Tatiana paused as she passed the tall, majestic building. It looked familiar, like the tree she’d seen earlier in the day with the vibrant red changing leaves. Or the woman with the strikingly bright blonde hair wearing the big sparkling blue gown. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. She’d been having this sort of déjà vu a lot lately.
These weren’t just one-time occurrences either. She’d seen the blonde woman at least five times in the past week, and she was always wearing the same gown. A few weeks prior she’d observed a very specific scene of two men desperately crawling from a dark, gaping hole in the side of the mountain that overlooked the city. Later that same week those same two men had emerged in the same fashion from a manhole in the middle of the street.
There had been so many of these occurrences she could no longer ignore them. Clearly, they were connected somehow. After seeing such uniquely bright colors throughout the past week, she finally had a theory, crazy as it seemed. She had recently begun working on a series of paintings featuring fantastically vibrant colors. The first one had been of a blonde woman wearing a blue gown. In the painting she’d been walking down a street passing by some shops. Every time Tatiana had seen her it had been downtown.
The next painting had featured a majestic old tree adorned with the most striking red leaves. It sat in a sea of green grass. The tree she’d seen earlier in the day had been in the middle of the park where the grass was seemingly never brown.
The final, most recent, piece she’d completed was of an old, majestic building, towering above its surroundings. Tatiana had purposely painted this one with very specific details. The dark wooden doors all had rounded windows above them. The light stone of the building was garnished with golden trim. The columns at the front entrance each had three distinct chips taken out of them. Each of these details was becoming clearer to her as she examined the structure.
But there was still one more detail to check for.
Tatiana approached the building, keeping her eyes narrowed on the piece she had yet to examine. She stopped at the building’s corner and pushed the flowers in front of it to one side. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of the marking. Etched into the stone of the building, in twisting cursive letters, was her signature. It was identical to the signatures on each of her paintings. Her breath caught in her throat. How was this happening?
Suddenly a man wearing an expensive-looking black suit came rushing out of the building’s entrance, pausing at the top of the steps. After surveying the street for a moment, he caught Tatiana’s eye and his faced seemed to indicate recognition. She’d never seen him before.
Before she could process what was happening, the man was in front of her speaking frantically.
“Tatiana! Thank goodness you’re here! We need you inside immediately.”
“Immediately? Why do you need me?”
“Well, it is your building. It’s even got your name on it.”