Damian, Astrid and I followed the instructions on the job notice to find the owners of the tiny puppy that I held in my arms. The dog continued to nuzzle against my face, occasionally sparing a moment to lick my cheek. I giggled as it let out a little yip and started to wag its tail from side to side. After a great deal of walking, my legs grew weak and Astrid started to carry me. I wanted to keep holding the puppy, but Astrid didn’t want to carry the both of us, so I handed him to Damian.

“I’m getting flashbacks.” Damian mumbled, holding the dog away from his face. I laughed, watching Damian pull his head back every time the puppy tried to lick him. “Please stop.” He pleaded at the dog, who continued his onslaught of moist attacks.

It didn’t take much longer for us to reach the owners’ home. It was a tiny home, but in a lane filled with dirt and drab, colorless buildings, this home stood out. It was surrounded by a wide assortment of the most vividly colored flowers and plants that I had ever seen. Aside from the flowers, what stood out the most were the paintings. Four beautiful, albeit small, paintings were hanging just outside the home. They had no frames, but showed no signs of wear of any kind. All but one of these paintings were of vastly different landscapes: a seemingly bottomless chasm splitting two cliffs apart, an arid desert filled with bright flames and a wide, empty field with a lone, black monument standing tall in the center of it all. The fourth and final painting was very similar to something I had seen countless times before: a field of tall, green grass bending in the wind, surrounding a tall, dark tree with pale, white leaves. It was like the tree in my dreams, only this tree was gargantuan. Far larger than the one I’d seen.

As the three of us stood in front of the home, admiring the art, the door opened and a man stepped out, his head pointed towards the ground. He was reading something. He then raised his head and flinched as he realized that we were there. It was in this moment that the puppy leapt out from Damian’s arms and rushed up to the man, trying to climb up his leg. The man had coffee brown hair and eyes the color of the soft dirt the filled the streets.

“Loonie! You’re back!” The man cried out, reaching down and scooping the puppy up in his arms. In response, the dog began licking the man’s face with a ferocity that made Damian shudder. “Thank you so much for bringing him home.” He hurried forward and held his arms out like he wanted to hug us, but quickly dropped them to his side. “Come inside. I’ll get your payment.” He waved us in as he rushed back inside.

We followed the man inside his home and were surprised by the number of paintings mounted on the walls. Each one was extremely detailed and depicted various events. Nearly every painting had the puppy’s owner in it doing something. In some, he was a young boy, in others and old man and dozens of others in between. It was like he had a painting for every event in his life, big or small.

Just then, the sound of hurried footsteps came from a short distance away as a child came running into the room. He looked to be about six or seven and had features that all matched who I assumed to be the boy’s father. The boy ran in and hugged Damian’s legs before doing the same to Astrid.

“Thank you!” The boy shouted out. His eyes were reddened and puffy, like he had been crying.

With the dog, Damian had been reluctant to even let it near his face. Now, however, a wide grin spread across his face.

Crouching down, Damian ruffled the boy’s hair and introduced our little group. The boy’s eyes went wide when he turned and looked at me. I probably looked quite strange being carried like I was, but people always told me that I looked much younger than I was, so I sucked the embarrassment in and had Astrid set me down.

“Hi Jaime, I’m Kasper!” The boy shouted out again.

Before anyone had the chance to speak, the dog’s owner came back into the room with a woman. The two of them started talking with Astrid and Damian, so I stepped to the side and examined more of the paintings. In some of the paintings I had found, I noticed that the man in it looked somewhat older than he did now.

“My dad’s a special painter.” Kasper spoke, standing beside me. “He teaches me paint too.” He announced, raising his chin high.

“Our young lady also does a lot of painting.” Astrid explained. “I haven’t seen much of her drawings, but the ones I’ve seen are very good.”

“Ah, yes. Perhaps she could draw one now. I happen to have a blank canvas waiting for me in the back room. I ran into you on my way to gather more materials for paint.” The boy’s father stated.

Ignoring their conversation, I stared at one more painting that was stuck in the corner. It was a blobby mess of blacks, grays and whites and, while at first glance it looked like a disorganized mess, upon further examination, I found that it had some shape to it. Almost humanoid, but not quite.

Before I could realize, I had gotten close enough to the painting that I could have licked it if I wanted.

“Your paintings are weird.” I blurted, interrupting the adults’ conversation.

“That’s because dad paints his future.” Kasper proudly explained.

Hearing his son’s words, the man cringed and paused. Seeing his reaction, I titled my head and examined more paintings.

“Could you be a… Seer?” Astrid asked.

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Sighing, the man nodded and scratched at the back of his head. “Yes, I come from a long line of them. Kasper here is one too, but he doesn’t seem to understand it yet.”

“What’s a Seer?” I asked, stepping over to my companions.

Tilting her head, Astrid spoke. “I guess we’ve never gone over that lesson with you, yet.” Stepping to the side, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment and scribbled something down on it before continuing. “As you know, there are Sorcerers who have magic. Sorcerers are split into two groups, being Mages and Warriors. Some people, however, are born with special abilities. We call these people Specialists. They are still Mages or Warriors, but they have unique abilities that go with them. Many of them are unique and tied to specific families. There are, however, four abilities that are known to appear randomly in people. These four are Spiritualists, Healers, Elementalists and Seers. We’ll go over the others later, but a Seer is a person who sees visions of their future.”

Processing the information, I stood there blankly then turned to the blobby image and pointed to it. “What’s that?” I asked.

“I’m not quite sure?” The man said. “I frequently see it in my visions, but there’s no indication of where or when or any information about it whatsoever.”

“Ah!” I remembered that I had wanted to ask about something. “One of your paintings outside, the one with the tree, is that also a vision?” I asked.

“I didn’t draw that one.” The man explained. “Kasper did.”

“Yeah, I saw it in a dream.” The boy stated loudly. His mother scolded him and told him to use his inside voice and he continued. “I don’t remember it, but I was really sad.” He pouted and looked down at the ground. “Dad says to paint things when I see them so I don’t forget, but I forgot and it’s not done.”

Patting the boy’s head, his father reassured him and then turned to look at me. “I hear that you paint. Could you paint something for me?”

I nodded and the man lead all of us back into the little field of grass behind his home. In this little yard was a crude, wooden pergola covered in an assortment of colored flowers. Inside this little building was an easel with a fresh canvas resting on it. Sitting on a table beside the canvas was a large platter covered with dimples, each of which held a small amount of paint.

“Go ahead.” The man gestured to the canvas and dipped his head.

Nervous, I stepped up to the easel and looked over the colors, trying to think of a subject to paint. Despite my efforts to picture something else, my mind always came back to the image I had been drawing for quite some time now, but with little success. Sighing, I picked up a brush and got to work.

It took a little less than an hour, most of which the other’s spent seated at a table near the house, speaking and drinking some of the homemade tea that the man’s wife had made from the many plants they had grown around their home. Some of these plants were not only good for their colors, but also had some herbal properties. Damian spoke in detail with the wife about which plants had which properties and how to discern them.

I was finished, but like usual, I did not recognize the man standing beside my mother. I knew he was not my father, but nothing aside from that.

The man, who had been watching eagerly for the duration of my time with the brush, stepped forward and examined the painting. “Are those your parents?”

“That’s my mom, yes.” I answered, surprised at the bitterness in my voice.

“Then who is that man?” He asked, chuckling slightly.

“I don’t know.” I replied.

The man stood, pondering for a moment before Kasper strode over and stared at the painting.

“Tim.” The boy spoke.

“What’s that?” His father asked, turning to him.

“That’s Tim.” He repeated.

“You know him?” I asked.

“You told me his name.” The boy was confused. “Tim is a very bad guy.”

“I never-” I started, but was interrupted by the boy’s father.

“She told you? What else did she say?” The man asked very quickly.

“Um, she said that he was a monster. She looked sad.” The boy said.

“Anything more?” The man pushed further, but the boy just shrugged and walked away.

The man stood there silent with fists clenched.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Jaime.” The man called me by name. “A Seer only sees their own future. So you and Kasper have some kind of connection in the future. And in that future, you have formed some kind of hatred for this man.” He pointed to the painting. “It is very important for you to find out who this man is and to stop whatever he is going to do.”

I nodded slowly, not entirely sure what he was telling me to do, but I got the general idea. The man in my drawings was named Tim, and he was a bad person and was going to do bad things. If I meet him in the future, I need to convince him to stop doing bad things.

Astrid strode over to where we were standing and, feeling that something was wrong, stood close to me. “What’s going on?” She asked.

“My son has had a vision concerning that man.” He pointed to the painting once again.

Narrowing her eyes, Astrid asked, “What kind of vision?”

“I don’t know. Kasper is still a child and cannot fully grasp the content of his visions, but he said that Jaime told him that this man was a monster.”

Nodding her head, Astrid stepped closer to the painting and grasped its still-wet surface, picking it up. “I hope you don’t mind if we take this.” She stated. “We’ll take is as payment instead of what was written on the job posting.”

The man scratched the back of his head once again and nodded his head.

Tension rising in the group, Astrid and Damian thanked the family for their time and we all left.

╚╩╩╩╝ Astrid Nile ╚╩╩╩╝

About a week has passed since our little excursion with Jaime. It was always a pleasant experience to be around the kids. I wished that I could spend more time with them and really enjoy it, but I had things to do before I would allow myself that kind of pleasure, especially after what Damian and I had just found.

Deep inside the city, inside another warehouse that we were instructed to investigate, was the scene of some kind of brutal attack.

Just outside of the warehouse, near the front gate, there were signs of a struggle, and someone being dragged inside of the building. It was there that we found what was left of whoever occupied the building. Any chances of identifying them was gone with how disfigured the remains were. It was almost like some kind of wild animal had torn each person apart, one by one.

Stepping over the remains of a person, Damian and I stopped.

I had seen some brutal scenes as a Freelancer, but this was beyond that. The ones near the entrance had chunks taken out of them like whatever had attacked them was hungry, but closer to the back, there was no sign of anything eating these people. There were, however, signs of whatever had done this playing with its victims as it ripped them apart.

Dry heaving, I turned towards a clear part of the room and tried get a full breath in, but stopped when I heard something move nearby. Pushing down the queasiness, I approached the noise and found a man huddled over in the corner of the room, his eyes wide and wet with tears. He shook violently and cried out once he saw me.

“Please get me out of here.” The man whimpered. “What if it comes back?”