a new curveball.

In the back of his mind, he now regretted swapping places with Third, he’d much rather worry about phantom signals than this.

He heard the soft distant ding of the elevator and tried to rid his head of the cacophony of thoughts that churned and whipped at his grey matter.

No sooner than the storm in his mind had subsided, the familiar sound of the door mechanism preceded the entrance of a new one.

Stepping rhythmically out of time with the clicking of her small, pointed cane, the barefooted woman pads carelessly through the doorway ignoring the desk where Gary sat and instead pointing with her cane at the wall directly opposite him. “The clock is wrong.”

Gary swallowed unconsciously, gazing between the small woman and the wall where she had pointed. The cheap blue clock on the wall slowly ticked towards 10:59 as Gary compared it to the watch on his wrist. The silver Rolex he wore however matched perfectly down to the second as his eye bounced between the two timekeepers.

“I…” As soon as he spoke to rebuke however, the second hand on the wall clock stuttered in place as its small dwindling trickle of charge finally gave out. “Oh, right. Well then, how can I help you?”

“You won’t.” The woman plainly dismissed with a wave of her unoccupied hand. “You’ll help yourself which we’ll count on. That should be all.”

Realizing her intention, a moment away from missing her, Gary called out in surprise standing unconsciously as he did, “Wait, that’s all? What happened to hearing your message?”

“You have.” The woman mocked with a twist of her brow and another impatient motion towards the small wall-clock.

“W-” Gary gaped with a double take between the woman and the simple clock she seemed to hold in such high regard. What good did coming all the way here to tell him to change the battery in a clock do? Asking felt a bit like giving up, but he couldn’t hold his tongue. “What will happen if I don’t? What makes this so important?”

The woman stared blankly for a long moment, causing Gary to wonder if perhaps he hadn’t spoken at all. Or was she just judging the implications of whatever her response might be. In either case Gary wasn’t quick to interrupt her steps further.

“Maybe nothing?” The woman eventually shrugged casting him a wretched empty gaze. “Or maybe it carries deadly consequence. We’ll find out that truth together.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Turning away with a finality Gary knew he couldn’t sway, the small woman lifted an unsteady foot, and shutting her eyes as she does so, vanished the moment it landed.

With nothing but a sweaty footprint steaming on the linoleum to prove her existence at all, Gary blankly stared at the location she’d been for a few long moments.

Eventually, as if mechanically driven, he stepped over to the wall she had indicated to handle the simple chore.

Pulling a chair over carelessly to stand upon, Gary hesitated after raising one foot atop the chair. After a short pause, he moved the chair aside once again and instead stretched and rose to the tips of his toes to dislodge the simple plastic clock from where it hung.

Finally catching the corner of its face with a fingernail, the clock tumbled and fell towards him only barely landing between his fingers safely at the last moment.

“Phew…” He breathed audibly as he turned to clock between his hands. The second hand continued bouncing at 10:59:59 as if that final second weighed more than the previous had by ten-fold. Pulling the single battery from the back to relieve the tiny burden, Gary held the small round capsule in his hand as the whirlwind of questions continued rampaging in his head.

Eventually with a flick of his wrist the small battery soared towards the dustbin with a satisfying thud. And, after a few moments of consideration and internal debate, the clock followed shortly after it.

The Queen of Guardia had now been missing for nearly a week, this didn’t cause panic in the streets the same as when the king had been reported dead. But perhaps that is because they had managed to keep the information under wraps, reporting that she had simply come down with Nettle Itch after a visit from the Coastal merchant. Chairman Troist had been more than willing to sully his image with the lie if it meant clearing the suspicions being cast on him after her sudden disappearance.

In reality of course she was in no danger. The Queen had simply been dragged on a ‘detour’, as she would likely end up describing it. In fact, far from danger she sat currently in one of the most comfortable rooms she’d ever been in.

But, discussing the pale green wallpaper in the small mobile home was not the Queen’s intention here. She’d come because she was called here by something much beyond herself. “What you saw was called a Vision, or Gazing, it started as dreams for me as well,”

Before the Queen could continue however, the middle-aged woman holding a faded mug interrupted with the same repeated rebuttal. “But you said yourself, my dream was far too different from the real event. I understand that you have abilities and everything, but I really do just think it was just déjà vu that I felt that night.”

“That,” The Queen stumbled on the explanation, and turned to her new senior in a silent plead for help. She hadn’t imagined things would be this difficult on her first real calling. She assumed her role would be clearer.

“It is,” Matilda began as she rubbed at her dimpled chin. “Very strange. And you’re positive nothing odd happened after you felt the déjà vu? Maybe even just a random thought?”

“N-No.” Sharon murmured with a bit a guilt in her voice. It was clear to the two that she was trying to help, but she could think of nothing out of the ordinary to report.

Matilda and Camilla shared another quiet glance between each other, speaking silently without much progress due to the recent introduction. Camilla felt pangs of doubt as she thought back on the scenes she witnessed while entranced in the backroom of the old village bar.

“She’s lying.” A voice croaked with a few scolding tongue clicks. “Be careful what you say around my sprouts. Both of you, you’ve done enough leave.”

“How do you know?” Camilla asked with the wrong voice, immediately clasping her hands to her mouth as-if pretending it hadn’t moved. She thought she knew better than to ask questions like that of her old master by now, but on occasion they still slipped.

But the woman didn’t strike out with the cane. Perhaps in consideration for the patchy cream carpets, or perhaps she was simply too tired to argue. Although the latter did seem impossible, it was at least worth consideration once or twice.

“How do you know you haven’t?” The woman asked instead with a cursory glance to her young student. “Don’t assume all callings end on some grand epiphany. You saw this place, you came to the place, be content in that truth and worry about the larger ones farther down the line.”

“Come on.” Matilda called out, beckoning Camilla to follow her out of the small home.

Once clear of the two, the old woman again turned her dangerous glare to the oblivious young woman who calmly held her chilling mug.

“Just how deeply dug-in are you?” The blind woman eventually asked, weighing the event in her clouded eyes.

“Excu-”

“You’ve spent too long in one truth. Did it shock you when you saw it unravel?” The questions continued to stab the young housewife, her face growing dimmer with each barked word.

With a crackling echo, that reverberated through the small array of spoons hanging from the wall, the old seer snapped her fingers with enough energy to break a femur.

“WAKE UP!”

A shiver ran up Sharon’s spine. Her rosy cheeks paled as a painful bloody grunt burst from her clenched lips.

And then they were gone. The mobile home, which still shivered and settled from the massive pulses of energy, grew silent as if not a single trace of the two had ever been there.

Even with a complete comb-through of all the surveillance cameras in the area, it showed nothing. Sharon Falcotini, along with her coffee mug, had simply vanished, and no one knew why.