Kara knew the sound of her father. She had memorized the creaks of him pushing the door open to their shop, the thumps of his heavy shoes against the wooden floor, the clinks of his nava-chains hanging loosely from his belt.

Those sounds meant she was safe.

He was rarely gone from their little shop on Dundstreet Portside, but whenever customers would come look for her father, Kara hid in the closet. In there, among dusty books and old coats she would sit until she was sure whoever had come was now gone. It was a cramped space with only a faint light coming through the space between the door and the doorframe. It was barely enough for her to read while she waited.

And she read every book she found on those shelves. She had expected to find books on clockmaking since it was her father’s profession but was surprised to discover the closet was filled with diagrams, statistics, and maps. She did not quite understand them, but she was all the same transfixed by what they represented.

Some were ledgers telling stories in numbers from somewhere beyond the west coast of Banmoor, others were more cryptic and mysterious. Some were designs of machinery that looked too unreal to even exist on paper, engines of brutal proportions imitating animals such as bugs and birds. Kara found them beautiful if also terrifying at the same time.

As the weeks and months went by all of this became routine, and she started to feel excited for the chance of reading more of the books. She even started to forget why she hid in the first place. She forgot that this was not the life she always had had.

She still dreamed though. Of mountains, snow, and purling rivers. And of her mother.

So, when the doorbell rang a beautiful summer morning Kara went straight to the closet and took out the book she had been planning to reread for days. She braced herself for the answers she was sure would be uncovered but hesitated when she heard the visitor entering the shop and rummaging through the shelves.

Sometimes customers did that, but Kara knew her father liked to keep the shop pristine. A timepiece, he would say, stops to work the moment I let anyone else touch them.

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The stranger came closer, and Kara could see the figure leaning over the worktable by the window, holding pieces too small for anyone not having delicate hands to deal with.

Kara swallowed her anger. It would not do them any good bursting out of the closet and tell him to stop. Business hadn’t been particularly good lately, and her father would get angry if she scared away his first customer in weeks. She pointedly focused on her book and waited for either the man to leave or her father to come back from his errand in town.

Then the man took out a small handgun.

Kara stumbled backwards and was about to knock down a few books when she saw it. The weapon, so small and seemingly insignificant, made her heart stop. As the seconds passed, she could only stare at it.

She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until the man fixed his gaze on something she couldn’t see and disappeared from her view. Seconds became minutes as she waited. Slowly she regained her senses.

He’s here to kill us, she realized in terror. To kill father.

Before she knew what she was doing, Kara opened the door to the closet and sneaked out into the workshop. Her hands were trembling, her legs shaking, as her eyes fell on the man where he stood.

He had his back turned on her, facing the front door and hiding behind one of the shelves. His hair, black as coal, hang in long stripes across his sweaty face. He hugged the gun and waited.

Waited for her father to come.

Kara stood silently and counted the ticking of the clocks hanging from the walls of the shop. If the man would glance behind him, he would see her. If she would step on the wrong plank the creak would alarm him.

I need to do something.

But the only thing she had within her grasp was the book she had been reading. And the tools on the worktable, even if sharp, were useless against a gun.

Eventually her father walked down the street with his usual awkward stance. He kept his bag close to the chest and hurried to the door. He carefully scrubbed the dirt of his shoes, sighed, and went inside the shop.

Kara saw the stranger react. He took one step out of his hiding place and leveled the gun. But as he did, Kara did the only thing she could think of.

She dropped the book she had been holding.

The sound, almost the same Kara had imagined a gunshot would make, rang in the room for a split second. Then the killer turned to face her, for the moment forgetting his pray.

He fired a few rounds, his pale skin reflecting nothing but terror.

Hot iron pierced her skin. Everything burned. The shots were all she could hear.

And then…

Nothing but endless nothingness.