Chapter Text
The sound of soft pop music drifted through the café, blending with the quiet hum of conversation and the occasional clatter of cups against wooden tables.
It was the kind of place people came to forget the world.
A place where strangers sat together but remained completely separate.
A woman laughed too loudly at something her friend said.
A businessman typed furiously on his laptop, pretending he wasn't checking the same email for the fifth time.
A young couple held hands beneath the table, both of them pretending they weren't afraid of what came next.
Catalina Jackson saw all of it.
She always saw too much.
She sat alone in the corner near the window, a half-finished drink beside her and a sketchbook open across the table. Her pencil moved quietly over the paper, creating lines and shadows only she understood.
Most people drew what they saw.
Catalina drew what people left behind.
It was easier that way.
Faces lied.
Memories didn't.
She had learned that when she was young.
People could smile while their hearts were breaking. They could say they were fine while carrying years of grief. They could tell themselves they had moved on while some tiny piece of them remained trapped in the past.
Everyone had ghosts.
Catalina just happened to see them.
Her pencil paused.
Across the café, an elderly man reached for a newspaper sitting beside his coffee.
He looked ordinary.
That was always the dangerous part.
People expected monsters to look like monsters.
They expected sharp teeth, claws, glowing eyes.
They never expected the worst things to hide behind familiar faces.
The old man looked up.
For a brief second, his eyes met hers.
Catalina froze.
The world vanished.
The café disappeared.
And she was somewhere else.
A battlefield.
Smoke filled the sky.
The ground beneath her feet was wet with rain and blood. The sound of screaming surrounded her, but no one noticed her standing there.
No one ever noticed her.
A young man stood in the middle of it all.
He was barely older than Catalina.
A soldier.
Terrified.
Holding a photograph with shaking hands.
A woman's face smiled back at him.
A promise.
I'll come home.
The vision shifted.
A small house.
A woman standing beside a window.
Older now.
Waiting.
Every day.
Every year.
Waiting for footsteps that never came.
The vision changed again.
A drawer opening.
A wedding ring wrapped carefully in a piece of cloth.
A letter tucked away beside it.
Never sent.
Never read.
A lifetime of words that would remain trapped forever.
The deepest regret.
The one thing that haunted him.
He never said goodbye.
Then -
Gone.
Catalina blinked.
The café returned.
The music.
The conversations.
The smell of coffee.
The old man turning the page of his newspaper.
Completely unaware that a stranger had just seen the pieces of himself he had spent decades hiding.
Catalina looked down at her sketchbook.
Her hand had moved without her noticing.
A wedding ring rested on the page.
Not shining.
Not beautiful.
Just alone.
She stared at it.
Then, beneath the drawing, she wrote:
People are not what they show you. They are what they leave behind.
The words sat there.
A truth she hated.
A truth she couldn't escape.
She closed her sketchbook halfway and leaned back in her chair.
For most people, memories were private things.
Sacred things.
Things kept locked away.
For Catalina, they were everywhere.
A stranger's grief.
A friend's betrayal.
A teacher's secret.
A person's worst moment following them like a shadow.
Sometimes she wondered if ignorance really a blessing was.
Then she thought about her mother.
And she knew the answer.
Because Catalina had seen Sally Jackson's truth.
All of it.
The sadness.
The fear.
The exhaustion.
The sacrifices.
And somehow, despite everything life had thrown at her, Sally had remained kind.
That was what Catalina never understood.
How someone could see so much darkness and still choose to be good.
Her mother had always been different.
Sally never looked at Catalina like she was strange.
Never called her cursed.
Never told her to stop staring.
Never asked why her daughter knew things she shouldn't.
She simply accepted her.
Loved her.
The world had always made Catalina feel like a monster.
Sally had always made her feel human.
Her sweet, stubborn mother.
The woman who stayed when she should have left.
The woman who fought battles Catalina never knew existed.
The woman who loved a strange little girl who could see too much.
Catalina swallowed.
Her fingers tightened around her pencil.
Because that was the cruelest part.
Sally had known the world was dangerous.
She had known something would eventually come for them.
And still, she had given Catalina sixteen years of normal.
Sixteen years of birthdays.
Sixteen years of bedtime stories.
Sixteen years of believing maybe the world could leave them alone.
Until it didn't.
Catalina looked out the café window.
The city moved around her.
People walking.
Cars passing.
Life continuing.
Everyone pretending the world was simple.
But Catalina knew better.
The world was full of monsters.
Some wore human faces.
Some wore crowns.
Some wore smiles.
And some -
Some were waiting patiently for the right moment to take everything from you.
Her reflection stared back from the glass.
Dark hair.
Tired eyes.
A girl who looked older than she was.
For a moment, she thought she saw something behind herself.
A shadow.
A shape.
Something impossibly tall standing in the reflection of the window.
Watching.
Waiting.
Catalina turned around.
Nothing.
Only the café.
Only strangers.
Only ordinary people.
She looked back at the window.
The shadow was gone.
But the feeling remained.
Something had found her.
And deep down, Catalina already knew the truth.
It had not come for her.
It had come for the one person who had spent her entire life keeping Catalina safe.
Her mother.