Late Afternoon made Artemis look almost human.
The hard white lighting softened into something grayer, slanting through the glass and turning the marble floors into long, pale mirrors. Tourists had thinned. Donors were a rumor on the schedule. The gallery breathed in that in-between hour -- quiet, watchful, pretending it didn't have a pulse.
Galathea pretended with it.
She told herself she was only doing her job. That she needed to confirm labels before the evening walkthrough. That she was checking for glare issues like she'd written on her clipboard this morning. That she wasn't walking back toward the surrealist painting because the idea of it speaking to her had crawled under her skin and refused to die.
Her heels clicked once, twice, then slowed.
There it was.
The muted city. Warped perspective. Paint like bruised skies.
Ordinary.
Galathea stopped at a "professional distance," arms crossed, jaw set like she could posture her way out of being unsettled.
'If it talks again.' she thought, 'then fine. If it doesn't, also fine. Either way, this ends today.'
She leaned in slightly, searching the surface for any sign of movement. The brushstrokes were still thick in places, almost too thick -- raised ridges catching the light. But nothing shifted. No whisper curled through her mind. No sensation of being breathed on from the inside.
Just paint.
Galathea waited anyway.
A full minute passed.
Another.
Her irritation started to outpace her fear. "So, you're shy in daylight," she muttered, voice low enough that no one else would hear. "Classic."
Nothing answered.
The silence felt pointed -- like being ignored.
She straightened, exhaling sharply through her nose. "Great. Love this for me."
She pulled her phone from her pocket and opened her camera, angling it toward the canvas. If she couldn't trust her own perception, she could trust the lens. The screen filled with the same smeared city.
Then the image fuzzed.
Galathea blinked. Adjusted the angle. The fuzzing persisted -- thin static crawling across the pixels, like a bad signal.
"What the hell..?" she whispered.
She stepped closer. The static grew thicker, spreading across the display in shimmering sheet. Her phone was relatively new. No cracks. No reason for interference.
Her thumb hovered over the shutter button.
'Take a picture,' she instructed herself. 'Prove it.'
The moment she tapped the screen. the camera app crashed.
Black display. Her screen locked.
She unlocked her phone and everything's normal, as if nothing had happened.
Galathea stared. Tried again.
The camera opened. The painting looked fine. No static.
Her skin prickled anyway, because the feeling of being watched returned -- not loud, not dramatic, just a pressure in the air that made her shoulders tighten.
She slid her phone back in her pocket, suddenly furious at herself for trying.
'You are not the kind of person who gets haunted by modern art,' she told herself. 'You are the kind of person who pays rent late and eats cereal for dinner. This is not your genre.'
A soft low voice spoke behind her. "Do you always stare at it like it owes you money?"
Galathea's spine went rigid. The scent of masculine blackcurrant filled her senses. She didn't jump -- but her heart spiked hard enough to hurt.
She turned.
Cael Alexander stood a foot away, hands in his pockets like he belonged in every room without trying.
His suit jacket was on, but he wore no tie. The top buttons of his shirt was undone, it's a habit he had since he became CEO, popping open a few buttons by the time meetings are done. A habit that seem to be contagious as Galathea has been doing it every time she worked over time -- or off the clock.
Cael's gaze pinned Galathea with the calm curiosity of someone used too being answered.
Galathea tightened her grip on her clipboard, "Do you always sneak up on employees like you're conducting a psychological study?"
Cael's mouth quirked. "Sneak implies effort. You were... focused."
"I was working." Galathea snapped.
"Staring," he corrected.
Galathea's pulse kept misbehaving, which was deeply unfair.
'It wasn't attraction,' she told herself.
It was the lingering panic from this morning. It was the awkward memory of his hand around her wrists, their bodies pressed together, the thing that almost happened that night. It was just her nervous system being dramatic.
Still, the air seemed to sharpen around him.
He stepped closer, gaze flicking briefly to the painting, to her shoulders, and back to her face. "You were here earlier." His voice, still low, alluring.
Galathea swallowed. "A lot of people are here earlier. It's a workplace."
His attention didn't budge. "You look... rattled."
She forced a flat expression. "Fluorescent lighting. Again. A crime."
Cael's eyes narrowed slightly as if amused by her predictability. "That's the second time I've heard you blame lighting for your mood."
"Oh," Galathea said sweetly, "so you've been collecting my quotes. Fan behavior. You weren't even there the first time. Stalking your employees?"
A soft exhale came from Cael -- almost a laugh. He grinned as his gaze slowly moved from her eyes to her lips and to her shoulders.
"I must say," he started in a low voice, leaning a little closer to Galathea. "Whether knotted or draped like that," he jutted his chin towards the tie that was still draped over Galathea's shoulder. He straightened and moved back a step. The pause in his statement froze Galathea from where she stood. Cael continued in a slightly louder volume, "My tie looks good on you." His smile was malicious and wide.
Galathea's eyes widened in shock.
In panic, she looked around, checking if anybody from her office heard or saw them. Her eyes darted at the security cameras. She hastily tugged on the tie, which until now, she forgot was still over her shoulders and made to shove it towards Cael. Cael moved back another step, ducking Galathea's efforts.
"What the f-- Gods! You didn't have to do that!" She scolded him in a heavy whisper. "Here, take it!" Galathea wanted to get away from the tie.
"Make me." Cael teased, moving smoothly to duck from Galathea's shoves.
Galathea inhaled sharply and closed her eyes. Both hands are on her sides now, one with a clipboard, the other with a bunched up black satin tie that belonged to her boss -- the tie she forgot was around her neck the whole day. "What do you want?" her voice was flat when she opened her eyes.
Then his gaze sharpened again, he moved to stand beside her. Galathea turned to the painting.
"So," Cael started. His voice was low and soft once again, "What did you hear from this painting?"
The question landed like a hand closing around her throat -- not squeezing, just reminding her that it could.
Galathea's mouth went dry but she turned to him and held his stare anyway. "I didn't hear anything," she said.
Cael's expression stayed smooth, but his eyes changed for a fraction of a second -- calculation sliding in behind the calm. "You came back," he said.
"Because I have work to do." Galathea snapped.
He tilted his head slightly, "Or because you wanted it to happen again."
Her stomach flipped. Heat crept up her neck, betrayed by the truth in his words.
Galathea scoffed. "You're projecting."
"I'm amused." Cael murmured, and the way he said it made it sound like an accusation and a compliment at once.
She shifted her weight, trying to anchor herself in annoyance. "Maybe I'm just checking if the gallery is trying to gaslight me."
Cael's gaze searched her eyes. "And is it?"
Galathea forced a laugh. "What do you think? It's paint! How could paint talk?"
He glanced back at the canvas. For a moment, his focus seemed to narrow, as if he was listening for something Galathea couldn't hear. Then his attention returned to her.
"You're lying," he said simply.
Galathea's anger flared in a protective way, like the immediate reaction caused by self-preservation. "You don't get to tell me what I experienced." She leaned back crossing her arms.
Cael took one slow step closer, not invading, not touching -- just closing the gap like it was his right. "I get to notice," he said, voice low. "And you're not the type to spook easily."
Galathea held her ground. "Then congratulations. You've misread me."
His eyes flicked to her lips and back up to her eyes, as if savoring her refusal. "If you did hear something," he said, "you should tell me."
"Why?" Galathea shot back. "So that you can add it to your collection of gallery gossip? Put it in a private vault labeled Employee Loses Her Mind Standing Near Canvas?"
Cael's mouth curved faintly, "so I can decide if it's a problem."
"And if it's not a problem?" Galathea asked, voice sharper than she meant.
His gaze held hers, steady and patient. "Then it's a door."
Galathea's stomach tightened. "That's not reassuring."
"It wasn't meant to be," Cael said.
She should've walked away. She should've returned to her desk, buried herself in spreadsheets, drowned the sensation in normalcy.
Instead, she stayed a heartbeat longer, staring at him, trying to figure out if he was messing with her or if there was something he wasn't saying.
Cael leaned even closer, voice dropping. "Tell me what you heard."
Galathea's hands clenched around the clipboard. A thousand instincts screamed at her not to give him that. Not to let him have a piece of her fear, her confusion, her fragile grasp on reality.
So, she did the only thing she trusted. She lied.
"I heard my own thoughts," she said, shrugging. "Which, frankly, is traumatic enough. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a glamorous career to return to."
Cael watched her for a long moment, eyes unreadable. Then to her surprise, he stepped back.
"Fine," he said lightly, as if conceding the point. "Keep your secrets."
Galathea's chest tightened. "They're not secrets, they're nothing."
Cael's gaze lingered like a hand she couldn't swat away. "Nothing can still be useful, sweetheart."
She hated that her body registered the words as intimate. She had heard him call her that nickname since she was an intern; it never bothered her -- or affected her.
Annoyed, she yanked on his arm so that she could shove his tie into his palm. "Would you just take it?"
Galathea turned sharply and walked away before her face could betray her further, heels clicking faster than necessary.
Behind her, she felt his gaze follow, steady and unhurried.
Cael stood there until Galathea was out of his view. He looked at the tie on his palm and hummed a smile. He draped the tie around his neck and down his shoulders as he paced to his office.
By the time Galathea reached the staff corridor, her heart was racing again, not from the painting this time.
From him.
Clearly, that thing that happened that night set the stupid feelings in motion. Galathea shook her head wanting to shake the feeling off as well.
===
That night, her apartment felt too small for her thoughts.
Galathea ate dinner standing up, barely tasting it. She double-checked the lock. Then checked it again. Her phone sat on the counter like a dare. She didn't open the camera app.
When she finally fell into bed, exhaustion dragged her under fast -- too fast, like something was waiting. The dream didn't arrive gently.
It swallowed her.
Galathea stood in the middle of the painted city.
The air smelled like wet pigment and cold stone. Buildings rose around her in warped angles. Windows smeared onto impossible shapes. The sky wasn't sky -- it was brushstrokes, layered and restless, moving without wind.
Her feet were bare on a street that felt half solid, half canvas. When she looked down, her toes left faint streaks of color.
As if the ground remembered her.
Hello?" she called, voice echoing strangely, muffled like it had been painted over.
No answer.
But the city leaned.
Walls curved inward. Alleyways narrowed. The perspective shifted as if the world was being redrawn around her real time.
Galathea's breath hitched. "No," she whispered. "Stop."
A sound rose -- static, thick and crawling, the same interference she'd seen on her phone. It buzzed in her ears and behind her eyes, making her vision ripple.
Then a voice spoke from everywhere at once. Not a sound -- but meaning, pressed into her bones.
'Seer.'
Galathea froze.
The word did not feel like a question or a mystery. It felt like a verdict. The voice seemed like it was calling her.
The buildings pulsed, color deepening, as if the city had heard its own name for her and approved. the street beneath her feet softened, trying to take her in.
Galathea backed up, panic snapping sharp in her. "That's not my name."
'Seer,'the city insisted, closer now, as if the walls were speaking.
She turned to run but the street stretched, elongating like wet paint dragged by a brush. Every direction led deeper into the same smeared geometry.
The skyline bent toward her, closing in.
Galathea's lungs burned. She ran away, feet splashing through the color that clung to her skin, tugging like hands.
The static screamed.
The city tightened, folding itself around her like a frame.
And the she woke -- violent, wrenching, air tearing into her lungs as if she'd been drowning.
She sat, bolting upright, sheets twisted around her legs, heart hammering.
Her room was dark.
Silent.
Normal.
But her skin still felt stained with color.
Her hands shook as she pressed her palms to her face and tried to breathe.
The dream clung to her like wet paint that wouldn't dry.
She awoke once again, gasping as the city closed in.