Freya decided the jump was possible long before anyone else agreed with her, but today the argument was interrupted by laughter echoing from her own doorway.
"Freya Valemont, if you break your neck before dinner, I'm telling your father it was entirely your idea."
Her mother leaned in the doorway of their home, arms crossed, smiling in that way that meant she was pretending to scold but secretly entertained. Sunlight framed her like a warm halo. Freya balanced on the edge of the stone fountain in the square, grinning back.
"I'm not going to break my neck," Freya called. "I calculated it."
"You cannot calculate with vibes," her mother replied.
"I can if I'm good enough."
Her friends snickered. Joren shook his head. "Your mom's right. You're going to fall."
Freya bent her knees and launched anyway. The air rushed past her ears. For a suspended heartbeat she felt invincible. Then her boots hit the wall cleanly. She wobbled, steadied, lifted herself up and raised her arms in triumph.
Her mother clapped slowly. "Incredible. A future legend of questionable decision making I'm sure."
Freya hopped down and ran to her, cheeks flushed. With Inky, her small black cat trailing after her.
"You saw that, right?" Freya said. "I barely even slipped."
"I saw a child trying very hard to give me gray hair," her mother said, ruffling her pale purple hair. "Come on. I need help with something."
That phrase always meant something interesting.
Inside their home, afternoon light spilled across the kitchen table. A stack of papers and charcoal sticks sat neatly arranged. Freya's eyes lit up.
"We're drawing?" she asked.
"We are," her mother confirmed. "Unless the great jumper is too busy conquering canals, fountains, and walls?"
Freya slid into her chair instantly. Drawing with her mother was sacred time. No chores, no errands. Just quiet focus and the scratch of charcoal pencils on paper.
"What are we doing today?" Freya asked.
Her mother placed a small ceramic cup in the center of the table. It was chipped along the rim and painted with faded blue flowers.
"This," she said. "But I want you to draw it like you've never seen it before."
Freya frowned. "But mom I see it every day."
"Exactly," her mother said. "Which means you stopped really looking at it. Drawing is about seeing what's actually there, not what you think is there."
Freya studied the cup. The tiny fractures in the glaze. The way light pooled in the curve of its handle. She began to sketch, tongue peeking out in concentration.
Her mother drew beside her, movements smooth and confident. Freya peeked at her page and felt the familiar mix of admiration and determination. Her mother's lines felt alive. The cup seemed to breathe on the paper.
"I'll get that good one day mama." Freya declared.
"I know," her mother said lightly. "You already see more than you realize."
They worked in comfortable silence. The cat leapt onto the windowsill, watching the street with unblinking eyes. Occasionally Freya's mother would lean over and help adjust her grip or tilt the page.
"Slow down," she murmured once. "Let your hand catch up to your eyes."
Freya obeyed, easing her strokes. The drawing sharpened. When she finally leaned back, her heart swelled with pride. It was not perfect, but it was hers.
Her mother held the two sketches side by side. "Look at that sweetie," she said softly. "Same object. Two different worlds."
Freya beamed. Moments like this felt like secrets shared only between them. A quiet language built from lines and shadows.
That evening, the three of them ate dinner together. Her father recounted a minor disaster at work involving misplaced documents. Her mother teased him mercilessly whilst Freya laughed until her sides hurt.
Afterward, her mother pulled her aside in the hallway.
"Come on, bring your sketchbook," she whispered conspiratorially.
They climbed to the roof of their building, a place Freya loved almost as much as the square. The city stretched around them, rooftops glowing under the sinking sun.
"Sit." her mother said.
They perched side by side. "Draw the skyline." she instructed. "Not every detail, just the feeling of it."
Freya's charcoal pencil moved quickly, capturing jagged silhouettes and the sweep of the horizon. The city felt eternal beneath her hand. Safe.
"You see?" her mother said quietly. "You can keep moments like this. Even when they pass."
Freya glanced at her. "Why would I want to keep it? It's right here."
Her mother smiled, but there was something wistful in it. "Because nothing stays exactly the same. Drawing is a way of saying, I was here. This mattered."
Freya considered that as she shaded the last building. The idea settled somewhere deep inside her.
Before the night could in perfect harmony, a sudden scream shattered the peace.
It did not sound human at first. It almost sounded like metal tearing.
Out of fear, Freya's pencil snapped between her fingers. A fine line of black dust drifted onto the rooftop stones.
Her mother was already on her feet.
"Inside." she said sharply.
The word cut through Freya's confusion. They scrambled for the stairwell. As they descended, the scream came again, joined by others. A chorus of panic rose from the streets below.
Something felt wrong. So very wrong.
The cat streaked past her on the stairs, a blur of black fur, and reached the door before they did.
Her father was already there, throwing the bolt open just enough for them to peer outside.
"Stay back," he warned.
Freya hovered behind her mother, heart hammering. Through the narrow gap she glimpsed fragments of chaos. A woman dragging a child by the arm. A man stumbling as if drunk, his shadow writhing unnaturally against the wall. A flare of distorted light pulsed at the far end of the street.
Someone crashed into their door from the outside.
Her father slammed it shut on instinct, shoving the bolt back into place.
The impact rattled the frame. Dust sifted from the ceiling.
"What's happening?" Freya whispered.
"I don't know sweetie, just stay behind me." her mother said. But fear threaded her voice.
A roar echoed down the street. Not an animal sound. Something twisted and layered, like multiple voices trying to speak at once. Freya's skin prickled. Inky arched its back, eyes blazing with a faint, unnatural glow.
Another thud shook the door.
This time it was followed by frantic pounding.
"Help!" a voice cried. "Please!"
Freya recognized it distantly. A neighbor. Her father hesitated, hand hovering over the bolt. Her mother's gaze met his. A silent conversation passed between them. Compassion warred with caution.
The pounding grew weaker.
Her father cracked the door open a fraction. A man lurched into view, face ashen with terror. Behind him, the air shimmered with warped mana.
Freya glimpsed a figure advancing through the distortion, movements jerky and wrong.
"Close it!" her mother shouted.
The door slammed shut. The bolt sliding back in place.
The man's scream were cut off abruptly. Something heavy hit the ground outside with a large thump.
Silence followed. Thick and suffocating.
Freya's breath came in shallow bursts. Her ears rang. Every instinct screamed at her to run, but there was nowhere to go. The house that had always felt safe now seemed very fragile. A thin shell against a storm.
The cat paced in tight circles near the door, tail lashing. Its eyes tracking something invisible. Freya felt the pressure in her skull intensify, a migraine blooming behind her temples.
Then came the footsteps.
Slow, deliberate, and approaching their door.
Each step landed with dreadful certainty. Freya's father reached for the poker by the hearth. Her mother stepped in front of Freya again, hands trembling but resolute.
The footsteps stopped.
For a heartbeat, nothing moved.
The door handle turned.
It rattled once. Twice. Then the wood splintered inward as something slammed against it with inhuman force. The bolt groaned. A crack spiderwebbed across the frame.
Freya's world narrowed to that breaking point. To the sound of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears. To the cat crouched low, muscles coiled like a drawn blade.
The door burst open.
A second shape lurched in the doorway behind the splintered wood.
Her father reacted on instinct. He drove the poker forward, slamming the warped figure back into the street. It shrieked, clawing at the frame, trying to force its way inside.
"Stay back!" he shouted, bracing his weight against the door to keep it from widening.
The struggle swallowed him. Wood groaned. The warped contractor thrashed against the threshold, and her father fought to hold the line, every ounce of his strength focused on keeping the house from flooding with whatever horrors waited outside.
In that sliver of distraction, another presence slipped past him.
Kellan, one of Freya's friends stood there, chest heaving. His eyes glowed with a warped light. Freya's breath hitched.
"Kellan?" she whispered.
Her mother stepped in front of her. "Listen to me Kellan," she said steadily. "You need to leave."
At her response, he lunged.
The moment fractured.
Her mother shoved Freya aside. A flash of motion. A sound Freya would hear in her nightmares for years.
Her mother crumpled, crimson blood staining the floor as a huge gash tore through her heart.
Time froze.
Kellan turned toward her. Freya's mind screamed at her to move, but her body refused. She was trapped in the terrible stillness between heartbeats.
Suddenly, Inky blurred forward. Power erupted in a quick, silent storm. The warped aura shattered as Kellan collapsed in the same way he did unto Freya's mother.
The room fell into an awful quiet.
Freya crawled to her mother, hands slick with blood. "Mom," she whispered. "Please… Wake up."
There was no answer.
Grief detonated inside her. She spun on cat, tears streaming.
"You could have stopped it!" she screamed. "WHY didn't you stop Kellan, Inky!?"
Her desperate pleas for answers from Inky came to no avail.
Her father's arrival shattered the moment. He gathered her into his arms as she sobbed, his own cries muffled against her hair.
The days that followed were a haze of mourning. At the funeral, Freya clutched her sketchbook to her chest through never-ending tears. Inside were the last drawings they had made together. The cup. The skyline. Proof that those moments had existed.
That night, the house felt cavernous.
Every sound echoed. The scrape of a chair. The soft creak of floorboards. Freya sat at the kitchen table with her sketchbook open but untouched. The drawings inside felt impossibly distant, like artifacts from someone else's life.
Her father moved through the house in slow, mechanical motions. He washed dishes that did not need washing. Wiped counters already clean. Each movement carried the brittle precision of someone trying not to fall apart.
They did not talk much. Words seemed fragile, liable to shatter under the weight of what had happened. When their eyes met, Freya saw the same hollow shock reflected back at her. It frightened her more than the silence.
That night she lay in bed staring at the ceiling. The cat curled at her feet, a small dark weight anchoring her to the mattress. Every time she closed her eyes, the same torturous scene would replay in vicious clarity.
The door bursting open.
Her mother stepping forward.
The sound.
Freya jerked awake with a strangled gasp. Her room was dark and unfamiliar for a split second before reality settled back into place. Her heart pounded so hard it hurt. Sweat cooled on her skin.
It was only a dream, she told herself.
But the relief never came. Because it had not been only a dream.
The nightmares returned night after night. Sometimes they were exact recreations, her mind tracing the same terrible path. Other times they twisted into grotesque variations. In one, the cat never moved. In another, her mother turned to her and asked why she had not run.
Each time Freya woke shaking, the echo of the scream lodged in her throat. She would sit up and draw in the dark, echoes of charcoal scratching across paper as she sketched whatever her eyes landed on. The edge of her window. The curve of her door handle. The silhouette of Inky watching her.
Drawing steadied her breathing. Line by line, the room became real again.
Days blurred together. Their neighbors came with food and soft voices. Her father thanked them politely, his expression carved from exhaustion. When they left, the silence rushed back in like a tide.
Freya wandered the house like a ghost. Every corner held a memory. Her mother's favorite mug by the sink. A half-finished sketch tucked beneath a book.
Evidence of a life interrupted mid sentence.
Sometimes she found her father standing in the doorway of their bedroom, staring at nothing. She did not know how to reach him. He did not know how to reach her. They orbited the same grief, close but untouching.
One evening, unable to bear the walls any longer, Freya slipped out and walked to the cemetery. Moonlight bathed the fresh grave in silver. She knelt, placing her sketchbook gently against the stone.
"I'm still here mama, but the bad dreams are too." she whispered. The words trembled as her voice broke. "I'm trying. Trying to ignore them as much as I can."
Inky sat behind her, a quiet presence in the dark.
Freya pressed her palm to the cool stone and closed her eyes. For a moment she imagined her mother beside her, warm and solid and laughing about impossible jumps and crooked drawings.
Yet,
The image faded, leaving an ache so sharp it stole her breath. But beneath it, something else flickered. A fragile thread of resolve.
She opened her eyes and stood slowly. Grief settled back onto her shoulders, heavy but familiar. She turned toward the city, carrying it with her.
And step by step, she walked home.