Kate didn’t start painting to predict anything.

She started because silence was getting loud.

The spare room in her flat became her refuge—canvases stacked against the walls, the smell of paint replacing the sterile calm she’d perfected over the years. She painted abstract shapes at first. Colors bleeding into each other. Nothing intentional.

Until it was.

The first painting unsettled her enough to hide it.

A street corner near her office. Too accurate to be coincidence. Even the flickering streetlight was there—burnt yellow, slightly crooked.

Two days later, that same street was taped off. Police cars. An incident she refused to read about.

She told herself it was luck.

The second painting came easier. Her hand moved without thought. A café window. A shattered cup on the ground. A figure just out of frame.

The next morning, she arrived to find the café closed. Glass swept up. Staff shaken.

That’s when she called you.

You stood in the doorway of her flat now, jacket still on, eyes scanning the room instinctively. You always noticed details before she pointed them out.

“I need you to promise me something,” Kate said tightly. “Before I show you.”

You nodded. “I won’t lie.”

She led you to the spare room.

The paintings lined the walls like silent witnesses.

You didn’t speak for a long time.

“These aren’t imagination,” you finally said.

Kate laughed, brittle. “I know. That’s the problem.”

She turned to you, arms folded like armor.

“I don’t know how it happens. I don’t see visions. I just paint. And then things… follow.”

You stepped closer to one canvas—newer, unfinished. Darker.

“What’s this one?” you asked.

Kate hesitated. “I haven’t finished it.”

You studied the shapes. A building entrance.

A shadow cast too long. Someone watching from above.

Your jaw tightened, just slightly.

“This hasn’t happened yet,” you said.

“No,” Kate whispered. “And I don’t want it to.”

She finally looked scared—not of the world, but of herself.

“I didn’t tell anyone else,” she said. “I trust you.”

That word sat heavy between you.

“You don’t think I’m losing my mind?” she asked.